Regarded as one of the most important creative artists of her generation, Anderson (and her husband, the late Lou Reed) were directly affected by the superstorm. They returned to their New York apartment after the storm had subsided only to find the contents of their basement – keyboards, projectors, props, files, papers, books – in Anderson’s words, ‘floating there in shiny black water, dissolving … all the things I had carefully saved all my life becoming nothing but junk’.

Working alongside the Kronos Quartet, Anderson turned the experience into a series of arresting reflections. The mood is set in the opening track, ‘CNN Predicts a Monster Storm’, where a fragile rising figure on violin in bare open fifths is stated against a solitary drone on D. Stark Phrygian-intoned melodies on solo cello are heard against the ambient shudder of an empty city while stuttering strings seek cover from the howling gale. A whole panoply of electronic loops, patterns and pulses provide unsettling backdrops to yearning, undulating melodic patterns. This is not so much programmatic music but music programmed to evoke memories of grief, melancholy and loss.

Often seen performing on her trademark white electronic violin, Anderson transfers the grain of the instrument – the creaking and swaying and smell of its rosin – ‘from the noise floor and into the music itself’: in the composer’s words, to make music that is full of the sounds of its own making. The Kronos quartet’s evocative playing brings these sounds – and the experiences they represent – vividly back to life. As Anderson states, ‘Language is about loss and in a way words are memorials to things and to states’; but it is her music that ultimately serves to imbue these memories with thoughts, feelings and emotions.