Artist : Laurie Anderson
Album : Big Science
Label : Nonesuch
Genre : Ambient
Bitrate : 175 kbps avg
Source : CD (LP)
Playtime : 00:38:45 (50.9MB)
Rls date : 2007-06-28
Store date : 2007-07-03
[Track List]
1. From The Air 4:35
2. Big Science 6:14
3. Sweaters 2:23
4. Walking & Falling 2:13
5. Born, Never Asked 4:58
6. O Superman (For Massenet) 8:27
7. Example #22 2:59
8. Let X = X 3:54
9. It Tango 3:02
When Laurie Anderson originally released Big Science, her
debut album, on Warner Bros Records in mid-1982, Rolling
Stone critic Stephen Holden pronounced her 'the most
compelling performer from New York City's bohemian art
scene to land a recording contract since Patti Smith
signed with Arista.
'Big Science', Anderson's eerie aural collage of a debut
album, communicates much of her astonishing intensity.' An
equally enthusiastic John Rockwell, in the New York Times,
declared 'Her work is unlike anything else in music, and
most highly recommended.'
This newly remastered and expanded version of Big Science
includes liner notes from Anderson herself, a video clip
for 'O Superman', and the original B-side from her 110
Records single, the gleefully weird 'Walk the Dog'.
Reviewing the album for NME, critic Andy Gill noted,
'There's a dream-like, subconscious quality about her
songs which helps them work at deeper, secret levels of
the psyche.' The musical and psychic pull of Anderson's
work hasn't diminished in the last 25 years. With
instrumentation ranging from tape loops to found sounds to
bag pipes, Big Science clearly anticipated the tech-savvy
beats, anything-goes instrumentation, and sample-based
nature of much contemporary electronic and dance music.
The album seemed downright startling in 1982 and new young
listeners will discover that it still sounds
extraordinarily up to date. Anderson was also able to
articulate in these songs, most of which were adapted from
United States, the social/political anxiety she perceived
in American society, as well as a longing for safety and
emotional connection. The themes of Big Science - with its
images of planes falling out of the sky (in 'From the
Air'), the simultaneously comforting and sinister embrace
of technology ('O Superman') and the failure of men and
women to speak the same language (in 'The It Tango') -
resonate just as deeply today, making Big Science feel as
poignant now as it was prescient then, and, at times, more
than a little chilling