Nonesuch Records has reissued Laurie Anderson’s classic Big Science in time for its 25th birthday, and Anderson’s downtown jumble of tape manipulations, industrial sonorities, proto-electronica, and performance art shtick sounds as wonky and forward-thinking as when I first heard it a decade ago in college. (From the same teacher who first played me Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). I have no idea where that guy is now, but I owe him a few drinks.) The reissue includes, among other bonuses, the video for U.K. No. 2 hit “O Superman”–the eight-minute journey into sound whose disembodied, floating phonemes anticipate everything from the Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love” to the Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works II–which is also posted above, thanks to some kind soul at YouTube.
Grappling with <i>Big Science</i>
July 19th, 2007 // 3 Comments
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Who ARE these goddam teenagers?
Lemme tell you about buying “Language is a Virus” on 7″…
The best part is I’ll still be sitting here ten years from now when the next wet-behind-the-ears Edi-Tot waxes poetic on “Brimful of Asha”: “It was like Indian DEVO…” or some such.
Bah…”circuit bending.” Pete Wentz…”speed garage”…[assorted additional old man snorts and grumbles]…
I adore Laurie Anderson, and this is the album that started it. Yeah, it was only a couple of years ago, but still. Great album.
As much as I love this album (and I love it – A LOT – side note: one of my favorite memories of middle school is my mother shrieking that she “doesn’t like me listening to that crazy woman”) I’ll be annoyed if I have to wait 2 more years for a remaster on “Mister Heartbreak.” I need to hear wild Bill Burroughs croaking in significantly higher fidelity than I can get now.