Three songs into her debut solo record, ANOHNI reaches out to Bob Dylan.
You might not see it coming. You’ve just listened to two tragically gorgeous songs — one about the murder of human beings by drones (“Drone Bomb Me”) and the next about the murder of the planet by human beings (“4 Degrees”). Here, now, listening to an album called HOPELESSNESS, you sit on the precipice of a song about the murder of privacy.
But back to Dylan. The first drum of “Watch Me” hits — a solitary note suspended in a vacuum. Either half a second or a full lunar cycle later (I’m still not sure which), the rest of the melody tumbles in on a wave of glowing synths. It’s a transmission that travels 51 years into the past, bridging a connection between ANOHNI’s darkly political pop and that iconic opening note of “Like a Rolling Stone,” the one Springsteen once described as a “snare shot that sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind.”
Five decades later, ANOHNI calls to Dylan’s magnum opus, or at least channels its “lost innocence,” or “stolen innocence,” or whatever coherent concept you can pull from the lyrically-opaque clusterfuck that is “Like a Rolling Stone.” Drums hit; synths tumble; a woman sings, and Once upon a time, you dressed so fine becomes Daddy… Daddy… Daddy…
Because, yes: it’s 2016 now, and ANOHNI is here to fuck shit up. What was once a song in which a man watches a woman becomes a song in which, well, a man is still watching a woman. But this time, she gets the last word, even though Daddy’s everywhere. Daddy’s watching her in her hotel room. He’s watching her as she moves from city to city. He’s watching her as she watches pornography. I know you love me, ANOHNI coos. ‘Cause you’re always watching me.
Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Never grace our vocalist with production that pulses and throbs as it shapes itself around her voice. As usual, though, ANOHNI’s unparalleled vocal abilities deserve the most praise. Here, she switches between two vocal registers, sinking to the ground for every breathless “Daddy” and rising to the ceiling for every post-chorus “Watch me!” I can’t remember music viscerally affecting my body quite like this song does, but there’s something about the sheer physicality of ANOHNI’s vocals that translates directly to the listening experience. It’s mesmerizing, it’s exhausting, and it’s totally brilliant.
Like much of ANOHNI’s work, past and present, “Watch Me” is an experiment in dichotomies. I want to dance to it, but it freaks me out. It’s sexy, it’s queer, and it’s deeply disturbing. It’s a balancing act between breathy sensuality and troubling lyrical content; a proudly feminist artifact of the surveillance era. It could only exist today.
I mean, how does “Like a Rolling Stone” end? When you ain’t got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose. You’re invisible now. You’ve got no secrets to conceal.
Nothing to lose, no secrets to conceal. How does it feeeeeeeel? ANOHNI, an invisible woman, beckons to men, the government, the NSA. Come play with me, Daddy.
(’17, Art History) thinks almost exclusively about dogs, micheladas, and Kanye. He’s from Connecticut by way of London and wishes it would rain more here.