Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Song(s) of the Day # 3,447 Anohni

 

I haven't followed Anohni's career enormously closely. I was aware of her at her emergence as Anthony & The Johnsons with 2005's I am a Bird Now. It would have been odd not to as a music lover. This was such an extraordinary record.

But I haven't followed the trajectory since and My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross, the record which came out on Friday is probably the first since I am a Bird Now I've listened to with any serious attention. I suspect I've been tardy. 

Because My Back Was a Bridge is an excellent if characteristically gloomy work. Anohni has never been one of life's happiest campers, and here, in her first album since 2016 once more uses Nina and Billie as guiding stars to map more tales of loneliness, isolation and loss.

It's all impeccably done though and sadness is one of the cards we're inevitably dealt and asked to deal with at points of our life. This is another brave, varied and tasteful set which testifies to why Lou Reed was so taken by Anohni in the first place. He didn't have great patience for fools but recognised astonishing talent when he saw it. Here's further evidence of that.

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