Lydia Lunch Biography
Lydia Koch, 2 June 1959, Rochester, New York, USA. The provocative Lydia Lunch was a pivotal figure in New York's "no wave" scene of the late 70s and has worked with an array of talent since then. After spells with Teenage Jesus And The Jerks and Beirut Slump (the latter were restricted to one US single, "Try Me'), Lunch opted for the freedom of solo work with 1980"s acclaimed Queen Of Siam on the Ze label. Her next project, Eight-Eyed Spy, toyed with funk and R&B while retaining her uncompromising vocal style and violent, experimental musical approach. Then came 13:13 on the Ruby label, which benefited from a harder production and more co-ordinated sound. In 1982 she shared a 12-inch EP with the Birthday Party on 4AD Records, The Agony Is The Ecstasy, revealing her increasing fascination with the baser instincts of human nature. Members of the Birthday Party also backed her on "Some Velvet Morning", while Einstürzende Neubauten joined her for "Thirsty". This marriage of the New York and Berlin undergrounds was further developed on "Der Karibische Western", on Zensor with Die Haut.
Lunch continued her collaborative ventures in 1983, working with Danish band Sort Sol. In Limbo, a 1984 mini-album for Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision label, reintroduced her to solo work, and she founded Widowspeak Productions in 1985 as an outlet to document her work, starting, appropriately, with The Uncensored Lydia Lunch cassette. This included "Daddy Dearest" - a document of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. After a project with Michael Gira (Swans), entitled Hard Rock (a cassette on Ecstatic Peace), Lunch teamed up with New York art rock pranksters Sonic Youth for "Death Valley '69", a menacing record concerning the Manson killings, which launched Blast First Records in the UK. An equally sinister solo offering, The Drowning Of Lady Hamilton, was followed by a 10-inch EP recorded with No Trend, Heart Of Darkness. The next release for Widowspeak was a limited edition box set, The Intimate Diaries Of The Sexually Insane, containing a cassette of chronic case histories, a magazine and a book, Adulterers Anonymous, co-written by Lunch and Exene Cervenka. The remixed and remastered double album retrospective, Hysterie, summarized her work from 1976-86, before she paired with the man behind Foetus and Clint Ruin, Jim Thirlwell, for the awesome Stinkfist project in 1989. The previous year she had formed Harry Crews, an all-female, wall-of-guitar-sound group in which Lunch was joined by Sonic Youth bass player Kim Gordon. She spent 1993 working on a film script, Psychomenstruum, while two years later Rude Hieroglyphics was a provocative collaboration with X singer Cervenka. During the late 90s and into the new millennium, Lunch began to concentrate on her increasingly successful spoken word projects, including European and US tours and recordings with Joseph Budenholzer and Terry Edwards. Her acclaimed work in the field of photography led to an international retrospective of her work in 1998 (four of her pieces are on permanent display at the Museum of Erotic Art in Paris). Lunch, in conjunction with her soul mate Thirlwell, is celebrated as an avid opponent of censorship. Her own work is uncompromisingly confrontational and lurid, including videos featuring highly explicit sexual activity. The politics of outrage remain her gospel.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
|
