Track Listing

1. White Lily
2. Salesman
3. Night Flight From Houston
4. End Of The World
5. Same Time Tomorrow
6. Word Of Mouth
7. Ouija Board
8. Soul Is A Bird
9. Cultural Ambassador
10. Mysterious
11. Someone Else's Dream
12. Maria Teresa Teresa Maria
13. Hollywood Strangler
14. On The Way To Jerusalem
15. Rotowhirl
16. John Lilly
17. Geographic North Pole
18. Ugly One With The Jewels

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90261 in Music
• Released on: 1995-03-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Soundtrack
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
Laurie Anderson's 1994 album, BRIGHT RED is the outgrowth of STORIES FROM THE NEW BIBLE, a series of tales developed byLaurie Anderson and subsequently published in book form. These STORIES were also performed at live concerts ("readings") in the early '90s. THE UGLY ONE WITH THE JEWELS was recorded at a London reading in 1993.
Accompanied by minimal instrumentation-often Anderson alone on keyboards and violin-she spins her tales. Her stories cover a wide range of topics, but somehow seem to be part of a single, ever-evolving whole. She tells of a bizarre artists' retreat on a small Pacific island ("Word of Mouth"), an ill-fated hitchhiking trip north ("The Geographic North Pole"), and the by-turns amusingand creepy tale of "The Hollywood Strangler", a slightly reworked version of an interlude on her masterpiece, UNITED STATES. Trivia fans should note that pre-eminent ambient soundpainter Brian Eno appears here, guesting on keyboards on "Maria Teresa Teresa Maria".

Customer Reviews

The best of Laurie Anderson's cd's
Laurie Anderson is a master storyteller. This CD is a recording of one show out of her tour "Stories from the Nerve Bible". It features Laurie reading stories from her book with minimal musical background (mostly pre-recorded vocals, birds, natural sounds etc.). Laurie does not sing nor uses much effects as on her other works, but simply tells short stories and observations. The stories are very diverse - ranging from observations on life and death ("The Soul is a bird", "The End of the World"), politics ("The cultural.."), Laurie's work methods ("The salesman") etc. Laurie's voice is simply hypnotic, soothing, and very expressive.

A Kind Of Mental Movie
I regard Laurie Anderson as the most important multimedia performance artist of the late twentieth century and enjoy the contradiction of her mistrust and articulate dissection of technology with the large-scale deployment of cutting edge electronics and digital gizmos in her own work, notably in United States I-IV, which to my mind remains her finest achievement and spawned the essential album Big Science. Exhibitions of her mixed media work are also highly recommended.

Laurie Anderson regards the tour of these readings from her book, Stories From The Nerve Bible, as "the most low-tech show I've ever done. I sat on the stage with keyboards, digital effects machines, a violin and a twenty-four input mixing console and mixed the sound myself." Reduced even further to just an audio track on a CD the collection becomes even more intimate and engaging; "a kind of mental movie", as she describes it in the sleeve notes, a movie of stories that cover twenty years of her work as an artist, told with guile and craft and not a little warmth and humour from this remarkable performer

singular, lilting, expressive, emotive
I have to say that I could listen to Laurie Anderson reading excerpts form the phone book - she has the most singular, lilting, expressive, emotive voice. But here she weaves a web of tales, reminiscences, thoughts and musings to form a coherent whole which reveals itself slowly to you. Her recent intimate stage shows have been in the same vein and would also make for fantastic recordings.