I first came across the music of ANOHNI in 2005 when she released I am a Bird Now as the leader of Antony and the Johnsons. For all the Sufjan Stevens, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, and Arctic Monkeys I devoured that year, this was the record that truly was like nothing I’d ever heard. The operatic vocals. The pained lyrics about loss, searching, frustration. The lush chamber pop that was rooted in folk, but filtered through the lens of jazz and avant-garde art.
It was all so beautiful, strange, unsettling, and disconcerting.
As I was leaving behind the fundamentalist Christian belief system that had defined me for so many years, I resonated with the painful self-discovery that ANOHNI laid bare before her listeners. I became a fan of hers for life with that record, and she continues to make astounding music.
Fast on the heels of the critically acclaimed Hopelessness released just last year, she graced the world with a brand-new 6-song project in March 2017 on Secretly Canadian. Entitled Paradise EP, this record showcases an artist who’s never content to sit still or play with the same sonic palette. Calling to mind the music of latter-day Bjork and Radiohead with production from Hudson Mohawk and Oneohtrix Point Never, the album feels like a song-cycle following a single musical thread – like a classical suite, but comprised of guitars, strong electronic beats, and swirls of synthy strings.
Paradise EP kicks off with “In My Dreams,” a spacey and sparse bit of electro-pop with the right amount of oomph from a wandering organ melody and ANOHI’s rich, soulful vocals.
But it truly serves as the table dressing for the title track that comes next, as skittering high hats, syncopated bass thumps, and snapping snares support bracing keyboard squawks a la Flying Lotus.
The album then flows smoothly into “Jesus Will Kill You,” as dark industrial drums are contrasted with a harpsichord melody and swirling penny whistles to develop a dish of delicious disorientation. But after two consecutive jarring tunes, “You are My Enemy” slows the tempo while still ramping up the lyrical intensity and vocal dynamism. Everything then comes to a sharp point with “Ricochet,” as ANOHNI intones the following angry rebuke atop pounding drums and fluttering synth lines:
“And if this keeps going / Gonna curse you, my God /I’m gonna hate you, my God /For making me this way /Making me like this / Point of consciousness, my God”
ANOHNI brings Paradise to a close with the elegiac “She Doesn’t Mourn Her Loss.”
A lilting tune featuring flutes, harpsichord, and harp that’s most reminiscent of her work in Antony and the Johnsons. And even with the feelings of darkness, frustration, alienation, and powerlessness that permeate this project, it somehow ends on a high note. As in, though she addresses themes of economic insecurity, environmental devastation, late capitalist exploitation, and philosophical nihilism, she remains resolute that things can change in that they MUST change.
I feel that what I connect most with in the music of ANOHNI is her penchant for pop ideas and R&B balladry.
For all the confounding electronic noises, brusque beats, and dark emotional revelations, Paradise EP remains a pop record, and it’s buoyed by the fact that the voice and lyrics are much more distinct and pronounced on this project that most other albums ANOHNI has created.
Besides, even the avant-garde among us need to create something remotely accessible every once in a while – the trick is to bring the listener up to your level, instead of merely meeting the philistines halfway. And maybe that’s what I found back in 2005: someone able to educate me and connect with me when I needed it most, not by condescending to me, but by forming a realistic and tangible emotional bond through complex music I was compelled to decipher.