ANOHNI in New York

  • Share
  • It's springtime in New York, which means that RBMA is presenting its month-long festival across the city. As well as showcasing the usual savvy mix of up-and-coming talents and certified legends, it's once again commissioned a vocalist whose experimental streak is as strong as their pop bonafides. Last year, FKA Twigs blew minds with Congregata, an astonishingly choreographed rendition of her slim discography staged in a cavernous warehouse deep in industrial Brooklyn. This year, RBMA moved uptown to the venerable Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan for the debut of ANOHNI's Hopelessness. The project, a new undertaking by ANOHNI Hegarty (formerly of Antony And The Johnsons) in collaboration with Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke, is a stark expression of political rage and anguish, framed in a cinematic sort-of-pop. As an album, Hopelessness is a dense, fraught listen and perhaps a triumph. As a performance piece however, it was a bit undercooked, if at moments blindingly intense.  Clearly, Hegarty is on a mission. The video for the album's second single, "Drone Bomb Me," stars a weeping Naomi Campbell lip-syncing to lyrics like "Blow my head off / Explode my crystal guts / Let me be the one / The one that you choose from above" while dancers contort themselves into shrapnel-maimed shapes. The rest of the record follows suit, each song lacing the personal with the political. "Watch Me" explores the paranoia and complicity of our growing surveillance state, while "4 Degrees" spits venom at our accelerating slide into global catastrophe. Hegarty's vocals soar as they should, while her collaborators render thunderous climaxes in digital textures. The show on Wednesday, May 18th opened with an extended video of Campbell dancing on a massive screen above the stage while dark, rumbling ambient music filled the room like gas. After an uneasy 30 minutes, the visuals changed to a close up of performance artist Johanna Constantine, caked in bloody makeup, mouthing along to the album's title track. This was the first in an uninterrupted sequence of videos, all directed by Hegarty, which followed a strict format: portrait-style head shots of women, varying in age and ethnicity, silently singing ANOHNI's songs, often while crying. Some would contort themselves, sometimes a face would be layered over itself to create an unsettling, rippling mask of emotions, and sometimes they would simply stare down at the audience. 
    It wasn't until the second song that Hegarty took to the stage. Wearing a mask and a designer variation on a friar's robe, her performance was muted and perhaps intentionally underplayed. Flanked by Oneohtrix Point Never and Christopher Elms on twin laptop rigs, the group stoically moved through the material like classical musicians in the orchestra pit. To be honest, I had questions about what they were even doing—the entire set was clearly running in sync with the visuals and sounded identical to the recordings. Also it would be difficult to achieve such a pristine level of audio quality while singing through a mask. Were they onstage to simply assuage attendees who wanted a "real" concert? The crowd was meant to focus on the screen, but as the set progressed, the ideas in the videos plateaued and diminishing returns set in. Who were these women? Why had they been chosen? At times, their tears felt forced, like on an actor's audition reel. And where were those amazing dancers? The program notes gave a list of names but no context. The music and lyrics refused to relent in intensity and visceral imagery, describing burning "Indians at stake" and torture in Guantanamo. Only occasionally did the videos elevate the show to something more than an album listening party. When this happened, though, you could feel the whole room holding its breath, as on "I Don't Love You Anymore" with Chelsea Fryer. The evening closed with "Drone Bomb Me," which had been frustratingly re-edited to fit the template of the 13 preceding videos, followed by a clip of artist Ngalangka Nola Taylor. "We are wondering what is happening to the world," she said. "You woke up in the morning and wondered is it going to get better or getting worse. Everybody is wondering, young and old. Everything is going upside down. How are we going to stop… and make the world a better place to live for all of us?" Although a touch didactic after more than an an hour of Hegarty's poetics, the blunt lucidity in her voice was a welcome counterpoint to, and summation of, what had come before. Streaming out into the street, the crowd buzzed with discussion, processing and unpacking what they had just seen, and perhaps what they wished they could un-see.
RA