Laurie Anderson

Seldom, if ever, have panethnic musical components been so seamlessly integrated with
high-sci instrumental technology as on Mister Heartbreak, a record that, in its pure sonic
preoccupations, makes performance artist Laurie Anderson's 1982 debut LP, Big Science,
sound like a simple pop album. Assisted by such unlikely collaborators as Peter Gabriel,
King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew and drummers Anton Fier and David Van Tieg... More >

It should come as no surprise that art-rock is what this art-world heroine is up to, at least on record. And though for sheer wordcraft I'll still take Dave Alvin or August Darnell, as art-rock lyricists go she's top-class--compare Fripp & Co., or collaborator Peter Gabriel. Given how often art-rock projects are sunk by literary malfeasance, not to mention Anderson's fundamentally verbal shtick, she'd better be. And given how often art-rock projects are sunk by silly music, it's a good thing too that this putative violinist-composer has accrued so much studiocraft, utilizing sometime co-producer Bill Laswell not so much to pin down a groove as to perfect the kind of coloristic electronic effects semiexperimentalists like to fool around with. As a result, the aural content is as suggestive as the lyrics, with a sensuality and sonic panache Anderson the narrator has no trouble living up to. For art-rock, rich stuff. (Grade: A-)