British/German singer-songwriter,musician Anika has released a new album which follows 2010’s self-titled full-length. Change is out now via Invada Records/Sacred Bones. According to the press release, When asked to describe the circumstances that influenced her beautifully fraught new work, Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson—better known simply as 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 of Change, her much-anticipated new record. Given that it has been 11 years since the release of her last solo album, 2010 cult-favorite Anika, the artist suddenly found herself with a lot to say. “This album had been planned for a little while and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected. 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?”
Having worked collaboratively in the past with the likes of BEAK> and Mexico City’s Exploded View, Change was ultimately the product of necessity. “After recording the initial ideas alone at Klangbild studios in Berlin, a few months later and by some stroke of luck, Mr. Martin Thulin of Exploded View, managed to make his way over from Mexico, to co-produce the album with me and play some live drums and bass,” recalls Anika. “Between Reality Baitz and Impression Recordings in Berlin, we managed to get the album together.
The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are seemingly baked into the DNA of Change. 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 High 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.
Check the full streaming below.