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(L-R) Anita Lane and Blixa Bargeld in concert at the Grand on Nov. 17, 1993 in London, England.
Anita Lane, a beloved Australian singer-songwriter who was a member of The Birthday Party and Nick Cave's Bad Seeds, as well as solo singer, has died at 61. At press time no further information was available about the cause of death or when Lane passed, but her former bandmate Cave confirmed the news in a lengthy post in which he called her "the smartest and most talented of all of us, by far."
The singer's longtime label, Mute Records, confirmed her death in a loving statement. "Anita was a beautiful unworldly spirit with the tenderest of voices, she will be dreadfully missed," it read. "There was always something magical that happened when Anita arrived, she changed the perception of everything you looked at. She was inspiring, and brought something uniquely her to the work of everyone she collaborated with. Every artist wants to be unpredictable; we want our artists to be unpredictable, Anita was, in her essence, wildly unpredictable"; click here to read the full statement.