bloch%mandrill@UCSD.EDU (Steve Bloch) (11/04/89)
Caution: writer is in an abnormal state of ecstasy. Spelling, grammar, and rationality may suffer. So I wakes up this morning and calls the campus record store (the one I walked into a month ago and said "When are you gonna have the new Kate Bush album?" and they said "Kate Bush has a new album?"), and they say "Yes, the new Jane Siberry just came in a few minutes ago. We're holding it for you. Yes, the new Laurie Anderson just came in too; if you want, we can hold the one copy for you." So I said, mmm, yes... Anyway, to cut things short, I just listened to _Strange_Angels_ for the first time. I'd been warned, of course, that it wasn't what you expect from Laurie Anderson. And if I hadn't been, she warns you in the first track, quoting a lot of her earlier stuff to make sure you're on the same wavelength and then saying "Old stories -- they're haunting me. Big changes are coming...here they come...here they come..." And for the next forty minutes, I must confess, I kept interrupting Laurie with "Wow!" and "Neat!" and a couple more "Wow!"s. I don't think I've ever had such a reaction to an album on first hearing. This album is your typical Laurie Anderson work, with one addition: MUSIC! And I do mean addition; all the mind-games Laurie's famous for are still there, the lyrics rhyme a bit more often than before, and she sings most of them rather than speaking them. I always liked her monologue style, but would you believe it works at least as well to music? In case I'm not making myself clear, GET THIS ALBUM. SELL CRACK, SWINDLE YOUR GRANDMOTHER, BUT GET THIS ALBUM. OK, Jane. Frankly, I don't dare put it on tonight; if I'm not in bliss all the way through, I'll be let down from Laurie, and if I am, well, big deal, I would have been in residual bliss anyway. I'll give it a try tomorrow morning. "Writers are a funny breed -- I should know." -- Jane Siberry bloch%cs@ucsd.edu
donley@BLAKE.ACS.WASHINGTON.EDU (E. Donley Olson) (11/05/89)
In article <7371@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu> bloch%mandrill.UUCP@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch) writes: >This album is your typical Laurie Anderson work, with one addition: >MUSIC! And I do mean addition; all the mind-games Laurie's famous for >are still there, the lyrics rhyme a bit more often than before, and >she sings most of them rather than speaking them. I always liked her >monologue style, but would you believe it works at least as well to >music? I really enjoyed the new Laurie Anderson for the new stylisms... Its as though all these experimental people are growing with the times, and the technology has now progresses with them enough that on the new Laurie album, I don't find myself sitting around and saying "Now, what's she running her voice through now?" It's as though the songs have finally busted through the technology... Eg: on "the day the devil comes..." she sings very much like a MAN, but I didn't really notice any effects this time around... COmpare with any of her old stuff with the harmonizer, where she would say "GOOD EVENING" in a very deep, but obviously processed voice... The same feeling I get from the new Kate Bush album as well (:-)). Do any of you actually NOTICE the vocoder chorus in _Deeper Understanding_, right underneath the Trio? I found that when listening REAL CLOSE on headphones one night... Normally, it just sounds very etherial. But take something off, say, _The Dreaming_, like "Leave it Open" and "Get Out of My House" and you could instantly say -- "Ah, a Flanger!" or "ooh, she's processing her voice through SOMETHING" there... That seems to have mutated nowadays. Did anyone also know that on TSW Kate no longer lists keyboards by brand name anymore (ie: Fairlight). Just "keyboards". Sounds like another indication of this trend. - Eo