Lydia Lunch - Honeymoon in Red
| Comments: | Honeymoon in Red is a mess that I love/hate. So much good, so much miss. A complete train wreck. |
| Artist: | Lydia Lunch |
| with: Clint Ruin, Genevieve McGuckin, Mick Harvey, Nick Cave, Rowland S. Howard, Thurston Moore, Tracy Pew | |
| Rating: | |
| Genres: | Gothic Rock, Post-Punk No Wave |
| Released: | 1987 |
| Type: | Album |
| Label: | Widowspeak |
| Link: | Bandcamp |
Honeymoon in Red is a concept album released in 1987 by Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard. Honeymoon in Red is sometimes referred to as a band or alternately as a collaboration between Lydia Lunch and The Birthday Party....
Honeymoon in Red is musically eclectic, combining elements of burlesque, no wave, singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, American Underground, the use of a "varispeed" for atmospherics, a song by country pop songwriter Lee Hazlewood, dissonant piano and guitar and muscular bass guitar and the darkly charismatic personas of Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch.
The album generally resembles the angular pop of The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire, although the song "Dead in the Head" recalls the strident guitar playing of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Unlike The Birthday Party, Honeymoon In Red emphasises vernacular speech akin to 1970s American television and film, instead of emulating the Southern Gothic literary genre. In a 1983 television interview, Lunch spoke of the experimental music as "religious music" that was "not rock".
Mick Harvey has stated that the project was originally conceived as a new band; a collaboration between Harvey, Lunch, Genevieve McGuckin and Rowland S. Howard. After the initial recording sessions in Berlin in June 1982, the tapes languished without a release. In 1987 Lunch readied the tapes for release on her own Widowspeak label, with added contributions by J.G. Thirlwell (Clint Ruin) and Thurston Moore. Lunch had already fallen out with Nick Cave and Harvey, and they insisted that their names not appear on the release, as they had no hand in the remix and overdubbing. Lunch subsequently used pseudonyms for Cave and Harvey (including "A drunk cowboy junkie" and "Dick Strum", respectively) and obliquely criticized them in her liner notes as "tight asses" and "sheep in wolf's clothing". The album originally appeared in this reworked form but has subsequently been reissued with the mixes from the original 1982 Berlin sessions.
Honeymoon in Red is musically eclectic, combining elements of burlesque, no wave, singer/songwriter Jacques Brel, American Underground, the use of a "varispeed" for atmospherics, a song by country pop songwriter Lee Hazlewood, dissonant piano and guitar and muscular bass guitar and the darkly charismatic personas of Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch.
The album generally resembles the angular pop of The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire, although the song "Dead in the Head" recalls the strident guitar playing of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Unlike The Birthday Party, Honeymoon In Red emphasises vernacular speech akin to 1970s American television and film, instead of emulating the Southern Gothic literary genre. In a 1983 television interview, Lunch spoke of the experimental music as "religious music" that was "not rock".
Mick Harvey has stated that the project was originally conceived as a new band; a collaboration between Harvey, Lunch, Genevieve McGuckin and Rowland S. Howard. After the initial recording sessions in Berlin in June 1982, the tapes languished without a release. In 1987 Lunch readied the tapes for release on her own Widowspeak label, with added contributions by J.G. Thirlwell (Clint Ruin) and Thurston Moore. Lunch had already fallen out with Nick Cave and Harvey, and they insisted that their names not appear on the release, as they had no hand in the remix and overdubbing. Lunch subsequently used pseudonyms for Cave and Harvey (including "A drunk cowboy junkie" and "Dick Strum", respectively) and obliquely criticized them in her liner notes as "tight asses" and "sheep in wolf's clothing". The album originally appeared in this reworked form but has subsequently been reissued with the mixes from the original 1982 Berlin sessions.
Editions:
1987
Original Release
Widowspeak
| WSP 12
| Vinyl, LP
| Side A: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| A1. | Come Fall | (4:54) | |
| A2. | So Your Heart | (2:20) | |
| A3. | Dead River | (2:40) | |
| A4. | Three Kings | (7:26) | |
| Side B: | |||
| B1. | Done Dun | (4:28) | |
| B2. | Still Burning | (5:32) | |
| B3. | Fields of Fire | (3:54) | |
| B4. | Dead in the Head | (5:57) | |