Lydia Sviatoslavsky

Author

ONLY NOISEAging Towards Strange with Aphex Twin

In my experience, listening to Aphex Twin is a willful crawl towards chaos. Richard D. James has managed to manifest an auditory minefield that calls forth visions of an underground orgy of electrical wiring, a realm beyond the strictures of the Logos. Passively listening to a track like...

Lydia Sviatoslavsky

LIVE REVIEWXiu Xiu @ The Chapel

Xiu Xiu, touring with members of Swans' live ensemble, played SF's The Chapel on 5/28. Photo by Shomei Tomatsu “Loner,” Thor Harris murmurs matter-of-factly, temporarily seizing the mic from Xiu Xiu frontman, Jamie Stewart. “Lonerrrrrr.” It’s a fitting accusation to thrust into this particular sea...

Lydia Sviatoslavsky

LIVE REVIEWLydia Lunch Retrovirus @ Rickshaw Stop

The No Wave scene of 1970’s New York City was altogether bowel borne, the sickened spasm of a nihilist made nervous by the violent void of the Lower East Side. It was a pocket of time and space that knew no law nor order. Rather, it was poverty-ridden and putrid, little more than a decaying plane...

Lydia Sviatoslavsky