Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet - Landfall
Nonesuch Records releases Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall. The piece, which was inspired by Anderson’s experience of Hurricane Sandy, is the first collaboration between the iconic storyteller/musician and the groundbreaking string quartet, who perform together on the recording. Landfall juxtaposes lush electronics and strings with Anderson’s powerful descriptions of loss, from water-logged pianos to disappearing animal species to Dutch karaoke bars.
Kronos Quartet and Laurie Anderson have performed Landfall at commissioning presenters Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Adelaide Festival, Barbican Centre, Montclair State University, Perth International Arts Festival, Stanford Live, and the University of Texas at Austin, among other venues. The New York Times said the piece’s presentation at Brooklyn Academy of Music ‘set the auditorium awash in elegiac string sounds and postmillennial gloom. Performed by the composer and the tirelessly innovative Kronos Quartet, the work, written in New York during that epic storm, often resembled the flotsam bobbing on the receding floodwaters, with poignant snippets and small treasures.'
“These are stories with tempos,” Anderson says. “I’ve always been fascinated by the complex relationship of words and music whether in song lyrics, supertitles or voice over. In Landfall, instruments initiate language through our new text software, erst. The blend of electronic and acoustic strings is the dominant sound of Landfall. Much of the music in this work is generated from the harmonies and delays of unique software designed for the solo viola and reinterpreted for the quartet. In addition, there were elements of the optigan, a keyboard that uses information stored on optical discs.”
Kronos Quartet founder, artistic director, and violinist David Harrington says, “Laurie Anderson is the master magician musician who has always inhabited those secret places where technology has personality, where ‘real time’ is questioned and where all the elements of performance meet and combine into music. Her process is to gather and continue to gather potentially useful aspects as she sculpts a shape. Her sense of play and fun and her continuous experimenting make her the ideal chemist (or is it alchemist?) in the laboratory of music.”
TRACK LISTING
CNN Predicts a Monster Storm
Wind Whistles Through the Dark City
The Water Rises
Our Street Is a Black River
Galaxies
Darkness Falls
Dreams
Dreams Translated
The Dark Side
Built You a Mountain
The Electricity Goes out and We Move to a Hotel
We Learn to Speak Yet Another Language
Dawn of the World
The Wind Lifted the Boats and Left Them on the Highway
It Twisted the Street Signs
Then It Receded
The Nineteen Stars of Heaven
Nothing Left but Their Names
All the Extinct Animals
Galaxies II
Never What You Think It Will Be
Thunder Continues in the Aftermath
We Blame Each Other for Losing the Way
Another Long Evening
Riding Bicycles Through the Muddy Streets
Helicopters Hang Over Downtown
We Head Out
Everything Is Floating
Gongs and Bells Sing
Old Motors and Helicopters
PRODUCT DETAILS
Artist: Laurie Anderson & Kronos Quartet
Label: Pluto
Condition: New
Genre: Indie & Alternative
Format: Vinyl LP
Cat Number: 564164-1
Released: 16 February 2018
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