I think I was with you when I bought this! I stopped off on my way south from a Geology field trip on the Isle of Arran, around Easter 1984, and on the Saturday you took me to one of your favourite record shops in Wilmslow. And, in my mind, that's where I got this LP.
I love it. It was the first Laurie Anderson album I bought, and one of the cornerstones — along with David Byrne, Brian Eno and Robert Fripp — of the music, film and books that I explored in the '80s. This record was probably the first time I heard William Burroughs, and the first time I heard of Gravity's Rainbow (which I eventually made my way through, at the second attempt, in 1987). It was probably the first time I came across the quotes from The Tempest and Moby Dick that are included on Blue Lagoon.
Not that all these references carry much meaning… I used to imagine there was a code to Laurie Anderson's lyrics that I could crack with enough research. But having now seen a few Tempests, read several Burroughses, plus Gravity's Rainbow and Moby Dick, I know that I was being naive, and there is nothing at the end of the quest.
Still, the record sounds wonderful. It couldn't have been made anyone else. Very imaginative use of sounds as ersatz percussion, along with great bass from Bill Laswell and typically eccentric guitar from Adrian Belew. Laurie Anderson designed the sleeve, inner and outer, as well. Who now is working with the same ambition and breadth of vision that she was 20-25 years ago?
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