Its retrograde sound My back was a bridge It doesn't sound anything like a Culture Club or Yaz record though. Instead, he takes thematic and musical inspiration from the Marvin Gaye albums that inspired that next generation of soul singers. If you dare to make a blue-eyed soul album in 2023, it's even more challenging to undertake a contemporary What's going on inside the trappings of the blue-eyed soul. On this record, it's not so much an attempt at provocation as a serious exploration of Anohni's vocal identity. These songs sound organic, often as if they were recorded live in the studio with minimal reverb, vocal processing or production. Anohni's voice—and his origin story—is powerful enough to carry them on its own.
The latest iteration of the Johnsons consists of notable session musicians such as Brian Eno collaborator Leo Abrahams and drummer Chris Vatalaro. With such a tight band, with horns by William Basinski and strings by Rob Moose (whose arrangements more directly recall the laconic lines of David Van De Pitte What happens), Anochni has room to improvise, stretching her voice in new directions. “It Must Change” and the gospel-adjacent slow-burner “Can't” capture Anonhi's first vocal takes and actively benefit from this lack of fuss – there's even some cheerful ad-lib in the latter's outro, between of his cries of “I don't want you dead!” For someone so famously meticulous – she's attuned to the tiniest of changes in her sound mixes— immediacy is refreshing.
The soothing and somewhat anxious “It Must Change” builds steadily to its final beat: “Nobody's getting out of here/That's why it's so sad.” This line sums up one of the album's central themes — the reckoning of what we lose by continuing to exploit the environment. “Go Ahead” essentially dares those in power to completely destroy the world, covered by a lemur sampling freakout guitar that would make Lou Reed proud. Anohni then pays homage to him directly in the next song, “Sliver of Ice”, recounting a conversation in which Reed described the new sensation of chewing ice. Even simple joys are at stake.
As in previous records, Anohni finally turns the spotlight on herself. they are not necessary special offerbut it is more compassionate than the way she would ask herself, “How did I become a virus?On “It's My Fault,” she sings, “It's my fault, the way I broke the Earth,” but leaves room to acknowledge both what she's losing and her own complicity in his loss: “I hurt here, I get here.” Enough songs bemoan the feeling of sinking too far into capitalism to find a better way: “Now it's all gone to the floor/And all I want is more.” Even though no one person is to blame, it's hard not to internalize the propaganda that suggests the contrary. There are no answers, and for an artist whose most enduring revelations are declarative statements (“I want to see them burn,” “I'll grow like a starfish again”), it's a heavy adjustment.
