BRIGHT RED

The best way I could describe most of Laurie Anderson's albums, will be like galleries of "paintings", that although they hold a "conceptual" title, they are independent and free of it. "BRIGHT RED", released in 1994, is my personal best experience with this multi/talented musician.

Laurie Anderson, besides being a talented arranger, performer (violin, keyboards), song writer, composer and vocalist, has no match as far as comparisons go. Her musical world and language stands alone. Therefore, in able to suggest the greatness of "BRIGHT RED", I will have to turn for some kind of metaphors to explain a language without translation.

Songs constructed in independent styles, that never fall far from Mrs. Anderson's realms, and yet, go through all kinds of transitions and states of emotions, that are always "glued" by the never oversized, "dark" and "angelical" voice, that more than singing, "croons" austoundingly intelligent and intimate lyrics, that never lose their wit or humour, even if the feeling of the song goes the opposite way. Her means of "expression" as far as known styles go, go from "Ambiental/Cabaret" to "Progressive/Folk/ Electronic" to "Ambiental story telling" (if such a thing exists and no "Prog/Pop" on this one), and yet her musical identity and musical language is never lost in these "trips" of emotions. The best attribute I find in Mrs. Anderson's music, besides all of the above, is how her music, without compromises, neither market-wise nor audience-like, can be so damn personal and friendly at the same time, to the lucky person who gets to witness her intimate soul, delivered out in the open, in her pen-written compositions.

"BRIGHT RED" compresses all of these attributes into one single "crossover" experience. Austere, intelligent, deep as no one else can go, and still laugh about the whole thing.

A "Masterpiece" of Prog, both unique and flawless in performance and composition. Add all that, equals ***** 5 PA stars.

I have been a hold out on checking out the music of LAURIE ANDERSON simply because I am not a huge fan of spoken word vocals in lyrics and the few YouTube clips I checked out of tracks from her most highly rated album "Big Science" failed to get my tail wagging so when I found a good deal on her album BRIGHT RED I thought i'd give her a listen and see if she's really as boring as I remembered from those samples. Well, the answer is.... hell NO! I am quite impressed with this album. First of all, LAURIE ANDERSON occupies a musical niche like no other i've heard. For many of the tracks on this album she neither quite sings nor quite speaks. At times she is more speaking with slight musical intonations, while at other times she's not quite speaking but not fully singing. At other times she sings like an angel.

I suspect the reason I may like this album a lot is because it is a marriage of the profound thought provoking poetry of LAURIE and her brilliant delivery of it and the excellent production of Brian Eno who helps out in the songwriting department and with some additional help on some instruments and arrangements. The music that accompanies the precisely timed lyrics is impeccable and the decision to use which instrument when and where is equally impressive. It really doesn't matter if LAURIE is half reciting like on "Speak My Language" or trading off words with her backup singer as on the title track or fully singing as on the dual vocal song "Muddy River" with only an accompanying drumbeat. The songs are harmonically and melodically interesting making LAURIE ANDERSON a true master of her unique brand of experimental art pop.

Now that i've seen the BRIGHT RED light I need to revisit her discography to hear if i've been missing out on more gems like this or if this is a unique concoction that has enough Eno influence to spice up LAURIE's bizarre take on her poetic take on music. I find this album very diverse up to the last few tracks and then it kind of runs its course. Of the two parts of the album that are titled BRIGHT RED and TIGHTROPE I find the first side to be utterly brilliant with the second starting out strong and slowly fading into the less so.