In the spring of 1971 the release of What’s Going On saw Marvin Gaye switch things up with a song cycle written from the perspective of a Vietnam War veteran, who returns to the United States to find a country in the throes of poverty, racial enmity, drug addiction and environmental degradation. A clarion call for the vulnerable, heartsick and downtrodden through soulful vocals, unhurried jazz and funk grooves, the singer turned songwriter and producer said ‘I was very much affected by letters my brother was sending me from Vietnam, as well as the social situation here at home. I realised that I had to put my own fantasies behind me if I wanted to write songs that would reach the souls of people’.
Now taking What’s Going On and the groundbreaking song ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’ as a cue, ANOHNI returns for her first album in seven years, reshaping her band in a recurring memory of the gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, regarding climate collapse, the consequences of capitalism and fears of an apocalyptic future within a wider purview. From the frontal assault of Hopelessness the singer instead seeks succour for those on the front lines of environmental activism, repeating the refrain ‘It Must Change’ on the opening track to My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross over plaintive guitar and propulsive percussion which combine to provide a sense of sustainable uplift. ‘The truth is that I always thought you were beautiful in your own way. That’s why this is so sad’ she sings, more than a few crumbs for our collective comfort, embracing immanence as a process of doing as well as dwelling.
Between the burnished guitar lines of Leo Abrahams and Jimmy Hogarth, elegiac strings of Rob Moose, and drums and bass of Chris Vatalaro and Samuel Dixon who provide a rhythm section by turns febrile and sinuous, adorning the duelling identities of hapless scapegoat and guilty party or otherwise witless receptacle of hate, on ‘Sliver of Ice’ the singer ecstatically recalls some of the last words and sensations shared by her friend and mentor Lou Reed, while on the penultimate track ‘Why Am I Alive Now?’ she offers nothing recuperative but only the barest of testimonies, eyeing a world under duress and standing fast as a sigil of freedom.
