The Sonic Youth cofounder opens up about her solo output, the intersection of art and music, and her new album, PLAY ME.

For over four decades, Kim Gordon has navigated the edges where fine art meets noise. Her claim to fame was as a founding member of Sonic Youth, the band that took the nihilistic, abrasive energy of New York's no wave scene and forged it into a new language for rock.

After Sonic Youth's public breakup in 2011, Gordon returned to her original creative practice: visual art. But in recent years, she has undergone a staggering creative transformation that's led her back to music. At 72—an age when most legends are content with the heritage circuit—she has instead dived headlong into the sounds of the present: industrial electronics, Chicago footwork and the blown-out low-end of SoundCloud rap.

Aiming to break with her Sonic Youth legacy, Gordon released her first two solo albums, No Home Record and The Collective, in 2019 and 2024, respectively. And now, she's back with her third LP: PLAY ME. Working alongside producer Justin Raisen, she uses beat-oriented frameworks to interrogate what she calls the "tyranny of frictionless culture." From naming Spotify playlists in her lyrics to donating proceeds to reproductive rights, her work remains a vital, confrontational critique of late capitalism and technocratic fascism.

In this RA Exchange, Gordon discusses the process of moving closer to solo work, as well as the masculinity of rock; her evolving relationship with electronic music; the politics of the "body;" and why, after thinking she was done with music, she keeps getting pulled back in. Listen to the episode in full.

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For the Exchange's Season Two relaunch, the visionary duo discuss their first release in 13 years and the inspiration behind their trailblazing sound.

Neel and Donato Dozzy, who perform and make music together as Voices From The Lake, first joined forces in 2011, when what was supposed to be a one-off performance in the Japanese Alps changed the trajectory of ambient techno forever.

The music they made for the occasion was released as a self-titled album in 2012—a record that achieved mythical status in the underground and is still described as the Selected Ambient Works for the Berghain generation. Instead of following techno's standard linearity and instrumentation, the duo deployed a soft pulse, massive reverb trails and carefully placed silence to make their music feel like a living, breathing organism.

Dozzy and Neel then went silent for 13 years, each pursuing their individual careers while fans pined for more music. And in December 2025, they finally delivered. II, which is dedicated to their late friend Nuel, manages to be both a continuation and a reinvention of the sound they pioneered more than a decade ago.

In this RA Exchange, they uncover its guiding concepts, which draw deeply from the well of improvisational practices, concepts in Japanese design and aesthetics, and the minimalist visual art of contemporaries like Mike Parker. The duo also reveal their plans to veer away from the ambient blueprint altogether. Listen to the episode in full.

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The Leisure System co-founder talks psychology, behavioral science and his standout album of the year, Stochastic Drift.

Sam Barker's influence on contemporary electronic music culture spans many levels—not only as a producer and DJ pushing against traditional genre boundaries, but also as key figure behind the scenes as head of the label Leisure System. He came into RA HQ to talk about the central thesis in his current work: exploring organic, human timing in a genre that has become increasingly obsessed with mechanized grids.

The Berlin-based artist tells us about how he puts this theory into practice in his standout album of the year, Stochastic Drift, and his recent collaborative project with saxophonist Bendik Giske. Beyond the technical, he also reflects on the evolution of the Berlin scene, the surprising arguments for liberation in the streaming economy and the role of art in imagining a utopian future. Listen to the episode in full.

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