Los Angeles' music community is reeling after a triple tragedy unfolded in a downtown loft last week when two acclaimed figures and one other were discovered dead, suspected victims of fentanyl overdose. The Fox LA reported that the stricken were none other than Jose "Luis" Vasquez, the haunting voice behind The Soft Moon, and John "Juan" Mendez who was best known as techno DJ "Silent Servant", alongside Mendez's partner, Simone Ling.
Details are scarce but tinged with the grim mark of a burgeoning crisis—Vasquez's wife prompted a welfare call leading the police to Mendez's Pacific Electric Lofts residence where drug paraphernalia was reportedly present, per officials who spoke with the Los Angeles Times. Mendez had just released his swan song, 'In Memoriam', through Tresor last November while Vasquez had found international acclaim with The Soft Moon's darkly resonant beats, their untimely deaths come on the heels of a separate incident involving four fatal overdoses in Palmdale just days prior.
The sorrow of this moment ripples beyond the LA loft: "It is with great sadness that we announce our dear friend, Luis Vasquez has passed away," stated The Soft Moon on social media, "Our hearts and thoughts are with his family, friends and extended music family. We ask you to respect their privacy during this difficult time…This is a huge loss and our hearts are broken." In remembering Vasquez, attention is also drawn to the legacy of Mendez, a pioneering DJ whose sounds have infused the LA music scene since 2006, and Ling, less known in headlines but equally mourned in the wake of this calamity.
Fans and fellow artists alike are now left to navigate a landscape marred by loss, the LA County Department of Medical Examiner conveyed to the Daily News that the final determination on the trio's cause of death might take months, prolonging a state of uncertainty; meanwhile, Vasquez's eclectic energy will not grace stages like the Cruel World festival again—a brutal reminder of the ephemeral and precarious nature of life and art in the shadow of an opioid epidemic continuing to claim too many too soon.
