Laurie Anderson "Amelia" (2024)

Amelia

release date: Aug. 20, 2024

format: digital (22 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,72]

producer: Laurie Anderson

label: Nonesuch - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "To Circle the World" - 3. "Take-Off" - 4. "Aloft (feat. ANOHNI)" - 5. "San Juan" - 7. "Crossing the Equator (feat. ANOHNI)" - 10. "The Letter" - 11. "India and on Down to Australia (feat. ANOHNI)" - 13. "Flying at Night" - 15. "Road to Mandalay" - 21. "Radio (feat. ANOHNI)"

[ full playlist ]

8th studio album by Laurie Anderson follows more than 14 years [!] after Homeland (Jun. 2010) and is a conceptual album based on the final 1937 flight by American aviation pioneer, Amelia Earhart. Not surprisingly, over the span of more than a decade, Anderson has been engaged with other projects - e.g. her own film as well as the soundtrack Heart of a Dog (Oct. 2015), and a number of collaborative works, which count Landfall (Feb. 2018) made with Kronos Quartet, Songs From the Bardo (2019) made with Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith, and Dokument #2 (2020) made with Brian Eno and Ebe Oke. So no, Laurie Anderson has far from retired!

In many ways, Amelia is what we have come to know as the kind of a work of art made by Laurie Anderson - not as much for being what you would have expected, 'cause it's not that Anderson in her older days has found a secure base from where she sticks to a well-known formula. It's more in the sense that it simply couldn't have been made by anyone else. Now, the album comes with 22 titled tracks - and yes, that's quite a bit but with a total running time going just under 35 mins, it's not an extensive release as most tracks only run around the minute - ranging from 29 seconds to almost 4 mins, but again, most tracks have running times below two minutes, and that adds up and explain the short running time. Strangely, it works really well due to the nature of the songs as being interconnected with one another. Overall, the album narrates the story of Earhart's last flight, with Anderson both making what appears as an account of what is factually known, where and when did she initiate her final flight? What was her mission? There are both factual notes from journals and radio logs with the actual words that were sent from the aviation control tower on the ground making attempts of withholding a communication line with Earhart after she had disappeared; and then the single tracks are made like small diary notes of what she could've experienced on her way on a specific day. In that way, it's a kind of fictionalised storytelling. And then of course, Anderson doesn't tell the story as a linear story but cleverly changes her perspective from describing the overall project to episodes of detailed observations - back and forth. Anderson starts off with the project idea behind Earhart's flight: to circumnavigate the Earth by flying from East to West, from Oakland, California and back again. An audio excerpt of Earhart neatly appears in midst of a song (track #12 "This Modern World") - close to the being at the centre of the album - and Anderson continues the narration, while the listener is led deeper into the mystery. It feels like witnesssing a film perceived through the ears, and Anderson showcases her ability to structure works at an extraordinary level, and I come to think of her most fascinating film "Heart of a Dog", which also exists as a recommended standalone soundtrack album. Amelia is in that way only a musical story without a contributing film. The instrumentation here is classical orchestra music featuring vocal performances, especially highlighted by the presence of ANOHNI, who enrich selected tracks with otherworldly vocal and everything has been arranged by use of full orchestras including Filharmonie Brno and Trimbach Trio with much focus on strings.

It's not an album of regular songs. It's predominantly spoken-word, but there's a lot of music to emphasize emotions and actions, much as in a regular film. Anderson has her own distinct vocal and her own diction, which to me nearly always works as a magnet to my ears - just watch the aforementioned film, and then listen to this very album.

This is one of Anderson's best achievements, and I'm only bewildered in how to rate this remarkable work. I've had the album on repeat - it works really well on endless repeat. And again: there are hardly any regular songs here - perhaps track #21 comes closest to that, but what should be highlighted is the entire album. It's one 'long' story, meant to be listened to from start to finish, and it actually points to the question: shouldn't it better be regarded as one long composition divided into musical cues?

Highly recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Pitchfork 7,1 / 10, Uncut 4 / 5, PopMatters, Clash 4,5 / 5 stars ]

=> The Story of 'Amelia' by Laurie Anderson

Sinéad O'Connor "I'm Not Bossy I'm the Boss" (2014)

I'm Not Bossy I'm the Boss

release date: Aug. 11, 2014

format: digital (15 x File, FLAC) (Deluxe Edition)

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]

producer: John Reynolds

label: Nettwerk - nationality: Ireland

Track highlights: 1. "How About I Be Me" - 2. "Dense Water Deeper Down" - 4. "Your Green Jacket" - 5. "The Vishnu Room" - 6. "The Voice of My Doctor" - 9. "8 Good Reasons" - 10. "Take Me to Church" - 11. "Where Have You Been?"

10th and final studio album by Sinéad O'Connor following 2½ years after How About I Be Me (And You Be You)? (Feb. 2012). The standard digital, cd, and vinyl issues comes as 12 tracks versions, and a digital and cd 'Limited' Deluxe Edition adds another three tracks to the set list and extends the total running time from 41 mins to 50 mins. As was the case with her fine 2012 album, this one is produced by John Reynolds, who plays drums and keyboards and also handles programming and mixing of the album, and then he's also co-composer of more than half of the songs. Guitarist Graham Kearns is co-composer of five songs. Guitarist Justin Adams has co-composed two tracks - he also played on her 2012 album as well as playing on the Gospel Oak ep (1997), but Reynolds is the only recurring name from her earliest albums who participate on this, as he appears as O'Connor's only stable instrumentalist throughout her career. Additionally, Sean Kuti is credited saxophone on an album that also features Brian Eno on keyboards as he did on the 2012 album.

Stylewise, the album follows the rock-energy of the predecessor, and in many ways it feels much like a second chapter to that. There's of course the new distinct persona of O'Connor, which makes this stand out in all of her discography. For this, she has been styled as some new Joan Jett-inspired dominatrix, which both serves to create a distance from her own life and at the same time comes out as something forced, or at best: a new suit to represent a new image to create the proper distance - a shield. Musically, the album continues the blend with a few soft ballads and a majority of energetic rockers. It has become more evident that O'Connor no longer possesses the same prolific vocal instrument she became renowned for. Age and smoking (?) has taken a toll on her vocal cords that necessarily provides for another expression. It's not that her vocal performance by normal standards is bad or particular narrow, it's just that it has become clear that there's a change and a limitation. That said, the album is far from one of her lesser ones. It's actually as if she has regained some of her initial strengths on this and on the former that should've served well to extend the career. Some see this as another step up with more tension and better arrangements and production compared to her 2012 'comeback' album. Some critics highlight this as a kind of a swan song and they accentuate that she succeeds in abstaining from lyrics about her own experiences in life. This I think, is more a matter of style and oversimplification, I think, 'cause the album is filled to the brim with songs that could easily be viewed as sheer autobographical as any of her previous songs. You could instead argue that her writing skills have improved, which isn't to say that her starting point and the source to her songs has changed. In her private life, O'Connor seems to continue struggles with life and relationships. In 2006 she gave birth to a son Yeshua - the father, Frank Bonadio and O'Connor separated in 2007. In 2010, O'Connor married Steve Cooney - the couple separated in early 2011, and then in late 2011 she married a therapist, Barry Herridge in Las Vegas - a marriage that lasted one week.

Two tracks from the album were selected as singles: "Take Me to Church" (Jul. 2014) as promotional single followed by "8 Good Reasons" (Oct. 2014), none of which made a huge impact on the singles chart list. I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss is a fine and a solid album to end a splendid career with, although, it did became an unforseen early end. Her final years appears to have been overshadowed with personal difficulty, which also explains why a follow-up to this very album never was recorded. In 2017 O'Connor changed her name to Magda Davitt as she explicitly wanted to free herself from 'patriarchal slave names', and one year later she converted to Islam and adopted the name of Shuhada' Sadaqat.

O'Connor passed away Jul. 2023 after a period with unstable health. She openly talked of mental sickness, and she spent some time in and out of hospital after having released this album and she also fought her cannabis addiction. In 2022, O'Connor was outspoken about a new mental low after her son Shane had committed suicide, and she was again hospitalised with mental struggles. O'Connor's death in 2023 at age 56 is, however, declared due to natural causes.

In the liner notes to most of her albums, O'Connor has often directed the attention to others, husbands, peoples, religions - on I'm Not Bossy, I'm the Boss O'Connor dedicates the album to herself. She issued an autobiography "Rememberings" in 2021, which are critically acclaimed memoirs. The album here may not be among her top-5 albums but lesser will do and it's definitely one to know of. Imo, and out of her ten studio albums, this one sits comfortably as her sixth overall best.

Recommended.

[ 👍allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, 👉Pitchfork 7,3 / 10, Mojo 4 / 5, The Guardian, Slant 3 / 5 stars ]