Laurie Anderson scored an unlikely hit with her cool robotic staccato on the 1981 single “O Superman.” The New Yorker warned of coming American planes and asked to be held in Mom’s arms, before spinning the plea into a longing for the embrace of “military arms.” To the virgin ear, the song sounds like a post–September 11 tone poem. Of course, it’s from her landmark Big Science album, which opened with a calm preparation for an air crash. Anderson was regarded as some sort of oracle, and she was one of the first to return to Manhattan and perform after 2001’s terrorist attacks.

Ever since Big Science, Anderson has wrestled with postmodern American identity in her work, from 2001’s Moby Dick –inspired Life on a String to her new album and act: Homeland. That the title is now loaded—we immediately think the subsequent “security”—sums up the piece’s themes. After showing us the future and recontextualing the past, she now aims at our paranoid present.

In response to the age of YouTube and pop-up ads, Anderson pares her typical multimedia stage act to something more emotional: playing electric violin under water-toned lighting by Willie Williams (who did U2’s PopMart tour). “Only an Expert” dissects global warming and Iraq with a razor wit. Yet Anderson’s warm voice, fit for folklore and children’s books, avoids the vitriol and didacticism of protest.

It’s comforting and invigorating to have NASA’s artist-in-residence, whose audience is far bigger overseas, once again poking around our national psyche. As she puts it: “If there’s no expert dealing with a problem / Then really it’s actually twice the problem.”

For Laurie Anderson's thoughts on politics and Bob Dylan, read our interview with her.