Anohni, formerly known as Antony Hergarty from Antony and the Johnsons, has constructed a series of powerful, complex polemics covering a vast array of political subjects (stick with me here)…
From drone warfare and the failure of the Obama administration to our terminal freefall into environmental catastrophe. Nothing’s obfuscated by metaphor or held at arm’s length by an artist too afraid to say what they really mean. Everything is explicitly stated. You SHOULD know about the effects of global warming, You SHOULD know about the devastation caused to innocent lives by war that your own taxes fund. You SHOULD know about whistleblowers imprisoned indefinitely purely because they told the truth. This information shouldn’t be hidden, only to be gleaned and picked apart by those who wish to look terribly clever. Some things are far too important for that.
Anohni also addresses the people who say that pop music isn’t the place for on-the-nose political protest, rather it’s a place to lose yourself, to escape the world’s problems. As Anohni stated in a recent Noisey interview, she challenged herself to write pop music that has intense political content but, “Why not make it uplifting, and embed it into something really pop just to see how far we can take it.” And by Christ she has taken it all the way, both politically and musically.
Opening track ‘Drone Bomb Me’ features Anohni’s incomparable vocals taking on the persona of an anonymous child, willing the drone strikes headed to her village to take her out first; to blow her head off and be the “apple of the eye” of a soldier sat behind a remote control console thousands of mile away. Yeah it’s serious stuff and in lesser hands would come across as either unlistenably maudlin or melodramatic, but instead the chiming synths and warm, enveloping bass make being “blown from the mountains, into the sea” sound like a thrilling act of defiance. It’s this contrast that works its magical way throughout Hopelessness.
Similarly ‘4 DEGREES’ takes the point of view of the blinkered majority who hear the terrifying research predicting a 4 degree rise in temperature by the year 2100 and merely shrugs it off with, “It’s only 4 degrees.” Here Anohni seems to suggest that ignorance is as bad as direct complicity; you can reduce your carbon footprint as much as you like, but the more you operate in this world, the more you kill it. Anohni gleefully rattles off a hypothetical dead-pool checklist, “I wanna see the fish go belly-up in the sea, and all those lemurs, and all those tiny creatures, I wanna see them burn.” Again, it would be miserable stuff in the hands of another artist, but the sheer emotional power of her delivery and the gloriously arranged orchestration from collaborators Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never, make this an utterly captivating and rousing experience. The song’s a masterpiece, but thankfully it’s far from the album’s only triumph.
‘Watch Me’ is a slow, almost sensual ballad, that wouldn’t sound out of place during one of Future Islands’ more lubricious moments, however this takes the issue of government surveillance and turns it into the movie Sliver, only William Baldwin is checking your medical history and online pornography habits rather than watching you take a bath. ‘Execution’ is a gorgeous, delicate little treat, full of unbeatable melodies, that also happens to take the world’s governments to task over capital punishment. ‘Obama’ has Anohni reach right down into her gut to dredge up a wrap-sheet against the current US president, sung in a deep, passionless register which fittingly makes her sound like an objective, otherworldy judge. She’s not angry, just disappointed.
Hopelessness ends with ‘Marrow’, a simple list of countries who have sucked the life out of the world set to a skittering beat and strident piano chord. “We are all Americans now” is Anohni’s parting shot. Nobody’s innocent, everybody’s to blame, but ultimately everyone is also a victim. Perhaps it’s this realisation that helps Anohni find the strength to party through the darkness.
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