release date: Oct. 23, 2015
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,78]
producer: Laurie Anderson
label: Nonesuch - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 2. "Birth of Lola" - 4. "From the Air" - 6. "Lola Goes Blind" - 8. "How to Feel Sad Without Being Sad" - 11. "The Cloud" - 13. "What If the Sky Froze?" - 14. "Piano Lessons" - 15. "Animals Are Like People" - 18. "The Bardo" - 19. "The Real World" - 21. "A Story About a Story" - 24. "Bring Her Some Flowers" - 27. "Turning Time Around"
Soundtrack album by Laurie Anderson made for the film of the same name, which also premiered Oct. 2015 and it has Anderson as writer, director, and producer. The film is a semi-documentary based on the narrator's (Anderson's) story-telling centered around the life and death of Anderson's dog Lolabelle. The album include 27 tracks with a total running time exceeding 75 minutes. The shortest tracks clock in around the minute and the longest exceed 7 minutes with the majority of compositions running around 2-3 minutes. All songs except the final track, which is performed and composed by Lou Reed are all credited Anderson alone.
Not surprisingly, the soundtrack works very well on its own premises, although, it does add to the experience to actually have watched the film, and 'not surprisingly' because Anderson is perhaps best known for her musical contributions, although, she is a multi-talented artist.
The story of Lolabelle is a most fascinating idea that makes Anderson touch on themes related to various perceptions of exsistence and especially: life and death, what loss of life means to living beings. Of course the passing of Lou Reed in 2013 plays a part, and may be the major incident that spurred Anderson to put her thoughts into this. But in Anderson's refined narration, 'the Lou part' isn't explicitly dealt with, although, we understand the presense and importance of that through the subjects she deals with. The end-track perhaps says more than a lot, when Lou sings about "Turning Time Around" accompanying himself on bass the way only Lou knows how to - and tellingly on a track that could've been included on Reed's own '92 album Magic & Loss, which deals with human losses, but in reality, it stems from his 2000 album Ecstasy. And then, Lolabelle is of course far from any average type of dog. She's described in the most gentle and subtle of ways as someone who knows all human emotions and who even leads life as an artist - she plays music and she paints. Via Anderson's lively narration, Lolabelle is uplifted to some kind of superior, a kindred spirit, a transcendal being.
Heart of a Dog is much more than the soundtrack to a brilliant film. It's a film that I watched on my home TV but which still brought that extra sensations with it, which tells me, it's really a film to watch at a cinema - also given the great soundtrack, which in itself exposes all emotions with utmost delicacy.
Highly recommended.
