What does the beginning of the end sound like? Not long ago, in a small bar tucked away in far Northwest DC, local folk punk band Trash Boat and the Ambush did a twisted cover of Bob McFadden’s “Beat Generation,” singing instead: “We belong to the dead generation.” On Saturday at the Howard Theatre, Yo La Tengo covered Sun Ra’s cold war jazz classic “Nuclear War:” “it’s a motherfucker, don’t you know?/ if they push that button, your ass got to go.” And on Sunday at the 9:30 Club, Darkside lead singer Nicolas Jaar crooned a hellish interpolation of John Lennon: “imagine all the people/ living in hell/ doesn’t take much.”
What I’m saying is that vibes are bad right now in Washington, DC, the belly of the beast and the center of the collapse, and you can hear it everywhere you go. But bad vibes are nothing new for Anohni, the 54-year-old singer and performance artist who came up in New York’s experimental theater scene in midst of the AIDS crisis. Throughout the ’90s, she built a reputation with her band the Johnsons (named in honor of Marsha P.) for achingly beautiful songs which explored the contradictions of love, queerness, and oppression.
Later, Anohni left the band and in 2016 and recorded a solo album, Hopelessness, which tackled the coming climate crisis through dance and techno music; that same year, she became the first trans person to receive an Oscar nomination for the song “Manta Ray.”
Anohni reunited with the Johnsons for 2023’s My Back Was A Bridge For You to Cross, which marked a return to the lush soul instrumentation which had first established her as a leading voice in experimental music. The band’s performance at Lincoln Theatre on March 26 was a rare chance (one of only two US shows this year) to see an artist at the peak of her craft. In a languid and improvisatory two-hour set running through songs old and new, Anohni sketched a soundtrack for the apocalypse that embraced both love and pain, terror and strength.
The set began with the live debut of My Back’s “Scapegoat” which relates a conversation between oppressor and oppressed unadorned by the usual euphemisms by which hate is often expressed. Unaccompanied at first, Anohni crooned “you’re so killable/ so disposable/ you’re my scapegoat, it’s not personal” as the band joined the song and built to a crashing, searing guitar solo. She followed this with “Why Am I Alive Now?” another My Back song which highlights Anohni’s knack for cutting questions directed at the injustices of our age.
Watch the official music video for “Scapegoat” by Anohni and the Johnsons on YouTube:
Whereas most pop artists seek to create transformative and escapist fantasies, Anohni’s songs sit within the grief and rage of our terrible present. “It was always a hopeless situation, I was born in the petrochemical century,” she told the crowd in DC, comparing the late 20th century to “a petrochemical goldilocks zone” whose joys were lived on borrowed time.
Anohni’s songs conjure the contradictory beauty of a world on fire through both poignant lyricism and lush instrumental arrangements. On stage in DC, the six members of the Johnsons crafted a richly detailed musical landscape for Anohni’s voice to fill. Consisting of bass, piano, percussion, brass (mostly saxophone and oboe), and two guitars, the band drew on the legacies of soul, jazz, blues, and lounge music to embellish songs that gently ebb and swell (like “It Must Change”) or simmer with slow burning tension (“Motherless Child”). In addition to bringing songs to life from the new record, the band also brought its rich and thoughtful arrangements to Hopelessness songs, transforming “4 Degrees” into a mournful piano ballad and “Drone Bomb Me” into a surprisingly dance-able apocalyptic synth pop anthem.
At the center of the band was Anohni, whose rich and supple voice lured the audience in for moments of hushed intimacy but also stunned with moments of magnificent power. Standing tall and unafraid in the middle of the stage, she channeled the commanding moral authority of great singer-activists like Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. Her voice wrapped melancholy choruses like “Hopelessness/ I feel the hopelessness” in tender caresses, giving voice to the grief and despair of our current moment. Yet she also found power in this chorus too, and as the band built a symphonic swell around her she declared “I’ve been living a lie/ feels good to tell the truth.”
Anohni loosened up as the set progressed, settling into improvisatory grooves with the band on songs like “Hopelessness” and “Can’t.” Sometimes singing and sometimes speaking, she gave voice to the anger and uncertainty that many of us have been feeling, delivering moments of profound beauty and wisdom along the way. “I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers,” she noted before starting “It Must Change;” “You get to decide if we live or die; it’s part of the gimmick.” Perhaps the most powerful moment of the night was an improvised line she delivered as the band began their cover of the traditional song “Motherless Child:” “your hatred for me makes my eyes round and wide/ sometimes I want to close these holes.” In a world over-saturated in images of destruction, we are constantly torn between perverse attention and apathetic indifference.
Watch the official music video for “It Must Change” by Anohni and the Johnsons on YouTube:
Anohni has long been known for her inventive engagement with the traditions of popular music, reworking classics like “Crazy in Love” and “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” in her unique laconic style. My Back is itself a tribute record to blue-eye soul and an exploration of that genre’s racial contradictions. In addition to songs from her two most recent records, the setlist in DC included a number of covers including Lou Reed’s “Coney Island Baby” and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Little Wheel Spin and Spin.”
After nearly two hours of gorgeous soul music, Anohni and the Johnsons concluded with a cover of The Velvet Underground’s 1969 song “I’m Set Free.” Often read as a parable for Lou Reed’s struggle with heroin addiction, in Anohni’s hands the song became an uneasy ode to liberatory struggle and the long road ahead. “I’ve been set free and I’ve been bound,” Anohni sang as the band swelled around her, “I’m set free to find a new illusion.” The many illusions of the petrochemical century are crumbling around us, and we continue to search for a new vision from which to build the world anew. As the world teeters on the brink, the band played on.
