Laurie Anderson - Live in New York
(Nonesuch)
Laurie Anderson has long had a connection with New York. She has lived there for many years, operated out of there, and been associated with the art scene. Encyclopedia Britannica even asked her to write the entry for New York for them. When the events of September 11th occurred, Anderson was on tour, performing in Chicago. By September 19th, she was back in New York. Anderson herself writes about the experience: "Playing my music on September 19th at Town Hall was one of the most intense evenings I've ever had as a performer. Live music is about being in the present and many people had been living almost exclusively in the present since the 11th of September."
Anderson was supposed to be touring to support her Life On A String tour (itself an offshoot of her abandoned attempts to record the songs from her Moby Dick tour). But these shows were different. For the first time, Anderson would be playing songs from her entire career, going all the way back to Big Science. I saw her on this tour in Los Angeles, before the September 11th attacks; the atmosphere was magical, and the playing was superb. Anderson and her band were in top form. But even the experience of being there live doesn't compare to listening to this record. There is a feeling of immediacy that comes through in this recording. Anderson begins by addressing the attacks, and then plays "Here With You" (from Life On A String), which fades into the tolling that accompanies the moody "Statue of Liberty" (from the same album). By the time she launches into Big Science's "Let X=X," she has the audience's entire attention, and the home listener's as well.
Like the best live albums, Live In New York doesn't just have the band playing previously released songs, it has the band re-imagining them. These performances are often more melodic than their studio counterparts. Anderson and her band try different ways of attacking the material, so it doesn't sound old and tired. And it works. The band here plays with freshness and vitality, and our knowledge of the context only help to reinforce the power of the performance.
So, why then does this album only get a 9/12? First of all, none of this is new material. Second, this will only appeal to people who are already Anderson fans. Newcomers would do better to check out Big Science or Mister Heartbreak first. People who have only heard Strange Angels won't find much of interest here (the title track and "Coolsville" are the only tracks that appear from that album). And people who haven't kept up with Anderson's latest releases might be turned off by the high quantity of songs from her later albums. But for those who have stuck with Anderson to this point, this album is essential. Not only is it a good place to hear a cross section of her work (the fact that it's a live album means fans will want to pick this up where they declined to get Talk Normal, which simply repackaged previously released recordings), but the performances are excellent, as well. If anything, it's worth getting because, as Laurie Anderson herself says, "At Town Hall in New York I was singing for once about the absolute present."
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