Laurie Anderson dedicates new album to an aviation pioneer
Calling Laurie Anderson a musician doesn't do her justice. At all. Born Laura Philips Anderson in 1947 in a small town in Illinois, the artist is one of those rare human beings who deserves to be called multi-talented.
She sings, creates (and then plays) experimental violins, mesmerizes fans with unique performances and is just as at home on the literary scene as she is in the world of film. In addition, Anderson, who has received numerous accolades in a wide variety of disciplines, is a gifted storyteller.
She is now proving all of this on her new album "Amelia", which is being released worldwide on August 30. On this concept album, which features 22 spoken word tracks, Anderson tells the story of the final voyage taken by the trailblazing US aviator, Amelia Earhart.
In 1937, five years after her spectacular record-breaking flight across the Atlantic, Earhart wanted to set another record: to be the first person to fly around the world at the equator. On 21 May 1937, she set off on her pioneering feat; six weeks later she left New Guinea for the final leg - and has been missing ever since.
Not an easy listen
Anderson has captured the tragedy of this flight of no return in 22 tracks: there are sound colleges, soundtrack-like sequences, melodies and snippets of sound in which Anderson attempts to immerse herself in the feelings and thoughts of the female pilot on her flight 87 years ago. It's not easy listening. The sparsely arranged tracks exude a dark foreboding that infiltrates even the confident songs with almost conventional melodies, such as "Brazil", "India And On Down To Australia" and "Road to Mandalay".
The most haunting track is "Broken Chronometers", in which she retraces Earhart's attempt to fly around the world. She takes on the voice of Earhart, discussing her poor physical health and her even worse chances of landing. However, she puts an end to the negative thoughts with a forceful call of "Stop!"
"Missing, presumed dead"
Perhaps things really happened like this, when Amelia Earhart sent her last recorded message at 8:40 a.m. on 2 July, high above the Pacific Ocean. Shortly afterwards, the US government launched an intensive search operation involving 64 aircraft and 8 warships. Over the course of two weeks, more than 400,000 square metres of the Pacific were searched. She was then declared "missing, presumed dead".
Anyone who listens to this sublime album, which was created with the participation of musicians such as Rob Moose, Marc Ribot and the Brno Philharmonic orchestra, may find it hard to believe that Laurie Anderson has also served the mainstream perfectly before: In 1981 her song "O Superman" became a surprise hit in the UK.
An iconic duo
However, the avant-garde pioneer's heyday came in the mid-1990s, when she formed a musical duo with her boyfriend Lou Reed, who she went on to marry in 2008. Almost like John Lennon and Yoko One, the duo fuelled the New York art scene with all kinds of surprises until Reed's death in 2013.
Despite her advanced age, the artist is as agile and versatile as ever. In 2015 she shot the feature film "Heart Of A Dog", in 2016 she was appointed to the competition jury of the Venice International Film Festival, in 2018 she won a Grammy for her collaboration with the Kronos Quartet and in 2020 she was elected a member of the American Academy Of Arts And Letters.
