Remembering NYC no-wave artist Cristina

Cristina Monet Zilkha performed under the mononym of her first name, finding success in New York’s no-wave music scene of the late 1970’s. Last week news arrived that the retired singer had passed away after contracting COVID-19.

She released a series of pop-dance singles, the most well known being alternative Christmas tune Things Fall Apart which was produced by John Cale.  

Disco Clone and covers of Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? and the Beatles Baby You Can Drive My Car.

She featured on the indie label Ze Records, and later married it’s co-founder Michael Zilkha. Thw pair left the music business in New York and moved to Texas, but after their divorce in the 1990’s Cristina returned to NYC and wrote about music.

In the early 1980’s she recorded a second album which fell into the growing new-wave genre, it was produced by Don Was.  

Musician Zola Jesus paid tribute to the singer on Twitter describing her as “too weird for the pop world and too pop for the weird world”.

OIP Staff

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