Laurie Anderson: Live in New York

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * * * )

Neil Young has already flicked his (bloody awful) post-September 11 album, and this is Laurie on a double live recorded in NYC just a week after The Event. So there are some poignant comments at the beginning, a preponderance of angels in the lyrics and the track Statue of Liberty ("freedom is so precious, so easy to lose") up early.

The lines in O Superman, "Here come the planes, they're American planes", sound chilling in this context, although now the former, damning lines about finding safety in the arms of the industrial/military complex take on quite a different - and for some an obliquely patriotic - meaning.

That said, Anderson's elliptical plays on language, oddly compelling anecdotes and the whole muted sense of occasion mean this has real emotions driving it.

Label: Warners