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Laurie Anderson: Life on a String

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Nonesuch/Elektra Records
Released: 2001.08.21
Time:
 44:15
Category: Avant-garde, Experimental, Pop
Producer(s): Laurie Anderson, Hal Willner
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.laurieanderson.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] One White Whale (L.Anderson) - 2:03
[2] The Island Where I Come From (L.Anderson) - 4:08
[3] Pieces and Parts (L.Anderson) - 3:36
[4] Here with You (L.Anderson) - 2:22
[5] Slip Away (L.Anderson) - 5:50
[6] My Compensation (L.Anderson/S.Sverrisson) - 2:28
[7] Dark Angel (L.Anderson) - 3:22
[8] Broken (L.Anderson) - 3:19
[9] Washington Street (L.Anderson) - 4:41
[10] Statue of Liberty (L.Anderson) - 4:24
[11] One Beautiful Evening (L.Anderson) - 5:05
[12] Life on a String (L.Anderson) - 2:57

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Laurie Anderson - Vocals, Violin, Keyboards, Percussion, Producer, Additional Engineer

Skúli Sverrisson - Musical Direction, Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Sounds, Percussion Programming
Hal Willner - Turntables on [6], Sampling on [6,7], Producer
Joey Baron - Percussion on [1], Drums on [5, 8,9]
Martin Brumbach - Percussion Arrangement on [11]
Vinicius Cantuária - Percussion on [12]
Mino Cinelu - Percussion on [2]
Greg Cohen - Arco Bass on [2]
Danny Frankel - Percussion, Handclapping on [2], Box-O-Toys on [11]
Erik Friedlander - Cello on [3, 4, 5, 10]
Bill Frisell - Guitar on [9]
Mitchell Froom - Mellotron on [3, 8, 11], Claviola on [3], Wurlitzer on [8]
Eyvind Kang - Violin on [3]
John Kelly - Backing Vocals on [1]
Liheng – Baritone Banhu on [5]
Tom Nelis - Vocals on [1]
Van Dyke Parks - Keyboards, Conductor, String Arranger on [10]
Lou Reed - Guitar on [11]
Ben Rubin - Bells on [9]
Peter Scherer - Keyboards on [5, 8, 12]
Jamshied Sharifi - Strings, Additional Keyboards on [5]
Chris Speed - Saxophone on [2]
David Torn - Loops on [2]
Cuong Vu - Trumpet on [2]
Mocean Worker - Beats, Keyboards on [11]

Martin Brumbach - Engineer, Mixing on [2,10]
Bob Brockmann - Additional Engineer, Mixing on [1,3-9,11-12]
Dante DeSole - Additional Engineer
Josiah Gluck - Additional Engineer
Robert C. Ludwig - Mastering
David Bither - Executive Producer
Barbara De Wilde - Artwork
Victor Schrager - Photography
Noah Greenberg - Cover Photography

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2001 CD Nonesuch/Elektra Records 79539

Recorded at The Lobby, New York City, mixed at NuMedia, New York City, mastered at Gateway Mastering Studios (Portland, ME, USA)

One of Anderson's predominantly musical (as opposed to spoken-word) albums, Life on a String was recorded at the Lobby Studios in New York City under the musical direction of Skúli Sverrisson, and produced by Anderson and Hal Willner. Guest musicians on the album include Van Dyke Parks, Mocean Worker, Mitchell Froom and Lou Reed. The first three songs, "One White Whale," "The Island Where I Come From," and "Pieces and Parts," were taken from her show Songs and Stories from Moby Dick. The song "Slip Away" is about the death of her father.




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



2001's Life on a String is a peculiar entry in Laurie Anderson's career, in that elements of it echo her previous work without sounding much like anything she's done before. In particular, the album has ties both to 1982's Big Science (like that album, Life on a String largely consists of songs taken from a much larger work, her musical theater piece Moby Dick) and 1989's Strange Angels (it returns to the more musical side of her style, which had been largely abandoned on her two '90s releases). Unfortunately, it doesn't measure up to either of those career high points. In its favor, the sound is a new and intriguing development for Anderson; an accomplished violin player who previously had only used the instrument pretty much as a prop, Anderson fills all of these songs with front-and-center string sections that provide an entirely different texture for her usual meandering melodies. On the minus side, the lyrics largely feel about half-written, full of jarring transitions and lines that seem to be there to take up space until Anderson writes the real words. The primary exception is "Slip Away," a moving song about the death of her father that's probably the most direct and emotional song Anderson has ever written. It's the clear high point of Life on a String; unfortunately none of the rest of the album compares.

Stewart Mason - All Music Guide
 

 L y r i c s


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