Album: Laurie Anderson - Amelia

Laurie Anderson is what Leonardo da Vinci would have hailed as una donna universale: inspired by science and technology, she's wide-ranging artist, a writer, film-maker, and explorer. She has a remarkable gift for story-telling, and her latest offering, an imaginative account of the woman aviator Amelia Earhart’s last voyage, taps into many of the creative currents that distinguish her.

With a voice that feels as if she were sharing her tale in the most personal way, a style that she originally displayed on her first super-hit, still as fresh as ever, “O Superman” (1981), she creates a feeling of particular intimacy. No dramatic excess here, but a feeling of being spoken to very directly, that she manages to deliver whether on stage or in an audio-only narrative. There is a trademark mixture of multi-tracking and digital tweaking that will be familiar to anyone who has listened to Anderson in the past. It could feel a little déjà entendu, but the content is new, and  reflects something essential about the artist herself, a combination of almost child-like innocence and sophisticated invention.

Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932, a remarkable feat in a world dominated by men. She was brave, adventurous and keen to impress on the world that women could do things with as much strength and courage as men. In 1937, she took off on a circumnavigation of the earth, with a radio operator and navigator. This is the stuff that inspired Laurie Anderson, and many other women.

“The words used in Amelia ”, Anderson explains, “are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might think about”.  There are some subtly used sound effects, extracts from original sound recordings, and Anderson’s music performed by the Brno Philharmonic  under the baton of conductor Dennis Russell Davies, well-known for his championing of contemporary music. There are occasional guitar interventions from Marc Ribot, and other friends and collaborators of Anderson’s: not least Anohni whose angelic voice provides just that – a supernatural presence, as well as a mirror to Amelia’s soul.  The music varies from spiky atonal to richly melodic, it sometimes feels like film soundtrack, with swirling swathes of strings that evoke the thrill of flying through the air.

This is the soundtrack for a film we play in our minds while listening. The story is vividly evoked, as she flies south to the Equator, over the jungle in Brazil, and then across the ocean to Africa. There is a feeling of elation and romance, we participate in the aviator’s excitement, wonder mixed with inevitable anxiety. This isn’t an Easyjet flight to Barcelona, but a high-risk excursion well outside the comfort zones that keep us sane. And when Earhart does finally come to grief, Anderson gently builds the tragic unfolding of her flight – reminiscent in its bravery and ambition of Icarus’s winged ascent to the heavens. On the edge of the Pacific, she loses touch with the world below and her aircraft vanishes, never to be found.

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