Let X=X (Live) [CD], Laurie Anderson & Sexmob, CD

The vinyl is a triple LP composed of 23 songs. Its cover and interior packaging feature paintings by Anderson.

Laurie Anderson and Sexmob recorded this triple-LP/double-CD, Let X=X, during a 2023 tour. Sexmob features Steven Bernstein on brass, Briggan Krauss on saxophone and guitar, Tony Scherr on bass, Douglas Wieselman on winds and guitar, and Kenny Wollesen on drums and percussion. Its cover and interior packaging feature paintings by Anderson. The album features twenty-three songs, including many favorites from throughout Anderson’s career, performed in new arrangements—plus one by Lou Reed and Metallica, “Junior Dad.”

Laurie Anderson is one of America’s most renowned—and daring—creative pioneers. Her work, which encompasses music, visual art, poetry, film, and photography, has challenged and delighted audiences around the world for more than forty years.

Laurie Anderson was awarded the 2024 Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, along with Christopher Nolan and David Attenborough, and the International Astronomical Union named a minor planet in her honor: Asteroid 270588, Laurieanderson. That same year, she was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The New York Times said Anderson and Sexmob’s concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) “wasn’t a historical recreation of past recordings; Sexmob’s sound is a beefier one than on Anderson’s albums. With musicians who can double on electric guitar and bass clarinet, its members offered a rich range of textural variation throughout the evening.”