11183_JKT

Family in Mourning & Lydia Lunch Recall The "Last Time We Met"

11183_JKT

It’s strange that following the immense popularity of the reunited Swans there wasn’t an equally renewed interest in the rest of the no wave scene that birthed them, particularly the work of Lydia Lunch. Maybe it’s because Lydia Lunch is harder to pin down: she’s been just as active as a spoken word artist, and a willing collaborator as a musician, working with everyone from Omar Rodriguez Lopez to A Storm of Light. Even her newest project Eulogy puts her as second billing behind Family In Mourning. Our inattention is our folly. “Last Time We Met,” the newest song from the collaboration, is a haunting meditation on living through loss. Singing over little more than a sine wave and a collage of saxophones, Lunch recalls final moments and last words, pushing the song to a place of spiritual catharsis.

The song’s video, which you can watch below, feels like reliving a memory. On top of signaling to the viewer that this is a strictly goth affair, the video’s grainy black and white, slow-moving footage give it the feel of a fading recollection, gradually wearing down under the stress of time. “Last Time We Met”‘s sparse instrumentation is equally as weary, hovering over each bass note as if trying to hold onto the smallest details of a bygone day. Fear over those details slipping away hangs over Lunch’s performance as well. “I’m writing songs that will be set in stone,” she sings, implying that the dead man she remembers will live on in those carvings. Through immortalizing him, Lunch is able to reflect on her own mortality, and in replaying his last words to her, she re-experiences the sublime, ending the piece by “making love to his ghost.” Her voice wavers, the chorus of saxophones is lifted off by drummer Derek Vockins, and the song drifts away into oblivion.

Eulogy is out on October 27th via Galtta.