Kim Gordon and Bill Nace build brutalist guitar architectures as Body/ Head
IT’S BEEN A FEW YEARS since Body/ Head, the unapologetically rude guitar duo of Kim Gordon and Bill Nace, dropped Coming
Apart, a seething debut where slate- gray chords, strangulated single- note f l urries, and clouds of viscous feedback commingle in carefully sculpted environments that are usually punctuated by the former’s pregnant whispers, potent shouts, and numbing incantations. Late last year they dropped a followup, No Waves: Live at the Big Ears Festival ( Matador), which was recorded in 2014 at the eclectic experimental- music extravaganza in Knoxville. The album’s three tracks don’t show a radically different approach from their earlier work, but somehow Gordon and Nace have pared down their materials ( the unexpected harmonica wheeze that snakes through “The Show Is Over” notwithstanding) while increasing the precision of their brutalist guitar architectures, even if at first blush the record sounds decidedly slapdash. Needling l i nes, crushing waves, t i cking damped tones, writhing metallic buzzing, and clanging chords engage in dances that envelop the listener— morphing before one notices the shift— while Gordon’s elliptical vocalizations provide further displacement. The pair seems like a perfect choice to headline the annual summer solstice concert on the grounds of the Bohemian National Cemetery. For more, visit chicagoreader. com