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Reviews of Laurie Anderson's Life on a String

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Guardian

For her first album of new material since 1994's Bright Red, Laurie Anderson planned to make an album based on her Moby-Dick multimedia show. She couldn't make it work, and instead, Life on a String comprises a dozen pieces that you could almost call songs. Thanks to the ingenuity of the arrangements and the compression in Anderson's writing, each number creates provocative ripples out of all proportion to its size. A violin player herself, she makes frequent use of grainy, flavoursome string textures, as in the ghostly minor-key minuet of Statue of Liberty. But she doesn't stop there, deploying the mysterious "baritone banhu" in Slip Away and concocting a loose and funky Afro-groove in The Island Where I Come From. Especially impressive is the way the music dovetails with the enigmatic folklorishness of the words, turning every piece into a mini-myth. Adam Sweeting


Sunday Times (UK)
"I CAN'T put all these things into words," admits Laurie Anderson on The Island Where I Come From. "Might as well put some beans in a hollow gourd and shake it, shake it." And somebody does just that, because behind this surprising confession from a woman who has established herself as a wonderful storyteller grooves a lazy, Latin shuffle. It's the most accessible piece Anderson has created since O Superman, the hit that launched her onto a wider public 20 years ago; and if it doesn't find itself on the Radio 2 playlist, somebody isn't doing their job. Van Dyke Parks provides a splendidly over-the-top string arrangement to Dark Angel, while Lou Reed contributes to One Beautiful Evening, a song that begins in the Garden of Eden and takes us on a journey through nursery rhymes to the thought: "Funny how hatred can be a beautiful thing."
Mark Edwards
Don't let the deadpan voice, arch phrasing and avant-garde haircut fool you. Despite her forbidding performance-art reputation, Laurie Anderson is a singer-songwriter of crushing poignance - a minimalist painter of melancholy moods who addresses universal themes in the vernacular of the commonplace. She's at her best on Life on a String, her first studio album in seven years. Horns dance like Mardi Gras revelers through "The Island Where I Come From," and Van Dyke Parks' daring string arrangement imbues "Dark Angel" with impish humor. But the overall tone is sparse, haunted, intimate. Vertigo-inducing violins and luminous bass tones speak Anderson's language - a poetry of loneliness that peaks through "Pieces and Parts" and the brief instrumental "Here With You"; towers majestically on the deathbed meditation "Slip Away"; then walks away with the album on the impossibly fragile, beautifully realized title track. GREG KOT (Rolling Stone 876 - August 30, 2001)
"Experimental pop icon at her most accessible" Laurie Anderson's new release is probably her most conventional to date. She's working with song forms, singing as much as narrating, and her instrumental arrangements are clean and spare, with only a restrained use of studio technology. Anderson uses some major players here - Dr. John, Bill Frisell, Van Dke Parks, Lou Reed - and the music is excellent throughout. Her typical reliance on commonplaces and nursery rhymes walks a fine line between homespun truth, irony, and banality. Suprisingly, Anderson sounds best when she's getting personal. "Broken" (about a failed relationship) and "Slip Away" (about her father's death) are among the finest things she's ever recorded. But many of the other story-songs on this CD are enriched by Anderson's wry observations on contemporary life, and if the wordplay occasionally misses the mark, the music (which includes calypso, funk, '40s jazz and chamber pop) invariably carries the day. 7 out of 10 (Alternative Press)


Laurie Anderson's voice is so perfectly calibrated and conversational that, whether she's singing or speaking, she sounds like a familiar old friend, ringing you up for a late-night phone chat, telling stories, and sharing anecdotes and insights. It's been a long time since we've heard from her: Life on a String is Anderson's first album of new musical pieces since 1994's Bright Red. It's an eerie, ghostly work -- and a surprisingly personal one. A few songs -- the bouncy, horn-driven "The Island Where I Come From," the dark, electronica-based "My Compensation" -- use tricky, syncopated rhythms, but most of Life on a String relies on seductive, wavelike music to support Anderson's provocative, profound narratives (several of which come from her most recent theater piece, Songs and Stories of Moby Dick). Co-producer Hal Willner helped to enlist a raft of guests, including Dr. John, Bill Frisell, Mitchell Froom, Lou Reed, and Van Dyke Parks (whose eccentric string arrangement for "Dark Angel" is typically brilliant), for tasteful, restrained accompaniment, and for the first time since Big Science Anderson plays violin on an album. But Life on a String is mainly a vehicle for Anderson's captivating voice. She's seductive and soothing, even when telling disquieting stories. In "Slip Away," Anderson describes standing bedside as her father dies, and the mix of love and loss make it one of her most personal songs and one of her best. Twenty years after her debut hit single "O Superman," Laurie Anderson still has stories worth hearing. Steve Klinge
A new Laurie Anderson album is usually a thing to welcome. Often less a performance artist than point person for global-village storytelling--as on 1995's The Ugly One with the Jewels--she's also demonstrated a high level of musical savvy. Life on a String's meld of Biblical references, New York wanderings, world rhythms, and chamber music doesn't cohere like it should, though. Caught between bemusement and empathy, Anderson's knack for nailing oddball details can lift her work beyond mere wit, but not here. On "Dark Angel," she damns consumerism with lines that would've been laughable even at the outset of her career in the '70s: "Look at all the things I bought / I'm feeling kind of lost." Her quoting "I'm a Little Teapot" on "One Beautiful Evening" sounds like self-parody, or the result of a lost dare with another artsy type. And is the observation that it's a small world but she wouldn't want to paint it supposed to sound fresh? For true Anderson wigginess and smarts, try Ugly One, or for that matter, her classic debut, Big Science. --Rickey Wright (Amazon.com 8/2001)
I have been listening to Life On A String for oh about a month now. I posted my first thoughts about it the same day I had been listening to it. So how do I feel about it upon repeated and repeated :-) listening? Not much has changed... It is - and I emphasise its my personal opinion - ordinary - not GREAT or BAD - and no it is NOT because the album is such a radical departure from her previous work that it sits uneasily in my ears and mind and heart... it is because it ISN'T a radical departure. It is like the old things... snake/devil walking in the garden... yadda yadda... but things which she has done better WAY better in the past. The best *song* is Slip Away... it has real pathos... real feeling (It would be interesting to find out who it was that died - I suspect someone very close to Laurie) But other than that... well ho hum... the (modern) egyptians used ancient mummies for fuel on their trains... yeah well so what? A previous poster said some songs don't end *right* - I agree... but I guess thats Laurie or her producer being *radical/creative*? It just sounds sloppy. I do however think LA LIVE is far superior to LA on CD... (Mind you, Moby Dick was a major pain to sit through) or video for that matter. (Her collected videos is pretty much an embarrasment to watch these days.) I suppose after this post people will think I don't care for her... on the contrary! I have been at her feet so to speak :-) for the past odd 20 years... (Which kinda dates ME I guess!) She has so much to say and teach... but in my view she has lost her momentum. I suspect the concerts will have the final say... I could be wrong... :-) HTH :-) Anton (Fan Review)
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 11:30:52 +0200
From: Marek Mendygral (markme@poczta.fm)
Erik writes in parentheses:
{I think we are being a bit harsh on the new album. It's no worse than ambient noodling on Bright Red. } I must say I absolutely disagree (I hope you won't take offence). "Ambient noodling" on Bright Red was at least something different from what Laurie had done before. To me it sounded fresh and original, although it might not have been to everybody's liking. And the ambient atmosphere was effectively broken by fairly aggresive tracks such as 'The puppet motel', 'Poison' or 'In our sleep'. Lyrics on Brigh Red were great, too - a mixture of irony, bitterness, sorrow... Nothing like this on LOAS - just compare 'Poison' and 'Broken' - both songs seem to deal with similar subject (a break-up), but the latter is nothing in comparison with the former - both musically and lyrically (in my opinion, that is). So, "ambient noodling" (be it a good or bad thing) on LOAS is not original, it's a repetition of what we were served before (that's what I meant when I called this CD Bright red leftovers). It's just boring. Boring.
{'The Island where I come from' sounds like an outake from Mister Heartbreak/ Big Science (handclaps, sporadic saxophone) surely THAT track has got to be one of her best for a while. } You see, new Laurie material is NOT supposed to sound like an out-take from her albums from early eighties. Some happen to like this track (maybe it reminds them of her excellent work from that period ?), good for them. But for me, the similarity of this track to her early staff disqualifies it completely. I already have her material from that time, and I would appreciate something new. Look at this planet - all that paranoia, cruelty, greed and violence. One might think that there is too much to say about it all. But apparently, Laurie is lost for words. And for music... Naturally, Laurie is under no obligation to deal with everything that's happening, but her turning into a stout teapot instead... I mean, really...
{I like Washington Street and Broken a lot too, although WS has some very naff lyrics. We always try to look foe hidden meaning in her words, but that one is literally about rain. It is a shame that when artists age, they seem to become more 'mellow' or feel a need to 'mature'.} Now, I feel there's nothing wrong with becoming 'mellow' or 'mature'. But there's everything wrong with getting boring. Look, for instance, at the latest Eurythmics CD ("Peace") - definitely their most 'mature and mellow' production ever, but there's nothing boring about it (naturally, I understand that one can hardly compare Eurythmics to Laurie, but that's not the point). Despite being 'mature and mellow' the "Peace" album sounds like nothing they've ever done before - and that's the point.
In my opinion, a typical rock/pop star is expected just to release a good album from time to time, they can even get away with releasing a mediocre album - as long as it sells, it'll still be called a success. But this is LAURIE ANDERSON that we are talking about. Who on earth, if not LAURIE, ought to be expected to provide her fans with something thought provoking and absorbing musically - something unique !
{That's why I loved Bowie's Earthling album so much, pretty agressive for a 50 year old. Anyway, I digress. Just play those three tracks on a loop. } And ignore all the rest, so that you can get the false impression that this album is actually good ? I hardly know what to say...
I really hope my comments do not sound too vicious (English isn't my first language, I often find it difficult to get the right tone), but I don't believe this album deserves mercy... sorry...
Cheers, Marek

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