India And On Down To Australia

 

I didn't expect to hear anything from Laurie Anderson worth mentioning in these pages. Not that I don't appreciate the work of the performance artist, but since Oh Superman in the 80's I can't think of any songs that I can remember. Now Anderson is back with an album in which she focuses on the life and work of Amelia Earhart.

In her era, Earhart was probably what today would be described as an ‘it girl’ or influencer - with the difference that she had a real track record: born in 1897 in the US state of Kansas, Amelia Earhart refused to accept the conventions and gender-specific constraints of the time as a woman even as a teenager and became an icon with her record-breaking flights in the 1930's - not only in aviation, but also as a pioneer for the emancipation of women. 

The album is essentially about her last flight in which she wanted to circle the earth along the equator, but she did not succeed and was considered lost over the Pacific since 1937. Together with a Czech orchestra, Anderson has set radio messages, diary entries and telegrams to music. Rarely have spoken words and an orchestra dominated by cello entered into such a warm symbiosis as on this piece. If the rest of Amelia is just as good, it is likely to be an album that you will return to again and again.