Hopelessness (album)
2016 album by Anohni
Hopelessness is the debut solo album by British-American artist Anohni, frontwoman of Anohni and the Johnsons, released on 6 May 2016 on Secretly Canadian, Rough Trade, and Hostess. Featuring co-production by Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never, the album departs from the chamber pop style of her previous work, instead exploring an electronic sound and engaging directly with political and environmental themes in the form of protest songs.
Hopelessness was released to critical acclaim. It peaked at number 26 on the UK album charts and number 121 in the US. Hopelessness was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2016, and Anohni was nominated for Best British Female at the BRIT Awards in 2017.
Background and recording
Following her plaintive, chamber pop-styled work with the group Antony and the Johnsons in the early 2000s, Anohni began developing a radically different "Trojan horse" project that would instead feature a "glossy, plastic sound" while dealing more directly with political and environmental issues. Discussing her decision to move away from her earlier style, she reasoned: "at this point, I really feel like it's all hands on deck. An artist that's fiddle-faddling in opaque, gossamer gestures — I mean it's fine to do that, totally fine, but there's no time left." Conceptualized and recorded over three years, Anohni first began to collaborate with electronic musician Daniel Lopatin, whose work as Oneohtrix Point Never she had previously covered.
Anohni and Lopatin initially speculated on creating "a kind of Blade Runner–Kitarō–Japanimation soundtrack" before producer Ross Birchard, better known for his work in hip hop (cf. Kanye West) as Hudson Mohawke, became involved with the project in 2014. Birchard and Anohni had also collaborated on Birchard's 2015 album Lantern, during which time he sent Anohni the demo of what would become "Drone Bomb Me." Speaking to the New York Times, Anohni explained that "the kind of relentless, exuberant, almost ecstatic positiveness of Hudson's music was the perfect foil for more challenging lyrics than people would be used to hearing from me." Both producers worked on the tracks, with Anohni also taking part in the production process; Mohawke recalled: "she's not just writing these songs.
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