Growing up in the American midwest, New York seemed like a promised land to Laurie Anderson: "It was always an hour later, darker, and somehow more alive. Things were always coming to you Live From New York." She reached the city at the end of the 60s to study at Columbia University, graduating in 1972 with an MFA in sculpture, and an involvement in the so-called Downtown scene in SoHo, where she numbered Philip Glass among her associates.

Anderson had been engaged in various performance artworks while at college, and, remaining in New York, embarked on a new series of creations: a self-playing violin, a pillow which sang to the sleeper, music for dance groups, a musical book, a concerto for automobiles, and several short film and video works.

Having worked with a number of electronic musicians, and designed the tape-bow violin (an instrument with magnetic tape instead of a bow, and a playback head instead of strings), Laurie Anderson began to perform and record as a musician with her United States I-IV series of works. From these, a single, O Superman, was issued on the small New York label, One Ten Records, in 1981. Only a thousand copies were pressed, to be sold via mail order, but the record, with its beguiling but accessible electronic minimalism, was picked up for radio play in the UK, where a distributor ordered 40,000 copies, and, before long, it reached number two in the charts. Its surprise success secured Anderson a distribution deal with Warners, who released her 1982 album, Big Science.

Her next album, Mister Heartbreak, followed a year later, featuring contributions from William S. Burroughs, Peter Gabriel and Bill Laswell, and accompanied by a large-scale tour. By this time Anderson had become heavily committed to the production of her concert film, Home Of The Brave. After it's release she returned to small-scale videos and the recording studio, releasing Strange Angels in 1989. This signalled a more overtly political content, and was performed in a style which allowed her to sing rather than talk through most of the songs. Following its release, she embarked on a six-month tour of America and Europe, and then branched out into lecture tours, documentary work, and conceptual plans for an as-yet unrealized Barcelona theme park in conjunction with Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel.

1994 saw the release of Bright Red, co-produced with Brian Eno. Lou Reed, Anderson's partner for several years, joins her in a duet on In Our Sleep. She continues to tour and record and has become known as one of the most important and wry commentators of mainstream American culture.

Recordings

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