Nearly 50 years after she co-created the no-wave movement in sound and word with her band Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, the scene compilation No New York and singles such as “Orphans,” it’s important to note that the eye of this storm—Lydia Lunch—is not only still producing provocative work. She’s furthering the aesthetic from a holler and guitar-strewn medium into that of a poetic-journalistic one, with soundscapes both manically jazz and menacingly drone/ambient driven.
Plus, when it comes to making and assessing a scene, Lunch has got an ear and eye for the future with the likes of NYC duo Genre Is Death, the opening act on her tour with tenor saxophonist Matt Nelson and bassist/programmer Tim Dahl under the name Lydia Lunch’s Murderous Again.
Nelson and Dahl started their short, sharp set with Nelson blowing soft and pacing slowly from the back of the Ruba Club, and the tone was that of a low, guttural rumble and purr. Dahl seemingly guided much of his sonic booming, moaning musicality with some sort of voice trigger that worked in tandem with whatever instrument he picked up. Dahl and Nelson were surprisingly dense for just two guys making squirrelly, mad-melancholy music, and things didn’t get more treble-filled or sweetly toned in order for Lunch to make her appearance.
Rather than the high-tuned sneer of her teenage Teenage days, as Lunch has grown older, her speaking and singing voice has taken on the same gravel-and-guttural grace that Nina Simone and Marianne Faithful had as they moved through their decades. On this night, each carefully chosen word and phrase cooed, caressed and sung/spoken to her takes on God, war and Trump—sometimes all at the same time—were uttered in this carefully crepuscular, clearly enunciated, modulated tone even as she growled. The effect of her vocals was something like a bassoon that’d been smashed against a sidewalk but still retained its haunted musicality. Combine that with Nelson and Dahl’s cool, thick churn, and Murderous Again was (paraphrasing Dylan here) the chamber-music soundtrack to the hanging.
Moving between reading from her notes and just making shit up, some of Lunch’s choice bon mots included “Kiss my ass, Kim Kardashian, with your puffy lips,” “History draws itself from the acres of blood,” “In the beginning, there was woman and poetry and fearing women” and, the most definitive comment from her self-appointed role as confrontationist, “I don’t know about you, but some days, I just want to fuck shit up, spread the misery around.”
Lunch also may have said, “Every man is a duck, every kiss is a man,” but I’m fairly certain that I wrote that down incorrectly.
Opening the show was Lunch-approved experimental/noise duo Genre Is Death. If you can imagine what Royal Trux and My Bloody Valentine would sound like (screamier, occasionally in monotone, still deeply melodic), you’re halfway there to getting what guitarist/vocalist Ty Varesi and bassist/vocalist Tayler Lee are doing in their pursuit of abrasive, loop-and-distortion-driven, 21st-century no wave. Drum-less save for a vintage, oddly oscillating rhythm-machine sound, Genre Is Death’s post-sludge, icy, wall-of-woe sound was met by a brooding brand of lyrical introspection on newer songs such as “Attractive People” (the title track from its just-released album on the In The Red label) and “Beyond Good People” (from their first LP, 2024’s Talk, yet lifted by an unusually ripe sense of harmony and dynamics).
Hearing Genre Is Death open for Lydia Lunch, no matter what ensemble it is she was touting, made for one exceptional bill steered by a singular sense of theme and dramatic musicality.
—A.D. Amorosi
