LAURIE ANDERSON - AMELIA

Released: 30/08/2024

The accolades and prizes Laurie Anderson has been awarded in her extraordinary career to date betrays how brilliantly wide-ranging is her practice – Grammys, various art, dance and film awards and fellowships, a Harvard Professorship of Poetry, the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, and, perhaps best of all, her being made the first ever artist-in-residence at NASA, in 2002 (the International Astronomical Union also named a minor planet in her honour: ‘Asteroid 270588, Laurieanderson’): entirely fitting for an artist whose artistic and intellectual curiosity knows no earthly bounds.

The US artist’s new album, Amelia, once again deals with themes of flight, exploration and slipping the surly bonds of the patriarchy, taking as its inspiration the renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart, the first woman to cross the Atlantic, in 1932, and who tragically died five years later while embarking on a flight around the world. First premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2000, Amelia is a bravura mix of modern classical and avant-pop, featuring beautifully poetic lyrics based on Earhart’s pilot diaries, and the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and for the updated LP version Anderson has corralled a phenomenal list of musicians, including the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno, Anohni, Gabriel Cabezas, Martha Mooke and Marc Ribot. In a career full of pioneering, outstanding works, the astonishing Amelia is one of Anderson’s very best.