Lady Bye — Talking Insects
2001
Punk
Perth, Australia
This album could be summed up as being a bridge between “punk” sound/attitude and the sole subject matter of the album: the crashing of Lady Di’s car into the 13th pillar of the Alma tunnel that night of the 31st of August 1997, which resulted in her death. It is this precarious balance that Clara Jasper, alias Lady Bye, shrewdly endeavours to ensure throughout this “Talking Insects”. In 1977, the cover of “God Save the Queen” dared to plaster over the face of the Queen, a revered yet archaic icon. Shocking! Malcolm McLaren successfully pulled off his stunt with the help of his punk puppets. Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten bravely incarnated the “No Future” attitude, combining insolence with destruction. Lady Bye’s “No Future” may seem to be of the same vein, but it is very different nevertheless. Gone are the studded, spiked and torn attire, the drink, drugs and stench. What remain are the aggressive guitar riffs and supple yet rough voice that deliver a simple message: the tragedy of a woman’s death, that of the Princess of Wales. Herein lies the great difference between Lady Bye and the Sex Pistols; whilst once upon a time the Queen was spat on, here, Lady Bye annihilates the swarms of insects that are gathering over the fragmented yet still warm corpse of a woman. A woman who is dead. One should be reminded of this seemingly obvious fact when the deceased was the media darling of the times. A stupid, humdrum, brutal, incredibly tragic car accident like all the other hundreds of thousands of accidents that occur every year on roads worldwide. With her dry electric music based on three notes and a lot of decibels, Lady Bye’s “Talking Insects” casts a razor sharp eye on a fact forgotten by a media-obsessed society: a woman died. May she rest in peace. Listen to the opening track “Alma” that skilfully blends the name of the fatal tunnel with the Spanish word for “soul”. The “No Future” here is that of a woman crashing into a pillar, her corpse becoming a haven for a cloud of insects.