LAURIE ANDERSON

Five years after her last studio release, Laurie Anderson is back. I remember the surprise and a little disappointment when I've listened to it for the first time. No more experimentalism, nothing challenging, just good pop. Honestly, had the same music been released by somebody else I would have found it very good...it's like eating Marmite thinking it's Nutella, it depends much on what one is expecting.

So what we have here? Ten good songs deeply sounding 80s even though we are at the end of that hateful decade. A very nice pop tune opens the album followed by an ethnic thing which may remind even to Miriam Makeba, a sort of Peter Gabriel's song of the 80s in terms of sounds and mood, an electronic song which could have been released by the Eurhytmics (note, this is a band that I think has done something very good sometimes, so I'm not putting Laurie Anderson down), then brasses in Phil Collins style open a song which you can imagine sung by Jon Anderson in his excursions in south and central America with a Calypso tempo.

In any case, the B side is more in line with Laurie's usual output, "The Day Of The Devil", at least not considering the poppy chorus, and "The Dream Before" are excellent songs and sound less 80s than the rest.

Another very radio-friendly song leads to the last album's song which is a great song on which Laurie shows that she can really sing other than speaking or using vocoders. The closer makes me think, for its mood, to the Roger Waters of Radio KAOS, I mean "The Tide Is Turning2, but also to the most melodic songs of the "White Zulu" Johhny Clegg.

So this album is musically like a summary of the few good things coming from the 80s and surely one of the best things of the decade, but very far from Laurie's best efforts. Good enough for three stars, a very pleasant listen, but not what one should expect from an artist like this.

Laurie Anderson is probably best known for her hit album Big Science and the experimental yet strangely alluring single "O Superman". What most people may not know is that these songs were originally conceived as part of an extended concept piece called United States, over four hours in duration. This 4 CD box set is a complete live performance of that piece. For those familiar with Big Science, it is quite interesting to hear the pieces in the context they were originally intended.

Of course, listening to a 4.5 hour long stage concept piece can be a daunting task without at least the aid of visuals, but on the whole this is very listenable. There are surreal spoken word pieces, atmospheric instrumentals (often featuring Anderson's violin playing), and rhythmic synthesizer-based vocal pieces (also usually spoken). I haven't bothered to untangle the meaning behind it all, but with a name like United States, it appears to be a humorous yet slightly sad examination of the state of the nation. It's not overtly political - she seems to focus more on the chasms that exist between people. In an age where we are closer than ever before -- thanks to innovations in communication and travel technology -- we still seem spiritually farther apart. Nowhere is this more poignantly stated than in "O Superman", on the surface a novelty number, but when you listen closely it's almost unbearably sad. That kind of melancholy hangs over the whole piece, even as Laurie Anderson keeps the audience entertained with a significant dose of both verbal and musical humor. They say that comedy often hides huge pain underneath, and that seems true here.

Way too long to listen to in one sitting, and without the visuals (which I'd like to see someday), it suffers a bit, but overall a huge and daring accomplishment by Laurie Anderson.

This is an album full of 80s sounds, very much easier than the previous one, but Rodgers as producer has been able to adjust the sounds without making interference with Laurie's songwriting, and even though I have deeply hated the 80s and their electronics, I really like this album.

The opener, "Sharkey's Day", has a minimalistic start. Two major chords, speech and various electronics alternated to a sung chorus vaguely reminiding of VELVET UNDERGROUND. The feeling that this song transmits is strange: weirdness and foolishness together with a sort of quotidian life. I've neven been in the big Apple, but this song sounds very newyorkese.

"Langue D'Amour" has a similar mood. The poetry spelled by Laurie sounds like a less "tragic" Patti Smith. The keyboards layer is very nice, still based on a sequence of few bass notes on major chords. Hypnotic.

After two very good tracks, "Gravity Angel" is excellent. Laurie sings on high pitches. The sounds are again very 80s, and four bass notes act as counterpart to Laurie's vocals until the electronic drums enter the song. The mood doesn't change much even with the drumming. male vocals are added and Laurie alternates singing and speaking. The electronics reminds me to RICK WRIGHT and his Broken China for the kind of sounds used. Dark and hypnotic, this is probably the best album's track.

"Kokoku" whatever it means has an ethnic flavor. Seems connected in some way to the Native Americans, maybe. I don't understand the lyrics, neither the language so this song may be about totally different things. The part in English says "I come very briefly to this place. I watch it move. I watch it shake" and in the middle of the song a shakuyaki or a similar Asian string instrument overcomes the electronics. "on a very distant star, slimy creatures scan the skies". Seems more SciFi than ethnic.

"Excellent Birds" with male vocals could stay on "ZEE - IDENTITY". It's the same kind of 80s dark electronics which I actually disliked. Listening to this music now, I appreciate it much more. Who likes the 80s stuff of PETER GABRIEL will surely like this song as well.

"Blue Lagoon" is even more similar to the ZEE thing. I think I'll relisten to that album better in the next days. The instrumental interlude in the middle of the song is fantastic, but the whole song is excellent. A trip to a strange place "I saw a plane today. Flying low over the island. But my mind was somewhere else."

"Sharkey's Night" closes the circle. I don't know who Sharkey is and if there's a concept behind the album. I have read that this was also a movie directed by Laurie herself, so I may be loosing part of the message. This song takes 2 minutes to re-enter in the two major chords of the first track. Instead of Laurie a "drunk man" voice speeches on the electronic base.

This is a quite easy album, even in the darker moments, something that can be put in the background even in a tea room (very Neworkese, isn't it?), but at the same time it's still a bit "experimental", so even the listeners looking for something more challenging can have their fun.

This is how Laurie Anderson became very famous in Italy. Big Science had also a quite good commercial success despite the fact that's not an easy album. We all still associate that song with the purple halo.

Said so, this first album of this very unusual artist (there's a previous one but it was a 3 people collaboration effectively) was a surprise. Released in 1982, in the middle of the worst period of the music history this jewel appeared from nowhere. I don't know if she was already married to Lou Reed and what relationship she actually had with, but the first thing that her music makes me think about is Terry Riley.

Riley is a sort of modern classical composer and he wasn't using electronics when he composed "In C", but Laurie's approach to music is surely minimalistic and Riley is a recognized influence for Velvet Underground.

This album is weird and funny, too. There's a pilot calmly announcing the the aircraft is falling down to his passengers over a rocking electronic base "disturbed" by a jazzy sax a little out of tune so to create a strange dissonance which reminds me of Carla Bley.

There are melodic moments (track 2 and 8), the avantgarde of "Sweaters", played by pipes and drums, there's the hypnotic soundscape of violin and marimba on "Born, Never Asked" and a jazzy crazy patchwork made of spoken sentences in German which makes me think to the minimalistic period of Battiato (m.mlle Le Gladiatour) , there is some Basic language (LET X=X) ....well it could also be Fortran....so that "It Tango" could be interpreted as "IT" Tango.

However this album is amazing, especially thinking to the year of its release. A masterpiece? I don't know, but I don't think anybody will be upset if I round up my 4.5 stars

It's a collaboration between three artists one is John Giorno who I personally don't know and is also the album's producer but I think his main job was actually "poet" and the famous writer William S. Burroughs.

It's poetry spoken on avant and minimal music. Listening to this album I wonder why this artist is on crossover and not in the Avant subgenre, but it doesn't matter. Thinking to a reference, the closest thing that I can think to is Claudio Milano's Adython for the minimalistic approach and that bit of electronic behind. The difference is in the vocal extension but even if Laurie wasn't actually a professional singer she uses low and high tones within her speech in a very interesting manner.

It's everything but an easy album, but it doesn't take too listens before getting deeply into it. As often happens with electronic music based on repetitive sequences of notes or even of sounds, it's like our brains work in the background, finding schemes and mathematical relations so that at the, let's say, third listen the various songs are consolidated in our memory.

I guess she's the author of all the musics, so that it can be considered as the first Laurie Anderson's album but effectively it has been released as a nameless trio.

The side D of the vinyl has a very particular technical feature: it contains 9 songs and which one is played depends on the exact point of contact with the pickup. In brief it's like a randomizing algorithm is used. You never know which track is coming.

It's a very hypnotic album (in particular Dr. Miller) which pays a tribute to the fact of having been initially thought for theatrical performances.

Excellent addition for fans of Avant and/or Progressive electronic. 3 stars for the others

It's heavy on material from Mister Heartbreak, musically it is an expanded version of the album, which has only one song, Credit Racket, that isn't on the video. She's assembled an excellent set of musicians including Adrian Belew, Bill Laswell, and David Van Tieghem. Good old William Burroughs himself even drops in.

The first track, ''From the Air'', opens the album with samples of an electronically altered voice whose ''a-ha-a-ah'' line acts like a weird bass part just before the drums enter to perform a hardly danceable yet very circular rhythm. A saxophone rips the air, sticking to the rhythm. Only then, a voice appears, recitating more than singing: ''This is your captain speaking... We're all falling down...''. The keyboards weave a subtle cocoon while the ''captain'' goes on and seems not to be willing to reassure the passengers... ''We're all falling down''...

''Big Science'', the second track, may begin with a very realistic wolf's howling, it offers nevertheless a more peaceful atmosphere, like if the narrator was going to the center of the town walking upon a snowy path... Everything sounds so quiet (but does it look quiet?)...

And, then, the harshness strikes back on ''Sweaters'', the third track! The lyrics seem normal, for once: the end of a relationship, yet narrated with drums and bagpipe! A short, striking, nearly vindicative piece, if it wasn't for the voice which seems to hesitate between a cold-tempered declaration (''Your sweaters/I no longer love them'') and animal-like weepings. You can sing it next time you want to break up with someone, knowing it will be painful for both of you.

The two following tracks work together: ''Walking, Then Falling'' is a spoken-word short piece (do I hear a tiny, microscopic synthetical background sound? Do I also spot a description of a deliverance in these lyrics?), and ''Born, Never Asked'' is an instrumental. But, with such a title, it sounds like a philosophical statement: keyboards, violins and claves play a cold melody on a simple rythm, because you just can't sing that enormous declaration:''No, I've never asked to born''. The melody is far from any joy, from any despair, from any feeling: it just describes the plain facts.

Then, ''O Superman''... The haunting pantings, the electronic, disincarnate voice beginning with this simple invocation: ''O Superman''... This strange story of a phone call which seems to start as a prank and, soon, reveals its hideous face: that thing which wants to be called ''Mother'' and rocks your cradle with ''[its] petrochemical arms, [its] military arms''...

And now, for something completely different, the whole band starts a joyful tune, full of brasses, ''The sun is shining'', Anderson is even singing ''La la laaaa la'' like an excited child, even if the tape plays voices from the outerworld speaking backwards! But, hey, you like to dance, don't you?

The eigth and final piece is another medley with an electronic voice singing weird lyrics... that I still try to understand more than a dozen years after discovering this song! On the ''Let X=X'' section, the claves and the synths join forces again on a solid linear rythm, a bit like in ''Born, Never Asked'' but warmer, only to be joined by the trombone of Georges Lewis on ''It Tango'', creating a sensation of ascension. The musical background becomes a procession crammed in the studio and opening outer dimensions through this tiny studio.

And, then, the record is over. And you wonder what you just heard. And you wonder if you want to listen to it again. And you wonder... Maybe Kraftwerk was just the beginning? Maybe the Residents were just a step?Maybe even Brian Eno isn't that focused? And you wonder if there's any other record which sounds like this one. And you already expect the answer.

Her music can be labeled as experimental, avant-garde, pop, and progressive, what I can tell you is that you don't have to pay attention to those labels, you just listen to her music and one its for sure, her music is unique. She is a unique artist to my ears, and eyes, because I've seen some of her videos and live performances and wow, she is one-of-a- kind artist.

Laurie Anderson released in 1989 her third studio album entitled 'Strange Angels', in my opinion, nothing can beat her 'Big Science', but this is not bad at all. With ten compositions and a total time of 46 minutes, the album kicks off with 'Strange Angels' a charming pop ballad that has a very nice guitar on it, I would not say it is the best introduction to her music, but is a charming song after all, so you may enjoy it.

'Monkey's Paw' has that Laurie flavor at its beginning; I really like the rhythm, the use of percussion and voices here and there. Then the song changes and Anderson start talking (not really singing) the music turns friendly and catchy and keeps that same vein during the whole track. 'Coolsville' is a very cool track, with a calm and relaxed sound whose mood increases while Anderson sings, her voice has some kind of echo that makes it even better, due to the atmosphere created.

'Ramon' continues with that soft and calm sound. The music in this album is not that experimental or weird as in previous, however it does show Laurie's fascination for complex things and avant-garde, in spite of that poppish orientation some tracks have here. 'Babydoll' has a funny and humoristic sound, here I like a lot the fretless bass along with the backing vocals, it is a nice song, however I believe it is one of those that you either love, or hate.

'Beautiful Red Dress' has a contagious sound and mood, I have to admit I like it to sing it. There's a sax coming and going which adds a cool flavor. 'The Day the Devil' is one of my favorites here, I like the keyboard sound, and also Tony Levin is on the bass, so it is guarantee. Well, I love Laurie's voice, which later is joined by a kind of chorus. I like a lot the atmosphere created in this particular song.

'The Dream Before' means a lot to me, since it was the first Laurie Anderson song I ever listened, I don't really remember how it was, how I discovered but it was several years ago, and despite it is a short song, it really moved me and did something on me. Seems to be simple, but it actually has several elements on it, besides her voice, keyboards make a soft and charming sound that can make anyone falling in love with it.

'My Eyes' has once again a cool bass sound, along with a pretty nice percussion. The rhythm is charming and has that 80s flavor, it is not that evident, but evident anyways, which does not mean that it is a worse quality work, it is simply different and not that original as her compositions in Big Science, for instance. And finally 'Hiawatha' which happens to be the longest track. It has a warm but melancholic sound on it, I love Laurie's voice here, and the noises created as background, creating a sweet atmosphere.

This is a nice record, but not my favorite, and not what I would consider close to her best works, however it is good and you may like it. My grade will be three stars.

Enjoy it!