Lydia Lunch : Atomic Bongos
On February 9, 1980 influential no wave artist Lydia Lunch released her debut album Queen of Siam on ZE Records. It had only been two years since she recorded on Brian Eno's No New York compilation with Teenage Jesus ad the Jerks, but Lunch has a new sound on this short (31:20) album. A noir-jazz sound from a basement cabaret that caught the ears of critics.
Robert Christgau gives Queen of Siam a grade of B+ writing:
Having walked out on three different bands led by this dame, I have the credentials to certify this funny, sexy, accidental little record. Half the time she exaggerates her flat Cleveland accent into a hickish, dumb-and-dirty come-on or parody of same, and half the rest of the time she plays her foolish nihilist poetry for laughs, which leaves a quarter of the time when she's the nihilist fool I'll walk out on till the day she dies. Pat Irwin's big-band atonalisms suit her city-of-night shtick perfectly. And "Spooky" is the cover of the year.
Trouser Press said:
Miss Reasons-To-Be-Cheerless of downtown New York proves to have a sense of class, subtlety, and even sentimentality when it comes to telling us how horrible life is...The result is a sophisticated mesh of off-color woozy instrumental work and mordant vocals slithering through the more accessible troughs of an oh-how-wonderful-and-creepy-life-is-despair.
Queen of Siam topped critic Jon Pareles' ballot in that year's Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll where the album finished #29. Lester Bangs has the album at #9 on his ballot.
Thanks for your post. Would you mind changing the link for the official Lydia Lunch web site to: www.lydia-lunch.net, what you have is a fake site that we are trying to put down. It has nothing to do with Lydia and just contains nothing. Thanks in advance for your help. Sébastien.
ReplyDeleteDone!
ReplyDelete