Lydia Lunch

Fourteen songs recorded by Lydia Lunch in Graz, Austria in 2003 comprise Willing Victim: A Musical Retrospective, and the sounds that bring them to life provide a good document for Lunch's fans: lo-fi audio and what looks like a one camera shoot (though there are three cameras at work) with poor lighting resulting in dark images for your screen. Not that Lydia Lunch's music is all that bright to begin with, so fans get a good reflection on tape of the performance artist's musical expression. This show begs comparisons to Patti Smith, but where Smith takes control and gives the audience a ride with easy to absorb the music, here it's disturbing and definitely aimed for a select and very artsy audience. It's nice to have a cover of the Alice Cooper Group's "Black Juju" and the background videos by two of the three camera people -- Mark Viaplana and Josep M. Jordana -- do add an element of mystery -- and chaos -- to the proceedings. It's not for everyone. "Psychic Anthropology" is guaranteed to shoo away the non-believers, but the 62 minutes or so will satisfy those who have followed this underground figure and others who just like to pick up on the avant-garde. No frills whatsoever with this package, just the track selection and the respective catalogs of Lydia Lunch and the Atavistic company. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide