FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Forty-Eight: Laurie Anderson
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I usually include artists in this feature…
who have released at least eight studio albums and there is a book out there about them but, as Laurie Anderson is such an established and influential artist, I wanted to include her (she has released eight albums, though one is a Spoken Word release). Matt Everitt recently spoke with Anderson on his The First Time with… If you do not know much about Laurie Anderson, then here is some information:
“Laura Phillips Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, composer, musician and film director whose work spans performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting, Anderson pursued a variety of performance art projects in New York during the 1970s, focusing particularly on language, technology, and visual imagery. She became more widely known outside the art world when her single "O Superman" reached number two on the UK singles chart in 1981. She also starred in and directed the 1986 concert film Home of the Brave.
Anderson is a pioneer in electronic music and has invented several devices that she has used in her recordings and performance art shows. In 1977, she created a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge.[8] In the late 1990s, she collaborated with Interval Research to develop an instrument she called a "talking stick", a six-foot (1.8 m) long baton-like MIDI controller that can access and replicate sounds”.
This is a nod to and celebration of a terrific artist who is among the most original there has ever been. This is the four essential Laurie Anderson albums, an underrated gem, and her most-recent studio album – I also recommend a good book to dig into. If you require a good to a fantastic artist, then I hope that the suggestions below…
Release Date: 19th April, 1992
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Laurie Anderson/Roma Baran
Standout Tracks: From the Air/Big Science/Walking and Falling
Buy: https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/laurie-anderson-big-science-red-vinyl/
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5nfdstl6JxGrDQtm1B2LnZ?si=cbAg19FDR4muW1NTOBqsgA
Review:
“Anderson's ingenious move, musically, was utilizing the vocoder not as a trick but as a melodic tool. It's the first thing you hear on Big Science, looped in "From the Air" like some bizarre man-machine synth. The rest of the track revolves around a circular pattern of blurted sax figures and hypnotic drums. There's virtually nothing about it that screams its age as Anderson intones a wry announcement from a (caveman) pilot of a plummeting flight. "There is no pilot," she speaks. "You are not alone. Standby. This is the time. And this is the record of the time." It's a metaphor for every frightening thing about 20th (and now 21st century) living you can think of, and in its spare way it's enough to scare you silly.
The gloomy ghost town future-music of the title track sounds like the rueful ruminations of someone who sees the end of the world on the horizon and can't help but to chuckle a little at their impending doom. The austere soundscapes of "Walking & Falling" and "Born, Never Asked" convey a similar chilliness laced with a despair at once aloof and oddly wistful. "Example #22" is like a Can/Yoko/Eno chop-shop, its funky wordless denouement part chant, part celebration of the absurd.
In fact, one of the elements that makes Big Science so special is Anderson's sense of humor. In "Let X=X", Anderson offers, with a wink, "I can see the future, and it's a place-- about 70 miles east of here." It's a perverse punchline to some cosmic joke, and the human element back and forth of "It Tango" does little to dissipate the feeling that on Big Science it's the machines that are getting the last laugh at the expense of their masters. The future was yesterday. The future is now. Welcome to the future” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: O Superman
Mister Heartbreak
Release Date: 14th February, 1984
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Laurie Anderson/Bill Laswell/Roma Baran/Peter Gabriel
Standout Tracks: Sharkey's Day/Gravity's Angel/Excellent Birds
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/61107
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5n3H377w7raCOYV1vr9vUN?si=tt-p-Zb9RjCofqYKZTBdJQ
Review:
“Probably the most pop-accessible of Laurie Anderson's recorded work, Mister Heartbreak features a number of stunning luminaries on the cutting edge of popular music at the time. Striking guitar work by King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew permeates this disc -- notably on "Sharkey's Day" -- punchy and angular. The production and bass work from Bill Laswell is superb. Peter Gabriel -- at the time still coming off the buzz of his departure from Genesis -- is featured in a duet with Anderson on "Excellent Birds." There is a heavy reliance on early-'80s synthesizers which would normally be very off-putting, but here they are executed well. Nowhere does the music slip into irreparable '80s cliché; it is still an entertaining listen. Lyrics are typical of Anderson' work -- complex, literate, provocative, difficult to fully comprehend. Haunting "Gravity's Angel" borrows imagery from Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow. Spoken word delivery on "Sharkey's Night" is given by the legendary William S. Burroughs. This is a very satisfying listen and a great intro for those unfamiliar with Anderson's work” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Sharkey's Night
Strange Angels
Release Date: 24th October, 1989
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Laurie Anderson/Roma Baran/Mike Thorne/Arto Lindsay/Ian Ritchie/Leon Pendarvis/Peter Scherer
Standout Tracks: Babydoll/The Day the Devil/My Eyes
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/63663
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6Sy383KpqoNe5b6MmvgfCQ?si=xwI-ffn5S_24v7eEZzLA4A
Review:
“Laurie Anderson's third proper studio album, coming over five years after 1984's Mister Heartbreak (1986's Home of the Brave was a film soundtrack), is a near-total departure from anything she had done before or, indeed, anything she did after. The most purely musical of Anderson's albums and the one on which she does the most actual singing (though her trademark deadpan spoken-word passages are still present and accounted for), Strange Angels seems to be Anderson's idea of a straightforward pop album. Of course, given Anderson's pedigree, this is not Whitney Houston territory; the closest parallel would be Joni Mitchell's more experimental, post-Mingus work: pretty but chilly, with a certain emotional distance even on the most immediately appealing songs (in this case, the thrilling "Babydoll" and the dreamy title track). There appears to be no underlying concept to the album, although the lyrical themes of three of the songs are explicitly taken from 19th century American literature. The musical arrangements are remarkably complex and feature cameos from not only Anderson's usual collaborators (Adrian Belew, David Van Tieghem, etc.) but also a motley crew ranging from jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin to session keyboardist Robbie Kilgore. As a result, the songs are sometimes a little too busy, but Anderson manages to remain the center of attention throughout. An album on which longtime Anderson fans tend to be divided, Strange Angels is a perfect introduction for anyone who might find the deadpan surrealism of Big Science or United States I-IV a bit much” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Strange Angels
Bright Red
Release Date: 25th October, 1994
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Brian Eno/Laurie Anderson
Standout Tracks: Bright Red/Beautiful Pea Green Boat/Tightrope
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=38898&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6b3Ik5hjGBbhR8myjstjOt?si=JNTt1r07SOGv-8VGQAPtog
Review:
“Five years after the release of 1989's pop-oriented Strange Angels, Laurie Anderson returned with Bright Red, a Brian Eno-produced excursion into much darker territory. Strange Angels and its predecessor, 1984's Mister Heartbreak, introduced a new level of melodic and rhythmic sophistication into the spare electronics of Anderson's early work, but Bright Red largely dispenses with that; instead, Eno provides a sound closer to his trademark ambient music (though it's still more melodically and rhythmically varied than, say, Ambient 1: Music for Airports) and Anderson largely abandons singing for her earlier, more conversational spoken-word style. Thematically, the album is filled with images of disconnection, miscommunication, and fear, with the sly wit and deadpan humor of her early days almost entirely absent. The result is an album that's more to be admired than enjoyed, since (apparently by design) it's nearly impossible to make any sort of emotional connection with this music. Gossip hounds will enjoy combing "In Our Sleep," a duet with then-boyfriend Lou Reed, for hints about their relationship” - AllMusic
Choice Cut: Speak My Language
The Underrated Gem
Life on a String
Release Date: 21st August, 2001
Labels: Nonesuch/Elektra Records
Producers: Laurie Anderson/Hal Willner
Standout Tracks: One White Whale/My Compensation/Statue of Liberty
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=72054&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1WgJd9ONDjjUfo5xCJQDIc?si=5Irqyd9HT8WXR_Mhgz-hsw
Review:
“As the album-opening "One White Whale" indicates, bits of that project made it onto the album. The three tracks surviving from Songs And Stories suggest that Anderson might want to finish the job someday, even if the best one, "Pieces And Parts," has less to do with Melville's writing than Anderson's own powerful narrative skills. Half-spoken and half-sung, the track uses the 19th-century discovery of whale bones in Alabama as a point of departure for a discussion of history, heartbreak, and God. Anderson's best work has always been simultaneously opaque and pointed, suggestive, and even topical, without being didactic. Those qualities apply again here. Through repetitive melodies (aided by A-list guest performers like Bill Frisell, Lou Reed, and Mitchell Froom), accomplished singing, and plainspoken delivery, Anderson achieves a hazy kind of subconscious logic. "And over on Jane Street they're shooting that movie again / They just can't seem to get it right," goes one couplet from "Washington Street." Anderson makes lines like that make sense without really making sense at all. The same could be said of her new album, which starts with a whale and ends with a pilgrimage to parts unknown” – The A.V. Club
Choice Cut: Pieces and Parts
The Latest Album
Homeland
Release Date: 22nd June, 2010
Labels: Nonesuch/Elektra Records
Producers: Laurie Anderson/Lou Reed/Roma Baran
Standout Tracks: My Right Eye/Another Day in America/The Beginning of Memory
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=256626&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4ak54Q9kwqnyRL6yLkbFBO?si=TOifFuv7SyyaizBbwPtgcQ
Review:
“Only an Expert" makes a pervasive, subtle theme momentarily explicit: How shared illusions about security and plenitude perpetuate a predictable cycle of cultural, environmental, and existential crises. But this threatens to make the album sound punitive, when somehow, Anderson's wrath feels compassionate. As "Falling" would have it, "Americans, unrooted, blow with the wind/ But they feel the truth if it touches them." It's confrontational and beautiful, the grim tidings leavened with empathetic portraiture. "Transitory Life" is haunting and cunningly crafted. When Anderson sings that her dead grandmother "made herself a bed inside my ear/ Every night I hear," the Tuvan throat singer from the song's intro reappears, the formless cries suddenly given a narrative role.
But the epic "Another Day in America" is the album's huge, dark heart. Anderson's voice is pitched down and slowed-- she becomes her character on the cover, a slapstick figure of male authority-- over lingering strings and keyboards. The oration is a vortex of visionary proclamations, pointed fables, downbeat jokes. It makes palpable not only all the pathos and superstition of the American psyche, but the weight of time passing away-- another diminishing resource. Every malfunction of the status quo, Anderson implies, is a chance to start over, instead of rushing to rebuild what always breaks down. Her pessimism might not be comforting, but as oil continues to poison the Gulf of Mexico, it feels awfully prescient” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Only an Expert
The Laurie Anderson Book
Laurie Anderson: All the Things I Lost in the Flood
Author: Laurie Anderson
Publication Date: 6th February, 2018
Publisher: Rizzoli International Publications
Synopsis:
“Laurie Anderson is one of the most revered artists working today, and she is as prolific as she is inventive. She is a musician, performance artist, composer, fiction writer, and filmmaker (her most recent foray, Heart of a Dog, was lauded as an experimental marvel by the Los Angeles Times). Anderson moves seamlessly between the music world and the fine-art world while maintaining her stronghold in both. A true polymath, her interest in new media made her an early pioneer of harnessing technology for artistic purposes long before the technology boom of the last ten years. Regardless of the medium, however, it is exploration of language (and how it seeps into the image) and storytelling that is her metier. A few years ago, Anderson began poring through her extensive archive of nearly forty years of work, which includes scores of documentation, notebooks, and sketchbooks. In the process, she rediscovered important work and looked at well-known projects with a new lens. In this landmark volume, the artist brings together the most comprehensive collection of her artwork to date, some of which has never before been seen or published. Spanning drawing, multimedia installations, performance, and new projects using augmented reality, the extensive volume traverses four decades of her ground-breaking art. Each chapter includes commentary written by Anderson herself, offering an intimate understanding of her work through the artist s own words” – Waterstones
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/laurie-anderson/laurie-anderson/9780847860555