Laurie Anderson Has a Message for Us Humans

[al bupp]

For half a century, she has taken the things we know best— our bodies, our rituals, our nation — and shown us how strange they really are.

When the Hirshhorn Museum told Laurie Anderson that it wanted to put on a big, lavish retrospective of her work, she said no. For one thing, she was busy. She has been busy now for roughly 50 years, hauling her keyboards and experimental violins all over the world to put on huge bonanzas of lasers and noise loops and incantatory monologues that she delivers in a voice somewhere between slam poetry, an evening newscast, a final confession and a bedtime story. Although Anderson plays multiple instruments, her signature tool has always been her voice. Words emerge from her mouth deliberate and hyperenunciated, surrounded by unpredictable pauses. She piles up phrases the way van Gogh piled up brush strokes.

Over the course of her incessant career, Anderson has done just about everything a creative person can do. She has helped design an Olympics opening ceremony, served as the official artist in residence for NASA, made an opera out of “Moby-Dick” and played a concert for dogs at the Sydney Opera House. She has danced the tango with William S. Burroughs and flown to a tropical island with John Cage. And she is still going. As Anderson once put it to me, during a brief pause between trips to Paris and New Zealand, just before a Carnegie Hall performance with Iggy Pop: “Lately, I’m doing a stupid amount of things.”

On top of all this, Anderson had philosophical qualms about a retrospective. She is 74, which seems like a very normal age to stop and look back, and yet she seems determined, at all times, to keep moving forward. She is a perpetually cresting wave, a little green shoot constantly emerging from its seed. The last thing she wanted was to stop and stand still and be institutionalized in a big museum. This is the paradox of Laurie Anderson: What makes her worthy of a retrospective also makes her basically retrospective-proof.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/magazine/laurie-anderson.html

[al bupp]

1. O DU, ha ha ha ha, have you no mouths in your ears, ha ha ha?

In your tenuous, endless spiral threads,
In your automatic streams of words,
In your warm mechanical electronic arms.

(With apologies to Ms. Anderson)

[MichaelSoE]

2. Oh, Superwoman!

[jpak]

3. I see what you did there

[lagomorph777]

4. I had that album.

It's really engaging.

[Hugin]

5. "made an opera out of 'Moby-Dick'"

Off to search the Internets!

[Celerity]

6. M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade feat. Laurie Anderson - O Superman (SIS Remix) 🎼

Man Power and SIS remix M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade feat. Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Arguably one of Get Physical’s most influential tracks, ‘O Superman’ sees a new release with remixes from Man Power and SIS alongside the 2008 version from Robag Whrume and a remaster of the now classic original.

Man Power kicks off the new interpretations with an epic, ten and half minute version that patiently stretches the original’s melodies into pads and held bass tones across crisp, micro-house styled beats before unleashing loose, clattering breakbeats after a striking, extended breakdown.

SIS’s dreamy, percussive version sees the German producer in hypnotic, and tracky form, focussing on the ebb and flow of the original’s tuneful vocoder and synth work that drift across his perfect groove.

Robag’s Pumper-Nikkel remix, for those that missed it some years back, is yet another funky, chopped, sliced and diced piece of work from the playful producer and still sounds as fresh as ever.

M.A.N.D.Y. vs Booka Shade feat. Laurie Anderson - O Superman Remixes are also released on Get Physical 12”.

https://getphysicalmusic.bandcamp.com/

[al bupp]

7. My favorite Laurie Anderson song from back in the day is Sharky's Day

[crickets]

9. Yes! Amazing song. nt

[MagickMuffin]

8. Always my favorite artist, seen her many times

Drove to Houston for an art exhibit, all the other times were for her music. Ardian Belew was great.


She is extraordinary!

[al bupp]

10. Adrian Belew...

The musician who connects King Crimson w/ Frank Zappa, the Talking Heads and, now I learn, Laurie Anderson. What an amazing guitar player.

[cinematicdiversions]

11. I am more of a Louie Anderson kind of guy,

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Let X equal X & It Tango are gems.

.

Just listen with headphones, lights out and eyes closed.

.

[al bupp]

13. Thanks for all the feedback /nt