HOMELAND

I'm the lousiest Laurie Anderson fan ever. Not only was I unaware that she'd release Homeland with few weeks ahead, but I also thought it marked the end of an almost ten-year hiatus. I can't explain why Life On a String seemed a farewell bouquet in 2001 either. Homeland as a new record is a deceiving subject. Laurie Anderson remained as active as ever, through collaborations, projects, shows and many other openings. Her albums are merely meant for the indexes. Her performing incorporates her work and values, and that's a constant.

Many classic traits are brought up, with no denying that it's another work that has the author signature and explores the familiar: art pop's sparkling concepts, harmonised touches of ambient and electronic, plus, above all, the everlasting synthesis between music, poetry, narration, technique and effects. At the same time, through its striking connotations and profound enough gestures, Homeland opts for more.

It's fair to anticipate comments regarding the album's vast critical concept (already described as an artistic "state-of-the-union" or the voice of "America's consciousness"), with social, political inserts, with references towards the system, the society and the crises they both share, with ironies, portrais and deplorings. Fortunately, the activism doesn't overwhelm what's so meaningfully musical: the outlook is rather sensible than showy, the freshness in ideas remains Anderson's merit, while the elegy, irony or pessimism are the reflections of a bright expressivity.

The bond between music and lyrics appears more woven than ever, but allows some variations. Transitory Life seems a good example in which the moment we're all waiting for is for the cold cabaret light to be cast on Anderson's profile, alone on stage, in the darkness of the frame, starting to sing - while the instrumental arrangement reaches peculiarly for world music, but can't be called shallow. You also discover how spellbinding and stylish her singing remains to this day. The "stand-up" momentums throughout the album are paused by several guest stars. Antony Hegarty's cameo is remarkable and John Zorn steps in with his succint, troubling "downtown jazz" sax squirts.

You could really turn back the time two decades in search for a more eloquent work of hers than this one. The second half of the material is, however, more interesting than the first. Beats go off on Only an Expert, but it's a too risky, ostentatious leitmotif, while the message is delivered without any subtlety, its grip being weaker than usual. More fruitful couplets ensue afterwards. Falling (likely an ethereal reply to the more abstract Walking and Falling from 1983) is the type of miniature in which stasis and vocal effects count the most. Another Day in America fully crowns the album, tributing as well the great narrations from United States Live, scaling aphorisms, stories and scenes on a gradually tense musical background. There is one more tiny gem to be mentioned, The Beginning of Memory, impeccable in its short form.

With Homeland, Laurie Anderson steps into the fifth decade of her career, one so honourable for any great living artist.