{"id":488393,"date":"2019-07-25T08:12:27","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T14:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=862871"},"modified":"2019-07-25T08:12:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T14:12:27","slug":"hear-laurie-andersons-song-from-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/hear-laurie-andersons-song-from-tibetan-book-of-the-dead-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Hear Laurie Anderson\u2019s Song From Tibetan Book of the Dead Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/laurie-anderson.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/laurie-anderson\/\" id=\"auto-tag_laurie-anderson\" data-tag=\"laurie-anderson\">Laurie Anderson<\/a> reads from the <em>Bardo Thodol<\/em>, the Tibetan \u201cBook of the Dead,\u201d against a backdrop of flute, piano and percussion on \u201cLotus Born, No Need to Fear.\u201d The track will appear on <em>Songs From the Bardo<\/em>, an upcoming release on Smithsonian Folkways, that highlights her 80-minute collaboration with Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith, due out September 27th.<\/p>\n<p>The passage comes from the section on \u201cCharacteristics of Existence in the Intermediate State,\u201d which narrates what you supposedly would feel when you realize you are dead, including nothingness. \u201cThe lords of death are the natural form of emptiness,\u201d she says at one point. \u201cYour own confused projections, and you are emptiness, a mental body of unconscious tendency.\u201d But the music is not scary, and her voice is calm. \u201cAt this moment, recognize everything as the <em>Bardo<\/em>,\u201d she says at the end.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe music is meant to help you float out of your body, to go into these other realms, and to let yourself do that without boundaries,\u201d Anderson says in the release\u2019s liner notes.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson and her collaborators premiered the piece in February at New York City\u2019s Rubin Museum of Art. Choegyal chants, plays Tibetan singing bowls, gong, <em>lingbu<\/em> (a Tibetan bamboo flute), and <em>dranyen<\/em> (a Tibetan stringed instrument) on the album. Laurie Anderson provides spoken word and plays violin. Smith plays piano, crystal bowls, and gong. Cellist Rubin Kodheli and percussionist Shahzad Ismaily also perform on the recording.<\/p>\n<p>The project came together when Choegyal met Smith at the Tibet House benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 2008, and they first considered working together on something centered around the Book of the Dead in 2014. With Anderson on board, they performed an edited version of <em>Songs From the Bardo<\/em> in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Choegyal, who grew up in India after his family was exiled there, explained his intention of the project in the record\u2019s liner notes. \u201cI have tried to channel the wisdom and traditions of my ancestors through my music in a very contemporary way, while holding the depth of my lineage,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-news\/laurie-anderson-songs-from-bardo-862871\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Laurie Anderson reads from the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan \u201cBook of the Dead,\u201d against a backdrop of flute, piano and percussion on \u201cLotus Born, No Need to Fear.\u201d The track will appear on Songs From the Bardo, an upcoming release on Smithsonian Folkways, that highlights her 80-minute collaboration with Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal and composer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-488393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 06:49:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}