A distilled, up-to-the-minute portrait of our agitated nation, its politics, its economics, its delusions and its dreams. Laurie Anderson's tone is less outraged than elegiac, mourning for lives lost, ideals misplaced. The music is dramatically stripped down to a handful of players, centered around Anderson's haunting violin and voice, frequent Bill Frisell band-mate Eyvind Kang's viola and Peter Scherer's keyboards.