2023-07-10 15:35:46
Something has to change. Dealing with each other, with yourself and above all with the world itself. Anohni has been saying that for years, but once again no one listened to her. And what hasn’t she tried? She struggled, whimpered and trembled. She recently sang unequivocal protest songs against drone warfare („Drone Bomb Me“), Global Warming (“4 Degrees”), Surveillance (“Watch Me”), Death Penalty (“Execution”), Male Violence (“Violent Men”) and Obama (“Obama”), so basically every available topic and beyond out.
And what has changed? Nothing! Except, and that’s not entirely unimportant, Anohni’s sound. On her previous album “Hopelessness” from 2016 she had added all sorts of atmospheric dramatic electronics to her laments, now you hear the first warm chords of her new work “My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross” and think: The Style Council? Around 1984?
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We remember: At that time, Paul Weller’s band published a work called “Café Bleu”, which was decidedly critical of capitalism, and searched for their own sound in the legacies of jazz, Motown, funk and the era just before disco. Weller dropped bombs on the White House and sang about the “Whole Point of No Return,” which, for all its ambiguity, roughly means that the point of the point of no return is that there’s no going back from it.
Does Anohni know the album? She would like it. However, she states that the main inspiration for her new album Marvin Gayes „What’s Going On“ from 1971, which of course also fits, but all in all it sounds much more lively. And exhilarated is actually the last thing that comes to mind when you think of Anohni.
“Please hurt me”
It is certainly not easy to be Anohni. Born Antony Hegarty in England 51 years ago, moved to the United States at eight and has lived in New York since the early 1990s, where she later co-founded the Blacklips Performance Cult, an avant-garde drag theater group based in and around the Lower East Side occurred. She stood on the stage, staged interesting plays such as “The Birth of Anne Frank” and sometimes sang, which is how people discovered her.
Early popular hits like “Hitler in My Heart” or “Cripple and the Starfish” came from that time, a moving song about the secret delights of domestic violence in the Seestern milieu: “Happily bloody/ Happily scarred/ I am very happy/ So hit me please/ I’m very, very happy/ Please hurt me.”
The songs will be released on her 2000 debut Antony and The Johnsons, on the cover she looks like Vincent D’Onofrio as the serial killer in the movie The Cell. In terms of content, it is similarly unpleasant. Everywhere misery, humiliation and pain, but libidinally charged if you like it.
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It stays that way on the successor “I Am A Bird Now”, with which the breakthrough comes five years later. Lots of piano, strings, a chamber pop album, if you will, that comes with the artistic added value of a blessing from Lou Reed, who compares Anohni’s voice to that of an angel. “One day, when I grow up, I will be a beautiful woman/ But today I’m still a child, today I’m still a boy,” she was heard singing on it, which already heralds the upcoming transformation into Anohni.
Since then everything has been female energy, mother earth, her creative power. Of course, the feminine is threatened from all sides and consequently Anohni too. When she was nominated for an Oscar in 2016 with the song “Manta Ray”, but unlike Lady Gaga, Sam Smith and The Weeknd, she was not supposed to appear at the ceremony, she immediately sensed transphobia and boycotted the evening. The fact that the Korean Sumi Jo, who was also nominated, is also not allowed to perform is not even acknowledged as a side contradiction.
Anohni with orchestra on stage
Quelle: picture alliance / Scanpix Denmark
It’s the time when Caitlyn Jenner is coming out as trans, trans models are walking fashion shows and magazine covers, trans characters are suddenly appearing in more movies and series, and trans women are being voted Women of the Year. Somehow Anohni doesn’t seem to notice all this.
Unfortunately, being a victim has become second nature to her, which is especially true for „Scapegoat“ comes into play, one of the best tracks on the album. “You’re so killable/ Just so killable/ But don’t take it personally,” she softly sings in from the perspective of a blanketly anti-queer/trans person: “I can call you names all I want/ I can use you as a toilet. And when the strings started, the guitars roared and someone banged the gong with a lot of verve, she too suddenly found strength and rejoiced: “I can box you/ And pour all my hate into your flesh and body.”
Ok, if she says so. But other than that the album is great.
Anohni: „My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross“ (Rough Trade)
#Anohni #toilet