Over a stunning slate of albums under the moniker Antony & The Johnsons and collaborations with the likes of Björk and Hercules & Love Affair, Antony Hegarty has established herself as a singular voice concerned with the world’s problems, and receiving the world’s adulation. Of late, she’s announced that she identifies as female, and is using the name Anohni, in matters both personal and artistic. And on the musical front, Anohni has announced a new album titled HOPELESSNESS, which she’s co-produced with electronic leading lights Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never. Hegarty has stretched those pipes in genre-defying ways before (listen to the brilliant Arthur Russell-styled post-disco of H&LA’s “Blind,” for one). This team up with Hudson and OPN has no choice but to be the best. It’s just math.
And ANOHNI is shaping up to be just that.
In a recent interview with a fan forum, Anohni said “The record is as different as could be from my previous work” and while that previous work was nothing to run from — sparse, organically operatic, chamber-music at its finest — the first Anohni single is a further testament to Hegarty’s brilliant voice, and taste. Listen to “Four Degrees,” which she introduced on Facebook with this note:
Here it is… my first ANOHNI single.
Production by Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never
It’s called 4 DEGREES
In solidarity with the climate conference in Paris,
giving myself a good hard look,
not my aspirations but my behaviors,
revealing my insidious complicity.
It’s a whole new world.
Let’s be brave and tell the truth as much as we can.
Anohni x
Listen here, it’s a theatrical avant banger, and it is a must: