Bright Red

by

Laurie Anderson

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Ten years after recording her most optimistic album, "Mr. Heartbreak", Laurie Anderson released the brooding, haunted "Bright Red". The name itself seems bitingly ironic; there isn't a "bright" song in the bunch. Rather, these tracks are suffused with a pervading darkness, courtesy of Brian Eno's atmospheric textures. Anderson's voice, usually an inviting, conversational one capable of inducing subtle sparks of emotion, now seems strange, confrontational and ghostly. Her love interest at the time, Lou Reed, participates in a grave duet with the artist on "In Our Sleep", and Adrian Belew turns in appropriately subtle guitar work, but the entire CD is permeated with a creeping sense of inevitability. As if to underscore this undercurrent of dread, Anderson's lyrics speak of lost control, isolation and lost threads of sanity. For those unaquainted with her work, neophites may find such a description unappealing; even so, this is an uncompromising, mature work that ranks as one of Anderson's best. Personal Favorites: the gauzy feeling of dislocation evident in "Speechless" and the creeping insanity of a scorned lover in "Poison". Representative Lyrics: "Daddy daddy, it was just like you said/ Now that the living outnumber the dead." ("Speak My Language"); "A small bullet, a piece of glass/ And your heart just grows around it." ("Poison"); "If this is the work of an angry god/ I want to look into his angry face./ There is no pure land now./ No safe place." ("Love Among the Sailors")

Up to this release, there was always something to Laurie Anderson's releases that seemed to emphasize a connection to the listener and/or their experiences. But "Bright Red" seems to be much more about dis/misconnection...and somehow, this thematic imperative has gotten into the works here to the point that I, myself, have some real trouble listening to this one. Maybe there's something that's rubbing me the wrong way here, or maybe Laurie's doing her job a bit _too_ well in communicating the underlying themes. At any rate, this also marks something of a return to a more stripped-down style, more akin to her early work, yet retaining some of the pop complexity of later albums in the playing. I just couldn't connect with this, though...and it doesn't seem to want to connect with me.