Laurie Anderson has announced her first record in six years, Amelia, a concept album about Amelia Earhart's final flight. The album is arriving August 30 on Nonesuch, and today we get to hear lead single "Road to Mandalay."
Anderson previously conceived Amelia for a performance at Carnegie Hall in 2000, and she recently updated the composition and toured it through Europe. She recorded Amelia with the Czech orchestra Filharmonie Brno, and it includes collaborations with ANOHNI, Gabriel Cabezas, Rob Moose, Ryan Kelly, Martha Mooke, Marc Ribot, Tony Scherr, Nadia Sirota and Kenny Wolleson.
"The words used in Amelia are inspired by her pilot diaries, the telegrams she wrote to her husband, and my idea of what a woman flying around the world might think about," Anderson said in a statement about the album.
Hear the lovely, brief and burbling "Road to Mandalay" and see the Amelia tracklist below.
Amelia:
1. To Circle the World
2. I See Something Shining
3. Takeoff
4. Aloft
5. San Juan
6. Brazil
7. Crossing the Equator
8. The Badlands
9. Waves of Sand
10. The Letter
11. India and on Down to Australia
12. This Modern World
13. Flying at Night
14. The Word for Woman
15. Road to Mandalay
16. Broken Chronometers
17. Nothing but Silt
18. The Wrong Way
19. Fly into the Sun
20. Howland Island
21. Radio
22. Lucky Dime