Big Science
Artist: Laurie Anderson
Community Score: 9.03

There was a backlash against Laurie Anderson in "serious" musical and artistic circles after the completely unexpected mainstream commercial success of her debut album, Big Science. (The eight-plus-minute single "O Superman" was a chart hit in England, unbelievably enough.) A fair listen to Big Science leaves the impression that jealousy must... Read More

Nous Autres
Artist: Fred Frith

This disc consists primarily of a live recording by the British avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith and the similarly inclined Canadian guitarist Rene Lussier. (The LP was originally released shortly after the 1986 concert; the CD reissue adds four studio tracks recorded in 1992.) Fans of Frith will find much to love here, and will be equally... Read More

Live
Artist: Michael Mantler

From a concert at The First International Art Rock Festival in Frankfurt, Germany, this Mantler ensemble certainly lives up to the art rock portion of the billing and trundles out a quasi-greatest-hits performance. With ex-members of bands like Cream, 10cc, the Mothers of Invention, Henry Cow, and Pink Floyd there are chops and pretensions... Read More

The Big Picture
Artist: Michael Shrieve

This collaboration between Shrieve and the talented young drummer David Beal is an electronic percussion tour-de-force with epic rhythms, powerful melodies, and broad textural brushstrokes. Amazingly enough, this innovative album fell through the cracks when it was first released and didn't get nearly the attention or distribution it deserved. ~... Read More

What Because
Artist: Ray Anderson

If you don't like Ray Anderson, then you probably just don't like trombone players in general, for there's not a more engaging trombonist in jazz -- certainly not one who communicates greater love for life. He invests so much genuine good humor and enthusiasm in every note he plays. And that's to say nothing of his extraordinary chops and... Read More

Technology of Tears (And Other Music for Dance)
Artist: Fred Frith

"Sadness, Its Bleached Bones Behind Us," and "You Are What You Eat" are unrelenting slices of hard-edged sounds over a pulse. "The Palace of Laughter, The Technology of Tears" is an imaginative, intense, varied suite comparing music which represents the past "frozen tears" of sadness -- displayed as images before us by the media, etc. -- with... Read More

The Naked Shakespeare
Artist: Peter Blegvad

For his first solo effort, Slapp Happy songwriter and guitarist Peter Blegvad hooked up with producer and XTC frontman Andy Partridge for a collection of relatively simple pop songs. Of course, with Blegvad it's never quite that easy. The literary bent of his lyrics and the layer upon layer of synthesizers and strings make this album the ideal... Read More

Titles
Artist: Mick Karn

Multi-instrumentalist Mick Karn's first album as a solo artist reveals the significant degree to which Japan's sound was shaped by his bass playing. The presence of Japan drummer Steve Jansen and keyboardist Richard Barbieri, combined with Karn's own singing style (which owes a heavy debt to former bandmate David Sylvian), only strengthens the... Read More

Live, Love, Larf & Loaf
Artist: French Frith Kaiser Thompson

Richard Thompson once joked that if his presence on an album with John French, Fred Frith, and Henry Kaiser was expected to help it appeal to a wider audience, it didn't say much for the state of their careers. But while French Frith Kaiser Thompson was hardly a supergroup to rival Blind Faith or the Traveling Wilburys at the turnstiles, on... Read More

Sonic Geology
Artist: Birdsongs of the Mesozoic

A handy 18-track précis of the first three releases by Boston avant-rockers Birdsongs of the Mesozoic (1983's Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, 1984's Magnetic Flip, and 1986's Beat of the Mesozoic), 1988's Sonic Geology is an excellent introduction to the challenging but always accessible music they created. Though de facto leader Erik Lindgren's... Read More

Strange Angels
Artist: Laurie Anderson
Community Score: 9.00

Laurie Anderson's third proper studio album, coming over five years after 1984's Mister Heartbreak (1986's Home of the Brave was a film soundtrack), is a near-total departure from anything she had done before or, indeed, anything she did after. The most purely musical of Anderson's albums and the one on which she does the most actual singing... Read More

The Fossil Record, 1980-1987
Artist: Birdsongs of the Mesozoic

The phoenix that rose from the ashes of Mission of Burma looked disconcertingly like...well, a pterodactyl. By the time Birdsongs of the Mesozoic's first EP was released, in 1983, Mission of Burma (of which Birdsongs keyboardist Roger Miller and guitarist Martin Swope were charter members, though on different instruments) had dissolved, and this... Read More