Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet: Landfall

Richard Gehr on January 29, 2018


Punctuated by her signature storytelling, Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet’s Landfall suggests a documentary soundtrack. Five years after Hurricane Sandy, these 30 tracks, ranging from less than a minute to almost 10 minutes in length, pack little immediacy. The strings and electronics chug along mournfully, but most will want to hear this for Anderson’s uncharacteristically terse anecdotes and aperçus. “Don’t you hate it when people tell you their dreams?” she asks before relating a story that sounds a lot like a bad dream. Would Anderson have created this calmly resigned work if her own basement hadn’t flooded and transformed her possessions into junk? “I thought to myself: ‘How beautiful, how magical, how catastrophic.’”

Artist: Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet
Album: Landfall
Label: Nonesuch