Anderson Keeps Focus on Her Words

Veteran avant-garde artist Laurie Anderson has a unique worldview, and she’s happy to share it.

Indeed, from the start of her El Rey Theatre performance Saturday, the black-clad singer-songwriter looked as beatific as the angels her tunes often invoke, making the rare instrumental “Here With You” a personal invitation to visit her realm.

On this first of a two-night stand, the spiky-haired violinist-keyboardist did not employ the multimedia presentations for which she is famous but offered a traditional concert of songs and spoken word, backed by an excellent trio from her current collection, “Life on a String.”

This minimal staging kept the focus on her words and the messages behind them. The stripped-down feeling of the 100-minute set also reflected the intimacy of the new album, which emphasizes embracing all of life’s experiences, even the painful ones.

Not that there weren’t “arty” moments, like when blank paper was passed around on which audience members could make pencil sketches. But mostly the show indicated that, after 20 years of often highly experimental looks at people’s place in the world, Anderson is more in touch than ever with her humanity.

This makes her an odd but relevant pop artist--not one with a knack for great hooks or catchy phrases, but an intelligent, inquisitive and kindhearted person unafraid to honestly share things that she, and everyone, goes through.

On the new album, her first recording of new music since 1994, such spare and poignant tracks as “Broken,” about her own communication failings, and “Slip Away,” about her father’s death, could bring you to tears if listening alone.

But when Anderson shared them in concert, their universal nature and her warm presence made them far less isolating.

The mood ranged from brisk and bright to dirge-like and dark, the music from cacophonous jazz to junkyard funk. Anderson peppered the set with humorous tales and saucy numbers, such as a gutturally sexy “Let X=X” and other career-spanning selections, including “O Superman” and “Strange Angels.”

The players also reworked some arrangements, and she mixed different lyrics into the weird “One Beautiful Evening,” further balancing both her artful style and the immediacy of her concerns.