The mini-tour supports her upcoming album, Laurie Anderson. It’s her first release since Bright Red in 1995 and her first concert tour since 1997. The outing is expected to move to Europe in the fall.

The new album was originally set to be a studio version of pieces from her theatrical production “Songs and Stories from Moby Dick,” which toured several cities in the U.S. and Europe in 1999 and 2000. Laurie Anderson includes three pieces from the show but it wound up taking on a life of its own.

“It had been quite a project turning a book into a show,” Anderson wrote. “And hard as I tried I just couldn’t turn the show into a record. I’m completely in love with Melville but by the time the show was over I was just so sick of these smelly old sailors and their problems! I thought, ‘I can’t be in the 19th century another second!’ So I stuck it out a little bit, then I said, ‘Wait. I’ve gotta start again. I really need this record to be more about my own experience, my own life.'”

To bring the album to life, she’s utilizing a band for this tour, but there are sure to be plenty of multimedia touches, or it wouldn’t be a Laurie Anderson show.

During the course of her 20-plus year career, Anderson has consistently pushed the edge of the musical envelope, incorporating film, mime, visual projections, dance, spoken and written language, as well as more recognizable musical convention into her live shows.

In addition to just finishing a new album, Anderson has been busy working on a film score that will be presented by the Musee Art Contemporain Lyon in France next year, and a pavilion in Switzerland that will open summer 2002.

Next spring, Anderson is expected to tour a new solo work in performing arts centers across the United States. The project reportedly will feature stories and simple, mainly acoustic instruments. Like much of her work, this one will look at contemporary culture, through various filters: synthetic language, love songs, animal communication, and techno burn out.