Laurie Anderson and Sexmob’s Let X=X (Live) Revives Old Favorites on a Rare Live Set

Laurie Anderson’s new Let X=X (Live) arrives as only her third live album, and her first since Live in New York in 2002. Drawn from her 2023 tour with Sexmob, the release spans three LPs and 23 tracks, pulling together older material like “O Superman” in fresh arrangements alongside later work.

Laurie Anderson. (Credit: Ebru Yildiz)

By now, Anderson occupies a rare space in American culture. Her work has long balanced the avant-garde with direct emotional pull, moving through albums, visual art, and films that take on technology, loss, and even Amelia Earhart. Her concerts have followed the same shape, mixing song, spoken word, and visuals into performances that are as much built environment as they are setlist.

The Sexmob lineup on Let X=X (Live) includes Steven Bernstein on brass, Kenny Wollesen on drums and percussion, Douglas Wieselman on winds and guitar, Briggan Krauss on saxophone and guitar, and Tony Scherr on bass. The arrangements here are firmer and heavier than the originals in many cases, which gives familiar songs a different kind of weight. For anyone who saw the 2023 tour, the album works as a useful document, even if it cannot carry over Anderson’s visuals or the finale, in which she led the audience through a tai chi routine.

The record also underlines something Anderson has always understood: humor has a place in serious art. “It’s Not the Bullet That Kills You” pays tribute to artist Chris Burden, known in part for having someone shoot him as part of an art installation. Anderson’s vocal effects throughout the album move between eerie and comic, sometimes in the same moment.

The most affecting passages come when the material turns inward. On “Junior Dad,” taken from the Lou Reed-Metallica collaboration Lulu, Anderson reshapes the song into something more mournful, with Reed’s recorded vocals carrying the center of the track. On the closing “How to Feel Sad Without Being Sad,” she brings in the guidance of her Buddhist teacher for listeners still coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let X=X (Live) is not the defining Laurie Anderson release, but as a live survey it does what it needs to do. It gives longtime listeners another way into familiar work, and it offers a practical entry point for anyone trying to understand the breadth of her career.