Kim Gordon’s love for the great Sibylle Baier: “Stunningly beautiful”
Kim Gordon rose to prominence as the bassist and sometimes-singer of Sonic Youth, a band that played a large role in shaping alternative rock during the 1980s and ‘90s. Without them, it’s hard to imagine the genre’s current landscape: they were vital contributors to the burgeoning noise rock genre, significantly inspired Nirvana and brought a refreshingly feminist point of view through Gordon’s lyrics.
When we think of Sonic Youth, we typically think of the abrasive guitars, prominent basslines, cacophonies of strangely tuned instruments, Gordon’s warped yowls and ferocious energy. However, the band have always been inspired by artists you might not expect. Some of Gordon’s favourites range from The Shangri-Las and Billie Holliday to Black Flag and Funkadelic. This wide collection of influences, along with many, many others, was collectively pooled together, torn apart and stitched back together to create various elements of Sonic Youth.
Gordon has also always loved folk, inspired by the vulnerability and honesty of artists like Neil Young and Sibylle Baier, a much lesser-known German artist who deserves to be named among the folk greats. Talking to the New York Times, Gordon revealed, “I really love Baier’s sweetly melancholy melodies. She wrote one record, and it’s stunningly beautiful.” She’s referring to Colour Green, a collection of Baier’s songs that she wrote and recorded in the ‘70s that wasn’t released until 2006.
When Baier wrote the songs that formed her only album, she never intended for them to be heard. She was penning gentle folk tracks with the help of her acoustic guitar, recording them on a reel-to-reel tape recorder at her home, simply as a mode of expression. Her songs are beautifully personal, largely melancholic, and wholly intimate. She provides us with snapshots of domestic life, exploring her hopes and dreams, dissecting her sadness, and celebrating her children.
On the first track, ‘Tonight’, we’re instantly granted access to a relationship, with Baier illustrating a scene of being greeted by her lover after coming from work: “There he, unforeseen/ Sat in my kitchen, buttering himself a bread and the cat was on his knee and smiled at me.” She paints a beautiful picture of a loving partnership, “He gently took my arm/ He listened to my tears till dawn.” Yet, Baier follows the song with ‘I Lost Something In The Hills’, a much sadder number where she admits that “There were times in my life/ When I felt mad and deprived.”
Baier weaves between playfulness and a refreshing sense of honesty. She verbalises the myriad of emotions felt by young women so perfectly—the mixture of happiness, wanting more, and existential thoughts, which still resonate with listeners today. The gorgeous album almost never saw the light of day, however, with Baier storing the tapes away until her son, Robby, found them.
When Robby discovered the songs in 2006, he compiled them onto a CD and presented them to his mother and other family members. She was initially embarrassed, but the outstanding response led Baier to agree to release the album officially. Robby sent J Mascis a copy, and soon enough, the album was out in the world, quickly amassing a cult following of fans, including Gordon.
