ANOHNI / Drone Bomb Me / London, Barbican, 9/7/16

Anohni – fka Antony Hegarty – performed songs on ecocide, gender politics and surveillance state governance from new album Hopelessness on Friday night; the humanity of which coursed through the Barbican.

Cindy Sasha from Climate Revolution writes about the experience here:

I was bloody lucky to get invited last minute to see Anohni at the Barbican which was sold out. I was really excited as Anohni – a transgender singer, composer and visual artist – was playing songs from her incredible album Hopelessness. It was only recently when Vivienne and I were talking about music that Vivienne mentioned she was a huge fan and loved her political and aggressive lyrics which address climate change and war!

The evening was intense and moving; when the lights went out, the audience fell silent and a large screen emerged revealing footage of Naomi Campbell dancing. Out of nowhere Anohni appeared, draped in a white robe at the centre of the stage. You couldn’t quite see her face and the audience’s focus was drawn to the large screen where random people were miming to the lyrics of her powerful, political songs which address the problems of the world. Anohni is not a fan of American politics and sang a song called Obama, slamming the current President of United States actions such as ‘punishing whistle-blowers who tell the truth’.

She performed protest songs such as 4 Degrees based on Climate Change and Drone Bomb Me which is about the use of drone warfare in Afghanistan.

Drone bomb me

Blow me from the mountains

And into the sea

Blow me from the side of the mountain

Blow my head off

Explode my crystal guts

Lay my purple on the grass

Anohni puts herself in the mind of those suffering and sings beautifully to the audience where she wants people to feel the agony of the world through music. Probably one of the best performances I have ever seen.