Lydia Lunch and Tex Perkins will unite for exclusive spoken word and experimental electronic performances in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney under the So Real It Hurts banner.
by Paul Cashmere
Lydia Lunch and Tex Perkins will join forces for a rare series of Australian performances in June 2026, presenting a hybrid spoken word and electronic set across Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. Branded So Real It Hurts, the shows pair the New York no wave pioneer with the Australian rock figurehead in a stripped-back format that combines Lunch’s spoken word delivery with Perkins’ experimental project Tex Perkins Basic, featuring laptop-driven soundscapes, guitar and voice.
The three-date run will take place in Melbourne on June 19 at Kew Courthouse, Brisbane on June 20 at Brisbane Powerhouse, and Sydney on June 27 at Riverside Live at Phive.
The collaboration brings together two artists with long histories of pushing beyond conventional rock frameworks. Lydia Lunch, a central figure in the late 1970s New York no wave movement, has built a career across spoken word, music, film and literature. Tex Perkins, known for The Cruel Sea and Beasts Of Bourbon, has increasingly explored experimental territory through his Tex Perkins Basic project.
The pairing arrives as Lunch continues a broader Australian tour performing the music of Suicide and Alan Vega, marking ten years since Vega’s passing. The new shows with Perkins extend that visit into a separate conceptual space, focused on improvised tension, minimal instrumentation and spoken performance.
In So Real It Hurts, Lunch will perform spoken word material while Perkins delivers an electronic-based set that moves between ambient structures, digital noise and guitar-driven improvisation. The format places emphasis on real-time interaction rather than fixed song structures, with each performer responding to the other’s pacing and intensity.
Perkins’ Tex Perkins Basic project is described as a modular approach to performance, using laptop processing, guitar textures and vocal elements to build evolving sound environments. The project departs significantly from his work with The Cruel Sea and The Beasts, instead leaning into experimental electronics and cinematic atmosphere.
Lunch’s contribution draws from her long-established spoken word practice, which has remained central since her emergence in New York’s CBGB-era underground scene. Her work spans confrontational narrative delivery, poetry and improvisation, often framed by stark minimalism.
The shows will occur alongside Lunch’s separate performances of Songs Of Suicide And Alan Vega, where she is joined by Black Cab’s Andrew Coates, and in Melbourne also James Lee. That tour revisits material associated with Suicide, the influential synth duo of Alan Vega and Martin Rev, with whom Lunch developed a long-standing artistic connection dating back to the 1970s.
Lydia Lunch emerged in the late 1970s as part of New York’s no wave movement, fronting Teenage Jesus And The Jerks and contributing to the defining No New York compilation produced by Brian Eno. Her career quickly expanded into collaborations with artists including Sonic Youth, Einstürzende Neubauten and Rowland S. Howard.
Across decades, Lunch has maintained a multidisciplinary practice spanning music, film, literature and spoken word performance. Her work with Suicide and Alan Vega has been particularly significant, including live collaborations and recorded contributions, reinforcing her position within the experimental lineage of New York underground music.
Tex Perkins has similarly evolved across multiple phases of Australian music. From the raw blues-rock of The Beasts Of Bourbon to the widescreen success of The Cruel Sea, his recent work has increasingly embraced abstraction. Tex Perkins Basic represents a continuation of that trajectory, prioritising texture, atmosphere and improvisation over traditional songwriting.
Their collaboration reflects a broader trend in live performance where legacy artists are increasingly working in modular, cross-disciplinary formats that blur spoken word, electronic composition and performance art.
While collaborations of this nature often attract strong interest from experimental music audiences, they also present challenges in accessibility. The absence of conventional song structures or familiar repertoire can create a divide between long-time fans and those encountering the artists in new contexts.
However, both Lunch and Perkins have built reputations on resisting fixed categorisation. Industry observers note that such projects often function less as commercial tours and more as curated performance events, designed for smaller rooms and attentive audiences rather than traditional concert settings.
There is also added significance in the timing of Lunch’s Australian return, coinciding with her ongoing Suicide and Alan Vega tribute work. That parallel programming may influence audience expectations, as the two projects present distinctly different interpretive approaches.
So Real It Hurts positions Lydia Lunch and Tex Perkins in a shared experimental space that prioritises immediacy, unpredictability and performance interaction. Rather than revisiting catalogue material in conventional form, the shows extend both artists’ interest in pushing live presentation into unstable, evolving territory.
With limited appearances scheduled across three cities, the collaboration stands as a rare meeting point between two long-running alternative careers, each defined by reinvention and refusal to settle into fixed artistic identity.
SO REAL IT HURTS – LYDIA LUNCH & TEX PERKINS – JUNE 2026
Fri 19 June – Melbourne, Kew Courthouse
Sat 20 June – Brisbane, Brisbane Powerhouse
Sat 27 June – Sydney, Riverside Live at Phive
Tickets via pressplaypresents.com
Stay updated with your free Noise11.com daily music news email alert. Subscribe to Noise11 Music News here
Be the first to see NOISE11.com’s newest interviews and special features on YouTube. See things first—Subscribe to Noise11 on YouTube
Follow Noise11.com on social media:
Bluesky
Facebook – Comment on the news of the day
