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Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most reknowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist.

O Superman launched Anderson’s recording career in 1980, rising to number two on the British pop charts and subsequently appearing on Big Science, the first of her seven albums on the Warner Brothers label. Other record releases include Mister Heartbreak, United States Live, Strange Angels, Bright Red, and the soundtrack to her feature film Home of the Brave. A deluxe box set of her Warner Brothers output, Talk Normal, was released in the fall of 2000 on Rhino/Warner Archives. In 2001, Anderson released her first record for Nonesuch Records, entitled Life on a String, which was followed by Live in New York, recorded at Town Hall in New York City in September 2001, and released in May 2002.

Anderson has toured the United States and internationally numerous times with shows ranging from simple spoken word performances to elaborate multimedia events. Major works include United States I-V (1983), Empty Places (1990), The Nerve Bible (1995), and Songs and Stories for Moby Dick, a multimedia stage performance based on the novel by Herman Melville. Songs and Stories for Moby Dick toured internationally throughout 1999 and 2000. In the fall of 2001, Anderson toured the United States and Europe with a band, performing music from Life on a String. She has also presented many solo works, including Happiness, which premiered in 2001 and toured internationally through Spring 2003.

Anderson has published six books. Text from Anderson’s solo performances appears in the book Extreme Exposure, edited by Jo Bonney. Anderson has also written the entry for New York for the Encyclopedia Brittanica and in 2006, Edition 7L published Anderson’s book of dream drawings entitled “Night Life”.

Laurie Anderson’s visual work has been presented in major museums throughout the United States and Europe. In 2003, The Musée Art Contemporain of Lyon in France produced a touring retrospective of her work, entitled The Record of the Time: Sound in the Work of Laurie Anderson. This retrospective included installation, audio, instruments, video and art objects and spans Anderson’s career from the 1970’s to her most current works. It continued to tour internationally from 2003 to 2005. As a visual artist, Anderson is represented by the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York where her exhibition, The Waters Reglitterized, opened in September 2005. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art acquired her “Self-Playing Violin” which was featured in the “Making Music” exhibition in Fall 2008.

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15
Album Review

Mary Halvorson: Cloudward

Read "Cloudward" reviewed by Doug Collette


The title of guitarist/composer Mary Halvorson's Cloudward alludes to the sense of optimism she has stated she felt when writing the bulk of the material in fall of 2022. And while this palpable sense of faith in the future is in marked contrast to the tangible air of eerie foreboding that surfaced so often on this LP's predecessors, the presence of largely the same personnel lineup--the Amaryllis Sextet-- provides a stable link of continuity. The reappearance of prior collaborators recording ...

8
Film Review

Sisters With Transistors

Read "Sisters With Transistors" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Sisters With Transistors Director: Lisa RovnerMetrograph Pictures86 minutes 2021 The history of electronic music has always been a male-dominated tale, which is odd given just how formative women have been in its development. Writer and director Lisa Rovner's fascinating documentary Sisters With Transistors addresses this historical imbalance in honoring the pioneering women who forged uncharted paths in electronic music/experimental sound. As narrator Laurie Anderson relates, it is a story of ..."women ...

4
Book Review

Laurie Anderson: All the Things I Lost in the Flood

Read "Laurie Anderson: All the Things I Lost in the Flood" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


All The Things I Lost In The Flood Laurie Anderson 320 Pages ISBN: 9780847860555 Rizzoli Electa 2018 The story of performance artist and cultural icon Laurie Anderson's book All The Things I Lost In The Flood started in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy (the third costliest storm in U.S. history) hit New York. After the storm passed, Anderson went to the basement—where she kept her equipment, props, papers, books, and archives from her illustrious ...

20
Album Review

Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet: Landfall

Read "Landfall" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Laurie Anderson has always been many things to many people: an enigmatic singer, an underrated visionary, sonic adventurer, composer, a charming storyteller, and so on. Blessed with a fertile imagination, a gift for vivid and enchanting storytelling and drama, compositional prowess, during her expansive five-decade career, she has released several adventurous albums that have showcased her determination to push the creative envelope. Anderson's diversity and flexibility have enabled her to seamlessly hop across genres, styles, times and context. She is ...

24
Film Review

Laurie Anderson: Heart of a Dog

Read "Laurie Anderson: Heart of a Dog" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski


Laurie Anderson Heart of a Dog Nonesuch 2015 Renaissance woman and maverick Laurie Anderson is one of the most intensely engrossing artists of our time. Her work, whether music or performance or art is electric, alluring, thought provoking, forward thinking, funny, witty, ironic and deeply emotional. She does many things in different areas whether it's music, art, video, performances, design, dance, but above all she tells stories, where all these interests morph together to ...

20
Live Review

Punkt Festival 2014

Read "Punkt Festival 2014" reviewed by Henning Bolte


Punkt Festival Kristiansand, Norway September, 4-6, 2014 Kristiansand, home of the Annual Punkt Festival for the past decade, is a municipality situated on the southernmost point of Norway at the Skagerrag strait. It has a population of 86,000 (the greater urban area, 155,000) and is the county capital of Vest- Agder. Crystallization of new concepts and development often take place and are given a push from the periphery, with Punkt a good and prominent ...

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50

Performance / Tour

Laurie Anderson | Santa Barbara | Review | Pics

Laurie Anderson | Santa Barbara | Review | Pics

Source: JamBase

Words & Images by: L. Paul Mann Laurie Anderson :: 10.19.10 :: UCSB Campbell Hall :: Santa Barbara, CA Laurie Anderson, the godmother of multimedia performance art in America, brought her latest work to Santa Barbara. Playing in familiar surroundings at the University of California Santa Barbara's Campbell Hall, she performed her third piece there in a decade as part of the UCSB Arts and Lectures Series. According to her official website her newest endeavor, Delusion, “is a series of ...

Pat Moonchy
vocals
Anna Iachino
poet / spoken word

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Cloudward

Nonesuch Records
2024

buy

Landfall

Nonesuch Records
2018

buy

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