Watch Nicolas Jaar interview the transgressive NYC artist in a new clip from the upcoming film, which is currently raising funds on Kickstarter
No wave icon Lydia Lunch is set to be the subject of a new documentary. Lydia Lunch: The War is Never Over will be directed by underground filmmaker Beth B (whose previous credits, dating back to the 1970s, include the Lydia Lunch-starring cult film Vortex) and is currently raising funds on Kickstarter, as Pitchfork report. The film is set to feature interviews with fellow musicians like Thurston Moore, Weasel Walter, and JG Thirlwell, and will focus on every era of the transgressive artist’s career.
“I’ve known and worked with Lydia Lunch since she was 19 and I was 23,” Beth B writes on Kickstarter. “We grew up in the late 70s New York music/film/art scene and brought our radical visions to the underground where we broke boundaries, both shocking and enticing our audiences with our uncensored music and films. Fast forward to several months ago, as I watched the ever brash and luminous Lydia Lunch performing with her extraordinary band, RETROVIRUS, I realized that I needed to make the definitive documentary.”
Lunch emerged as part of the radical underground scene of 1970s New York City that came to be known as ‘no wave’. After forming the short-lived but hugely influential group Teenage Jesus & the Jerks with saxophonist James Chance, Lunch went on to be a part of countless musical projects (such as 8 Eyed Spy, Big Sexy Noise, and Retrovirus, as well as her own solo work and collaborations with musicians from Kim Gordon to Nick Cave) and work in other mediums, such as spoken word, photography, and activism. As Beth B writes, Lunch “continues to be at the forefront of psycho-sexual transgressive music and spoken word performance,” exploring “wide ranging issues from patriarchy to sexuality and the brutality of war”.
Lunch writes on Facebook: “This film hopes to illustrate the voices of stubbornly independent artists who have not and will not give up or shut up. Thank you all. Every bit helps!”
As part of the call for donations, the documentary makers have shared an interview between Lydia Lunch and Nicolas Jaar. Jaar is a fan of Lunch’s work, having reissued her 1990 spoken word album Conspiracy of Women through his own Other People label in 2015. Watch the clip below, and check out Kickstarter for the full list of rewards for backers.
