Laurie Anderson - Homeland

I went to see Laurie Anderson last friday, it was incredible (I would have wrote before, but I had a busy weekend archiving a historical performance lecture about Sylvia Townsend Warner at St Annes College Oxford). 

Enough about my own endeavors, on to the magnificent Anderson: The performance was fantastic. It mixed compelling music with sharp humour, and made subtle use of equally sharp and compelling sonic technology. Anderson nourished my ears, brain and conscience with a skill and passion that I personally have never experienced before in such abundance. It features songs and sounds about the current state of world power, how the strategies of world power impact upon society, and how utter ridiculous it is to believe anything 100% (at least that was my interpretation, Laurie Anderson may well be appalled by my views).

With the regard to the sound, I am pleased to say there was interesting stuff going on! First and foremost there was the excellent musicianship of Anderson her crew of three (Eyvind Kang, Peter Scherer and Skuli Sverrisson). The music was a mixture of meandering structures and actual songs, ranging from anthemic sing alongs to ambient textures. In terms of technology I heard vocoding and harmonisers, percussion that fused africanesque rhythms with technoesque sounds, and some clever subtle use of triggered gates and effects. It was so well placed that I likely could not identify much of what was happening, but to be sure that there was enough going on from a listening perspective. Kudos must go out to Charlie Cambell and Jody Elff who are cited as being sonic architects for this show.

Brilliantly, for the encore after an enormous ovation,  Anderson came back on stage to treat us to a solo violin performance that was backed by an affected version of what she played (delayed and pitch shifted alternately higher and lower, but always sounding beautiful). I can conclusively claim this to be a great show to see - Laurie Anderson is a true star.