Anika – Page 2 – 7th Level Music

Anika – the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson who is also a founding member of Exploded View – announces Change, her first new album in over a decade, out July 23rd on Sacred Bones & Invada, and shares the “Change” video directed by Sven Gutjahr who also directed the video for recent single “Finger Pies.” The follow-up to cult favorite Anika (2010), Change is beautifully fraught. The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are seemingly baked into the album’s DNA. Spread across nine tracks, the central feeling of the record is one of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism. The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Broadcast records or Hi Scores-era Boards of Canada, playing them against Anika’s remarkable voice—Nico-esque, beautifully plaintive, and—in regards to the record’s subject matter—totally resolute.

Having worked collaboratively in the past with the likes of BEAK> and Exploded View, Change was ultimately the product of necessity. After recording the initial ideas by herself at Berlin’s Klangbild Studios, Anika was joined by Exploded View’s Martin Thulin, who co-produced the album and played some live drums and bass. “This album had been planned for a little while and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected,” says Anika. “This colored the album quite significantly. The lyrics were all written there on the spot. It’s a vomit of emotions, anxieties, empowerment, and of thoughts like—How can this go on? How can we go on?”

Recorded at a time when literally everyone in the world was being forced to take stock, rethink, and reimagine their own place in the cosmos of things, Anika provides the wizened perspective of an outsider. It’s a perspective that is not lost on the British ex-pat and former political journalist, and despite the subject matter and the circumstances around its creation, Change itself is ultimately a treatise on optimism. The title track presents the album’s message writ large: “I think we can change, we all have things to learn, about ourselves and about each other.” To end the record on such a sanguine note might be one of Change’s most revolutionary gestures.

“There’s a lot of stuff I want to change,” says Anika. “Some things I sat down and decided last year, I had to change about myself and my life. Sometimes it feels helpless because the things we want to change are so huge and out of our control. Starting with yourself is always a good place. I think we can change.”
Watch “Change” Video

Watch “Finger Pies” Video

Pre-order ChangeChange Tracklist
1. Finger Pies
2. Critical
3. Change
4. Naysayer
5. Sand Witches
6. Never Coming Back
7. Rights
8. Freedom
9. Wait For Something Anika European Tour Dates:
Sept. 10 – Offenbach, DE @ Hafen2
Sept. 12 – Dunkerque, FR @ Les 4 Ecluses
Sept. 23 – Nancy, FR @ L’Autre Canal
Sept. 24 – Rouen, FR @ Le 106 Club

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Anika – the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson who is also a founding member of Exploded View – announces signing to Sacred Bones and returns with a new single/video, “Finger Pies.” Released in collaboration with Invada Records, this is Anika’s first new piece of music in 8 years, following her 2010 cult-favorite Anika, and the 2013 Anika EP. “Finger Pies” presents Anika’s alluring voice, which switches between singing and speaking over bass, waning brass, drums, and blares of synth. The accompanying video was co-directed by Anika with Sven Gutjahr (who has worked with Versace and Holly Herndon). The two had lived in the same apartment building in Neuköln, Berlin, during 2017 yet never met. Fate, and a bunch of people around a table 3,965 miles away brought them together for the video. It shows Anika effortlessly contemplating her adopted city with a cinematic coolness.

Anika elaborates: “A song that never had a name, like an artist that never had a face. Caught between roles, a jack of all trades, she slips between your fingers like a moment that never was, or was it? So many faces tailored to a myriad of occasions. Walls built between ourselves and the outside world. For protection. Passes grant access to another level. So where are you at? Those with all the keys, please remember, access comes with responsibility. Yet responsibility has been lost, like tissue paper in the rain, a battle without rules, to save face, exploit weakness, to save getting slayed, by the faceless generation. Welcome to the world of ‘Finger Pies.’”

When asked to describe the circumstances that influenced her beautifully fraught new work, Anika quickly articulates a set of feelings and unpredictable circumstances that are familiar to anyone who tried to make art—or simply tried to live through—the recent global pandemic. “It’s a moment caught in time,” she says.

“Finger Pies” is the first of more new music from Anika this year.

Watch “Finger Pies” Video

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Patrick at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Tag: Anika

Anika releases title track from her upcoming album – “Change.”

Anika returns with first new music in eight years.