Laurie Anderson at ICA (London), 1990

"[...] thrills for me are discovering something while I'm working or talking to someone or suddenly realizing "oh I could see that upside down for a second" or you just suddenly get a totally different point of view of a very familiar situation. To me that's a kind of key of... if it's already familiar but I can look at it as if it's not at all."

(Laurie Anderson, 1990)

Listen to a gorgeous conversation between Laurie Anderson and Sarah Kent at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, UK. According to the British Library's archive, the recording was made back in November 1990, cca. a year after the release of 'Strange Angels' album, and towards the last month of the 'Empty Places' Tour which was running almost during the whole year in 1990. Consequently, it's no surprise that among the topics were the current tour and the album; Wim Wenders; learning to sing; having a lot of different voices; speed and avant-garde; senator Jesse Helms and 'Coolsville' - plus many many more. There's a particularly amusing part about Ken Nordine around 38 minutes into the record; Laurie did a hilarious imitation of his manner of speaking.

• Laurie Anderson talk at ICA (1990) (audio length: 73 mins 13 secs; listen to the stream directly in the archive of the British Library)

Messiness and Chaos (and a Bunch of Other Things, Too)

"I was originally a sculptor and I love things that just don't fit into boxes. I'm really happy when I see that things don't fit."

(Laurie Anderson, October 2010)

KUSF Radio (San Francisco) recently aired a conversation between Laurie Anderson and radio DJ Bryan Chandler, originally recorded in October 2010. Now you can listen to the whole two-hour-long Laurie Anderson Special in KUSF Radio's online archive - with a detailed introduction to Laurie's career by Bryan Chandle.



If you are interested in only the interview, here it is, cut into three parts - I edited the songs out and did some noise reduction on the audio:

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part One (audio length: 6 mins 31 secs, file size: 8.96 MB)

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part Two (audio length: 5 mins 59 secs, file size: 8.24 MB)

• Bryan Chandler's interview with Laurie Anderson on KUSF - Part Three (audio length: 7 mins 44 secs, file size: 10.6 MB)

(Impatient? Here's some tags for you: 'Homeland', workaholism, Karl Marx, 'Transitory Life', 'Delusion', progress, old hard drives and altitude, messiness and chaos, wedding, yawning, lip-synching, TV-B-Gone, food porn, Ken Nordine - who could wish for more.)


FYI: the list of songs that were played:

Flow
Let X = X
It Tango
Only an Expert remix
Sharkey's Day
Transitory Life
O Superman
Is Anybody Home
Strange Perfumes

Another Day in America
Sharkey's Night
Falling
Only an Expert
Accompanied by Ghosts
Difficult Listening Hour
The Ugly One with the Jewels

Stare with Your Ears

...This could be an excerpt from a Laurie Anderson lyrics but it's the title of a documentary on Ken Nordine, le doyen of spoken word, created by Pakistani-Canadian film director Omar Majeed, featuring interview excerpts of - amongst others - Laurie Anderson.

Extra: a recording of the Meltdown Festival that is mentioned in the documentary (created by Laurie Anderson in London, 1997) can be listened to here.