Lay my purple on the grass
May 6, 2016 2:35 PM Subscribe
Anohni's new album, Hopelessness , has a lot to say. She grapples with the surveillance state, ecocide, drone warfare, gender, and more in a more electronic setting than her previous work with Antony and the Johnsons. "A big part of [the album] is an examination of my own complicity and my own inability to truly extricate myself from the brokenness of the system that I'm a part of. It's that chasm, that denial that I wanted to model, an inquiry into and within myself."
She was passed over for performing at this years Oscars despite a nomination for "Manta Ray"; she ultimately boycotted the ceremony altogether.
For over twenty years she's been a beautiful, slippery, queer voice in pop music. She's performed with orchestras, disco artists, and her fellow incredible space creatures.
In particular, don't miss the heartrending earworm "Drone Bomb Me" and its accompanying video starring Naomi Campbell.
She was passed over for performing at this years Oscars despite a nomination for "Manta Ray"; she ultimately boycotted the ceremony altogether.
For over twenty years she's been a beautiful, slippery, queer voice in pop music. She's performed with orchestras, disco artists, and her fellow incredible space creatures.
In particular, don't miss the heartrending earworm "Drone Bomb Me" and its accompanying video starring Naomi Campbell.
Deadnamed in the first line??????
She performed under the name Antony and the Johnsons for over a decade, and those albums are still being sold and distributed under that band name. I don't think it's out of line to connect her with the band name, if only for ease in accessing her full body of work.
Thanks for this post. I've been holding off on checking out Anohni's new album because I'll be honest, I found "Hope There's Someone" to be sufficiently emotionally ruinous that I find myself having to emotionally gird myself to approach her new work. I mean, "Hope There's Someone" is a toweringly, wrenchingly beautiful song, but it turns me into a leaky, teary mess. She also did an absolutely luminous cover of Leonard Cohen's "If It Be Your Will" in the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man.
posted by yasaman at 5:06 PM on May 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
She performed under the name Antony and the Johnsons for over a decade, and those albums are still being sold and distributed under that band name. I don't think it's out of line to connect her with the band name, if only for ease in accessing her full body of work.
Thanks for this post. I've been holding off on checking out Anohni's new album because I'll be honest, I found "Hope There's Someone" to be sufficiently emotionally ruinous that I find myself having to emotionally gird myself to approach her new work. I mean, "Hope There's Someone" is a toweringly, wrenchingly beautiful song, but it turns me into a leaky, teary mess. She also did an absolutely luminous cover of Leonard Cohen's "If It Be Your Will" in the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man.
posted by yasaman at 5:06 PM on May 6, 2016 [5 favorites]
I pre-ordered this and got a few sample tracks a month ago. 4 Degrees is such a kick to the gut and for me really emphasized my own complicity in the destruction of the earth.
posted by munchingzombie at 5:18 PM on May 6, 2016
posted by munchingzombie at 5:18 PM on May 6, 2016
Odinsdream (and anyone else with thoughts), please let me know how I should handle this in the future; should a band name be left out if it contains the dead name? I thought long and hard about how to frame this part of the post so as not to make a big deal of her being trans while still including her excellent back catalog, but I recognize that good intentions don't always yield a good result. I don't want to hurt people.
posted by hollyholly at 6:04 PM on May 6, 2016
posted by hollyholly at 6:04 PM on May 6, 2016
She appears to deadname herself. See also: this, and this. /derail
posted by special agent conrad uno at 6:16 PM on May 6, 2016
posted by special agent conrad uno at 6:16 PM on May 6, 2016
Listened all the way through it this morning, it is an angry album. I enjoy it, but it's not...fun. Still glad for any new output from her.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:01 PM on May 6, 2016
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 10:01 PM on May 6, 2016
I've love Anohni for a long time, starting in 2003 or something. I lost touch with her work a bit and didn't pick up the last live album. I loved the track with Hercules and Love Affair, so I'm stoked for the new album.
Just went to the record store and they had sold out of there vinyl and CD copies, so I'll have to wait to hear the whole thing. I listened to Drone Bomb Me but don't want to spoil the rest.
I saw Antony twice and the shows were very powerful. Thanks for this post, it brought back a lot of feelings.
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:53 AM on May 7, 2016
Just went to the record store and they had sold out of there vinyl and CD copies, so I'll have to wait to hear the whole thing. I listened to Drone Bomb Me but don't want to spoil the rest.
I saw Antony twice and the shows were very powerful. Thanks for this post, it brought back a lot of feelings.
posted by kittensofthenight at 12:53 AM on May 7, 2016
Probably old news to all here, but if you haven't heard her version of Crazy In Love, do yourself a favor.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 8:58 AM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 8:58 AM on May 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
No matter how much you love music, once you get into your forties, the very specific experience of being so totally amazed and moved by a new piece of music that you fall in love not just with it but with music itself all over again comes very rarely.
That's what happened when I heard the debut Antony & the Johnsons album shortly after it was released, and she's one of the very few modern artists I follow closely.
This album is great, the sort of thing that demands you sit down (or lie down, or dance) and do NOTHING ELSE BUT LISTEN. I wish I could make everyone in America do that with Hopelessness.
posted by the bricabrac man at 9:34 AM on May 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
That's what happened when I heard the debut Antony & the Johnsons album shortly after it was released, and she's one of the very few modern artists I follow closely.
This album is great, the sort of thing that demands you sit down (or lie down, or dance) and do NOTHING ELSE BUT LISTEN. I wish I could make everyone in America do that with Hopelessness.
posted by the bricabrac man at 9:34 AM on May 7, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by hollyholly at 2:37 PM on May 6, 2016 [1 favorite]