Laurie Anderson – Big Science

I have the Ludwig BSK 3674, warner logo on both sides Promo. Pressing is great, quiet, punchy, and clean. I found this in the wild at the local rekkid store last week. $7. They are out there and available. Ludwig Mastering!

wow this pressing sounds great, drums sound so in your face and punchy and the soundstage is incredibly wide and vast if you’re a fan of this album an RL cut is the way to go

I have a copy of this that comes closest to matching this one, but on the B side label close to the pin hole it reads in a circle E A S T in raised lettering. Anyone have any insight on this one? Does not have bottom WB logo on label like the first press.

Laurie Anderson’s Big Science touched my heart in 1982. The movie “Blade Runner” was just out, with Laurie’s music sounding for all the world like some futuristic bedtime stories, designed to make us all feel comfortable in the electronic age. I know Laurie didn’t use smoke machines in concert, but if she had, I’m sure they would have been digital, with the smoke coming out in front of her all angular and pixilated.

Big Science was a mistake, it wasn’t suppose to exist back then, why even today it still sounds unearthly, nearly forty years after it came hurtling from somewhere out beyond the twin moons of Saturn. Finally, I no longer wished to be David Bowie, or even Todd Rundgren, now I had a woman, Laurie Anderson, to stylishly move me into the future with wisdom and forethought, where the molecular molecules in my brain were being rearranged as the record spun, as if the clock that calculated my life was being reset.

Of course avant garde commentaries trip over each other to embrace this album, yet Bid Science was so much more than merely being avant garde … it was accessible, perplexing, intoxicating and dreamy, just listening to these tracks was akin to walking spiraling up through the Guggenheim museum. The album can be a bit scary, due mostly to Anderson’s deadpan delivery, while other tracks often come off as being prophetic and filled with nonchalant wisdom. Big Science floats though one’s subconscious from the first note to the last, fused with tight intervals of musicianship, even if those intervals are a bit skewed, though that being said, each track on this record is blissful and totally original.

Big Science is what happens when experimental meets reality, and they mesh, rather than bouncing off of each other. Big Science is what happens when someone has the capabilities of turning Brian Eno’s pastoral sketches into full fledged musical paintings, complete with evolving subjects, emotional imagination, and above all, a soul, albeit an electronic soul. Everything aligned to bring Big Science to fruition, the stars aligned, Laurie was not as self-conscious about her singing here, or her musical textures, or even her future pop sensibilities. Yet, as the last note filters from your speakers, if you were there then, you where keenly aware that there will never be another album so untethered and free as this, this was a once in a lifetime event, a comet that lingers, allowed you indulge its presence and capture some of its presence.

In the end, Big Science, as the androids in “Blade Runner,” resounds with more humanity than almost anything you’ve ever, or ever will hear … where if you fall in love with a hat check clerk at an ice skating rink, then there’s actually hope this weary old world might spin on for a few more days.

Review by Jenell Kesler

I have a copy with K 57 002 and no GEMA box on the label. It has the WE 351 code on the back sleeve. In all other respects a Europe release with matrix and Strawberry plant mark.

Laurie Anderson managed to pull off a post-modern masterpiece! Not only is it the mega hit "Oh Superman" such a rare example of a "successful" track, even though it sounded (and it still sounds...) innovative and avant-garde . I can still recall the "ha-ha-ha" singin' in a late 80s commercial of underwear, all in black n' white, I was 8-9 years old and were mesmerized each time the commercial was on! The rest of the album follows on the same strides, quite bizarre n' unique, one thing of note is the electric violin on the intro of "From the air", which is also depicted on the sleeve artwork, a very special release, tune in!!!!!!