Lydia Lunch "Queen of Siam" LP

After the demise of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lydia Lunch launched her solo career with Queen of Siam, arguably her greatest LP. In true No Wave style, the album is a mishmash of irritants, but her palette is far broader here, lurching from slow dirges, excessive feminist exhortations, and raucous personal purges to a touch of disco and lounge music exoticism, as conjured by Voidoids/Lou Reed guitarist Robert Quine, Contortions bassist Jack Ruby, and John Cale's drummer, Douglas Browne. Spirited, surprisingly broad and defiantly dissonant, Queen of Siam's dense layers were designed to provoke and inflame; listen closely to fully decode.