Laurie Anderson: Big Science

AS A PERFORMER, Laurie Anderson is little short of phenomenal: a slight Chaplinesque figure, she's as much vaudeville as she is artist, in that she's not above exploiting the novelty value of her extraordinary inventions – remember the violin with tapehead replacing strings and tape the horsehair of the bow? – while she works their unique noises into the songs and soundscapes that make up her mammoth patchwork 'United States I-IV'.