Dinosaur Youth? Listen to a New Song from J Mascis and Kim Gordon

Who says Western Massachusetts isn't the center of the indie rock universe?

Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis and former Sonic Youth co-leader Kim Gordon knew each other from their respective underground-rock reigns, but they also ended up as neighbors: Gordon in a 100-year-old house in Northampton (where she lived for many years with now-ex-husband Thurston Moore), Mascis across the river in Amherst. In retrospect, it’s amazing this didn’t happen a long time ago, but here we are: The two have teamed up for a one-off collaboration on a song called “Slow Boy” that’s anything but. It’s loud AF, gritty, and alive, more in line with the Sonic Youth of “Teenage Riot” and J’s old hardcore band Deep Wound than the music they’ve been making this decade.

There’s no official band name: It’s labeled “J Mascis x Kim Gordon,” as if it were a fashion-sneaker concept…which, well, it sort of is. It comes to us via Converse Music’s “Cons EP Vol 3,” a compilation of celeb team-ups that’s been trickling online all spring. Check it out: