Anika, the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson, will release her first new album in over a decade next month.
The follow-up to 2010s Anika, released on Invada and Stones Throw, Change is “beautifully fraught,” we’re told. All nine tracks are filled with “a palpable sense of global anxiety” and the record’s central feeling is one of “heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism.” The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Boards of Canada filled with Anika’s beautifully plaintive voice.
After recording the initial ideas by herself at Berlin’s Klangbild Studios, Anika was joined by Martin Thulin, with whom she forms Exploded View alongside Mexican musicians Martin Thulin and Hugo Quezada, 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?”
Anika spent the early part of her childhood in Germany, raised by music-loving parents before moving to Bristol which increased her appetite for discovering new music. While in the United Kingdom, she met Portishead’s Geoff Barrow through a mutual friend and, when it became clear that they shared the same love of punk and dub, they went into the studio to record her debut album.
Alongside today’s announcement, Anika has shared a video for the title-track directed by Sven Gutjahr.
Tracklisting
01. Finger Pies
02. Critical
03. Change
04. Naysayer
05. Sand Witches
06. Never Coming Back
07. Rights
08. Freedom
09. Wait For Something
Change LP is scheduled for July 23 release on Sacred Bones and Invada. Meanwhile, you can stream the title-track below and pre-order here.
