Songs Laurie Anderson

Songs from the Bardo begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration. Anderson, Choegyal, and Smith fuse modern compositional techniques with the mystique of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to make these visionary traditions more accessible to a new generation of listeners and to reveal the ancient wisdoms contained within.

There was a backlash against Laurie Anderson in "serious" musical and artistic circles after the completely unexpected mainstream commercial success of her debut album, Big Science. (The eight-plus-minute single "O Superman" was a chart hit in England, unbelievably enough.) A fair listen to Big Science leaves the impression that jealousy must have been at the root of the reception because Big Science is in no way a commercial sellout. A thoughtful and often hilariously funny collection of songs from Anderson's work in progress, United States I-IV, Big Science works both as a preview of the larger work and on its own merits. Opening with the hypnotic art rock of "From the Air," in which an airline pilot casually mentions that he's a caveman to a cyclical melody played in unison by a three-part reeds section, and the strangely beautiful title track…

Laurie Anderson - United States Live (1983) {4CD Set Warner Bros. 9251922 rel 1991}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.26 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 702 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 75 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1983, 1991 Warner Bros. | 9 25192 2
Experimental Music / Avant-Garde / Alternative

Once her popularity seemed assured, Warner Bros. felt safe releasing this five-record set (since reissued on four CDs) comprising United States' entire four-and-a-half hours. It's not the first place I'd recommend going to hear Anderson's work, but for those so inclined it's well worth the effort. Although live performances of United States included film segments that ran during some of her monologues, United States is about communication and how we interpret and use language. It's a bit pretentious, a tad long-winded, and its size makes it unwieldy to listen to in one sitting, but this is an important work loaded with enough insight, wit, and humanity to make relistening and re-evaluating worthwhile.

Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels (1989) {Warner Bros. 925 900-2}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 274 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 110 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 54 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1989 Warner Bros. | 925 900-2
Rock / Avant-Garde / Experimental / Alternative

Laurie Anderson's third proper studio album, coming over five years after 1984's Mister Heartbreak (1986's Home of the Brave was a film soundtrack), is a near-total departure from anything she had done before or, indeed, anything she did after. The most purely musical of Anderson's albums and the one on which she does the most actual singing (though her trademark deadpan spoken-word passages are still present and accounted for), Strange Angels seems to be Anderson's idea of a straightforward pop album.

Laurie Anderson - Homeland (2010) {CD & DVD5 Set Nonesuch 524055-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 333 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 158 Mb
DVD-5 -> 2.83 Gb | All Regions | NTSC 16:9 | Dolby AC3, 2 ch | 48:46 | ISO Image
Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 23 Mb
© 2010 Nonesuch Records / Warner | 524055-2
Experimental Rock / Mixed Media / Violin / Spoken Word

'Homeland' is produced by Anderson with Lou Reed and Roma Baran, and engineered by Anderson, Pat Dillett, Mario McNulty, and Marc Urselli. The music is instantly recognizable as Anderson's, though it draws on a broad scope of styles: She sings throughout and plays newly developed sounds on violin, as well as contributing keyboards and percussion. Her vocals are often mediated by the vocal filter she long ago invented to perform her signature "audio drag," this time voicing Fenway Bergamot, the male alter-ego who appears on the album's cover and narrates the song "Another Day in America."

Beyond the Music is a special 15-CD edition celebrating contralto Marian Anderson, the first Black singer at the Met. On April 9, 1939, a cold Easter Sunday, a woman in a fur coat walked down the steps of Lincoln Memorial, ready to perform open-air after being refused the largest hall in Washington because she was Black. As contralto Marian Anderson raised her voice to sing the words of My Country, ’Tis of Thee to the 75,000 who gathered to listen to her, an unforgettable historic moment unfolded. The great voice of “The Lady from Philadelphia,” first discovered by her local neighborhood, took her to global fame on the stages of Europe, Asia, and America. She became the first Black woman to perform at the Met in New York, she sang for presidents and kings, was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and with her dignity, courage, and unwavering belief in equal rights she became an icon in her supportive role for the civil rights movement.

John Zorn - Alhambra Love Songs (2009) {Tzadik TZ 7374}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 256 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 103 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2009 Tzadik | TZ 7373 | Tzadik Archival Series
Jazz / Experimental / Easy Listening / Contemporary Jazz / Piano Trio

In an easy listening mode, Alhambra Love Songs is Zorn’s touching and lyrical ode to the San Francisco/Bay Area and the wonderful artists who have made it their home. Including tributes to artists as diverse as Vince Guaraldi, Clint Eastwood, David Lynch, Mike Patton and Harry Smith, the music is some of the most beautiful and soothing Zorn has ever written.

A little bit of everything can be found on this soundtrack to German director Wim Wenders's 1987 film: theme music, songs from the film, and even some dialogue. It's an eclectic mix, but it hangs together well, instantly evoking the moody, somber texture of Wenders's remarkable story of an angel's desire to once again become flesh and blood. Jürgen Knieper's solemn, meditative string compositions dominate the first half of the disc, interspersed with actor Bruno Ganz's reading of the Peter Handke poem "Lied Vom Kindsein (Song of Childhood)"; it's a dramatic effect that works here almost as well as it does onscreen over sweeping panoramas of a still-divided Berlin. And even if you haven't seen the film, several songs featured prominently in it make this soundtrack an essential listen–namely, Nick Cave's relentlessly spooky "The Carny" and Crime and the City Solution's brilliantly droopy "Six Bells Chime".