Bleep

Back on vinyl for the first time in 30 years, Laurie Anderson’s 1982 debut Big Science is still the esoteric masterpiece it was back then. Already a conceptual artist and composer by trade, Anderson’s gear-shift to ‘pop’ was unprecedented to say the least; the 8-minute-plus track ‘O Superman’ — a steadily ascending piece built on a Philip Glass-esque looping vocal sample and Anderson’s deadpan poetic stoicism — may be the only example of a minimalist song reaching #2 in the UK singles chart. The dream-like subconscious quality of Big Science, which dances around themes of alienation (from each other within capitalism, you could argue) resonate deeper still.