S/D Laurie Anderson

love her Andy K stories so much, especially the one about the centrifuge carnival ride

She is one of the few artists I can hear tell the same story (or pieces of the same story, reshuffled) over and over and over again and it never stops sounding fresh.

i mean tbf that's part of her act

i say this with massive love and respect

Yep, I sat through all 5 or 6 hours of Spending the War Without You and would do it again another half dozen times.

the only artist i can think of for whom the "phone book" expression is literally true

She could totally do this---and occasionally mention what a person's name, number, street's name. number, reminded her of. memtion this in passing, and then come back to it later, mentioning how this street looks from that street---reminds me of a Dave Van Ronk song with him saying (not announcing, in the usual way) train stops while playing guitar---via that voice, that guitar.
And speaking of Andy The K, he told about a show which was him reading The Great Gatsby: he was gonna stop when the last person left, but one guy stayed, so Andy had to read the whole thing (aloud).
I think I would have stopped with the vocals, and just stood there, reading silently, maybe with lips moving, or just "reading" and turning pages---but still trapped! That's art.

I could also hear her just doing a straight read, with no adds, like Dave and Andy: that could totally work too.

I was fortunate enough to see her live in 1990, on the "Strange Angels" tour. She is one of the most remarkable performers I have ever seen.

I guess I'm swimming upstream in loving "Strange Angels." Her voice was at its best on that album, imho.

"Landfall," with Kronos Quartet, was interesting.

Babydoll!

Songs From the Bardo is amazing. Hypnotic and beautiful and scary.

Thanks for mentioning! https://songsfromthebardo.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-bardo

yes ty, I had no idea that existed

as she gets older, her words and messages are getting warmer and more...comforting...but also her sense of humor is somehow getting both sharper and more subtly deployed. with everything. in interviews, in lectures.

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Thursday, March 4, 2021 11:08 AM (two years ago)

yes this exactly

Did anyone go see her at the Barbican last night? I didn't manage to get tickets in time but man, what a setlist.

01. From The Air
02. Another Day In America
03. This Is The Language Of Positive Change
04. Let X=X / It Tango
05. Scream for Yoko Ono
06. O Superman
07. The Biggest Story
08. Get On The Good Foot
09. Gravity's Angel
10. We Don't Know Where We Come From
11. The Future Is... Digital

12. Walk the Dog
13. Advice for suicidal students:
14. Born Never Asked
15. Junior Dad
16. Flow
17. The Lake
18. It's not the bullet that kills you - it's the hole
19. Only an Expert
20. From The Air

Encore:
21. Thai chi dance

wow

18. It's not the bullet that kills you - it's the hole

Holy shit

*holey ;)

It went up on D1m3 today, the Barbican is a difficult capture for any taper, it's so roomy and the PA is a maybe little underpowered, but it's very listenable and omg at the version of Junior Dad!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/co4egdy2grc3z6vkvk5hg/h?dl=0&rlkey=4vl4d7sk205wg3n3iru9yonyp

_18. It's not the bullet that kills you - it's the hole_

Holy shit

yeah that thing is hard to find.

she's coming to SF again this spring, doing the Let X = X show, which I gather is a bit retrospective, and that song features.

https://x.com/clavendr/status/1736786186813771811?s=46&t=u2ZSlsY3trRV36IPP6jNDQ

O Superman is getting trending use on TikTok and IG but many young-ins don’t know that it’s Laurie Anderson

The New York–based artist and musician Laurie Anderson said she would not take up a visiting professor position at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany, amid scrutiny over her views on Palestine.

Earlier this month, the school announced that Anderson, who has produced such works as the hit 1981 song “O Superman,” had been appointed its Pina Bausch Professor, a position named after a famed dancer. But since that announcement, the school appears to have reneged on its decision, citing the fact that Anderson signed a 2021 open letter that urges support for Palestine.
“To frame this as a war between two equal sides is false and misleading,” the letter reads. “Israel is the colonizing power. Palestine is colonized. This is not a conflict: this is apartheid.”

Moreover, the letter continues, “We have seen how governments in Europe and beyond recently have instated policies of open censorship, and fostered a culture of self-censorship, towards Palestinian solidarity. Conflating legitimate criticism of the State of Israel and its policies towards Palestinians with antisemitism is cynical. Racism, including antisemitism, and all forms of hate, are heinous and not welcome in the Palestinian struggle. It is time to stand up to these tactics of silencing and overcome them.”

She was one of thousands to sign the letter, whose signatories also included artists such as Nan Goldin, Kara Walker, Simone Leigh, and many more.

On Friday, the Folkwang University of the Arts issued a press release saying that Anderson would no longer be taking up the position at the school on April 1. Specifically, the release claimed that the letter “takes up boycott demands from the anti-Israel BDS movement,” even though neither the movement itself nor a boycott of Israel are ever mentioned in the text. (In Germany, BDS has been particularly controversial, with some political figures attempting to render it illegal.)

“For me the question isn’t whether my political opinions have shifted,” Anderson said in a statement. “The real question is this: Why is this question being asked in the first place? Based on this situation I withdraw from the project. My colleagues at the University and the Pina Bausch Foundation have discussed this with me at great length and we have jointly decided this is the best way forward.”

In its release, the university said the decision came amid “the context of the current discourse about freedom of art and freedom of expression.”

It was the latest such development in a country whose art scene has been roiled by the October 7 Hamas attack, with many artists who voice pro-Palestine views facing the prospect of canceled exhibitions and withdrawn opportunities.

Earlier this month, Berlin attempted to implement a funding clause reliant upon a definition of antisemitism that many said would be used to keep pro-Palestine artists from receiving money. After mass protests, the funding clause was ultimately repealed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGgplLF5CWc

Could've used some prep time and/or a better editor.

From Nonesuch:

"Since I was a kid, I was in love with the sky, the beauty of it, the freedom of it, like I could just float up forever," Laurie Anderson tells BBC Radio 4's Front Row presenter Tom Sutcliffe in a conversation about her upcoming album, Amelia, due August 30 on Nonesuch. "I remember as a kid doing that, running into the dark ... the ecstasy. Your arms are out like a plane, and you close your eyes and you run." You can hear their conversation here via Spotify and Apple Podcasts:

Amelia is the 2024 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient's first new album since 2018’s Grammy-winning Landfall. The record comprises twenty-two tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson, who Pitchfork says, “sees the future, but she starts by paying attention,” wrote the music and lyrics. On the album, she is joined by Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson. An exclusive limited-edition print autographed by Anderson is available with Nonesuch Store pre-orders while they last. You can pre-order the album and hear the track "Road to Mandalay" here.

Milwaukee rapper J.P. (of "Bad Bitty" fame) sampled "O Superman":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tndfn6llAc

!!!

https://laurieanderson.bandcamp.com/album/amelia

I keep waiting for the album to start.

Would you say you were waiting for it to … land?

Uh-this is your Captain again.
You know, I've got a funny feeling
I've seen this all before.
Why?

I keep waiting for the album to start.

this is diehard poptimist nonsense btw, I mean you never ever listen to drone or ambient so...

are you being cranky again?

I don't listen to Laurie Anderson like I would Four Tet. I go for storytelling, voice inflections, and the often beguiling music swirling around her, Big Science and Strange Angels chief among my favorites. Heart of a Dog was terrific.

After three listens this thing sounds unfinished.

sounds like a joe frank story tbh

i have never really listened to her music before, does all of it kind of have a joe frank vibe?

You mean a Hamilton, Joe Frank, and Reynolds, "Don't Pull Your Love Out" vibe? Well yeah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUO9SDd9UhU

Sorry I stuck in the comma, so pretentious.

are you being cranky again?

haha no I was serious! You've given this more time than I have, maybe we come to her for different things, her voice alone is usually enough for me.

by which I mean that there isn't much actual "music" on this amorphous dream-like release

I'm not sure what "poptimism" or whatever has to do with appreciating drones and ambient music, but, yeah, in the drones and ambient music I like I want dronier and more ambient music.

idk I think using Four Tet as an example of drone/ambient underscores the divide between us here, go listen to a 15-hour piece by Roland Kayn or the entire 5+ hours of Well-Tuned Piano, that's what I mean.

not trying to be snarky! I will have more relevant responses once I listen to more than 5-6 minutes of random tracks, but I liked what I heard more than you seem to.

But...I would never define Laurie Anderson's music at her best is drone/ambient in the Kayn sense (whom I've heard).

is=as

Not that intentions matter, but I doubt Anderson herself would define herself in those terms either.

agreed, although there is this recent curio

https://www.discogs.com/master/1734668-Brian-Eno-Laurie-Anderson-Ebe-Oke-Dokument-2

your initial comment just seemed like an excessively harsh dismissal of something I'm curious about but haven't had time to process, that's all

Wonder if she's found Metallica contact info in Lou's old jacket? Hope so.

New stage show: ARK United States 5

The title suggests a new chapter to United States Live.

Laurie Anderson says: “For a long time I’ve wanted to make a new large-scale work about the United States—a collection of songs and stories about what has shaped this country in the 21st century. I plan to tell these stories moving through myth, journalism, fable, and TikTok, conjuring alternate realities and stories from my own life. Part ruminations, part long-form poems, ARK will also be a kind of 3D movie.”
In the 1980s, Anderson presented the multimedia epic United States Parts 1–4, which mixed music, photography, film, and drawings to explore contemporary America, first performed as a six-hour live performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1983. In 2024, the year of a momentous US election, she completes this work with a brand new creation which explores how the world might need to be reconfigured in order to be saved.

i think she is making a guest appearance at the summerstage show tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI15W-BBhrw

New

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcbEHM3k4IQ

Don't worry, only the first song is in French.