Anderson, Laurie: Amelia (CD)

Nonesuch Records releases Laurie Anderson’s Amelia, the 2024 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient's first new album since 2018’s Grammy-winning Landfall. The record comprises 22 tracks about renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight. Anderson, who Pitchfork says, ‘sees the future, but she starts by paying attention’, wrote the music and lyrics for this subjective narrative piece. On the album, she is joined by the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, and Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota, and Kenny Wolleson.

Earhart was a passionate pioneer of early aviation, achieving fame as the first woman to cross the Atlantic, in 1932. Five years later, she embarked on a flight around the world. Before she could complete the voyage, her plane disappeared without a trace; it has never been found. “The words used in Amelia 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,” Anderson says. First premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2000, the updated piece was recently performed across Europe.

Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Her work, which encompasses music, visual art, poetry, film, and photography, has challenged and delighted audiences around the world for more than 40 years. In a recent 60 Minutes profile, Anderson Cooper said she ‘is a pioneer of the avant garde, but ... that doesn’t begin to describe what she creates. Her work isn’t sold in galleries. It’s experienced by audiences who come to see her perform: singing, telling stories, and playing strange violins of her own invention... she [blends] the beautiful and the bizarre, challenging audiences with homilies and humor. She blurs boundaries across music, theater, dance, and film.’ The Washington Post has said she ‘doesn’t just tell stories; she draws out every word with a kind of physical pleasure, tasting its flavour as she probes the everyday mysteries of life,’ and the Guardian has called Anderson ‘one of the great popular artists and storytellers of our time'.

1. To Circle the World
   
2. I See Something Shining
   
3. Takeoff
   
4. Aloft
   
5. San Juan
   
6. Brazil
   
7. Crossing The Equator
   
8. The Badlands
   
9. Waves of Sand
   
10. The Letter
    
11. India And On Down to Australia
    
12. This Modern World
    
13. Flying at Night
    
14. The Word for Woman
    
15. Road to Mandalay
    
16. Broken Chronometers
    
17. Nothing But Silt
    
18. The Wrong Way
    
19. Fly Into the Sun
    
20. Howland Island
    
21. Radio
    
22. Lucky Dime