It’s been just over seven years since ANOHNI released 2016’s Hopelessness, a landmark record met with widespread critical acclaim. Now, the singer announces her long-awaited comeback with My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross, a new record by ANOHNI and the Johnsons. Due out on July 7th, the album announcement also comes with the release of first single “It Must Change” and an accompanying music video.
Directed by British filmmaking duo Iain Forsyth and Jane Polllard, the new clip starring Munroe Bergdorf sees the social justice campaigner lip-synching to ANOHNI’s defiant and hopeful words. “We’re not getting out of here”, declares the musician, “no one’s getting out of here/This is our world.” Powerful lyrics from the soulful track are written in notebooks, graffitied onto walls and projected on buildings throughout the duration of the video.
It’s not the first time ANOHNI has enlisted a familiar face to front one of her videos. For the singer’s 2016 track “Drone Bomb Me” supermodel Noami Campbell gave a powerful and emotional performance in the accompanying music video, while the artist Eliza Douglas also lip-synched to ANOHNI’s lyrics in the music video for 2017 track “Paradise”.
Of the new record, ANOHNI has revealed that Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On was a source of inspiration, an activist album that explored themes of environmentalism and police brutality in the wake of the Vietnam War. Artwork for My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross features a portrait taken by Alvin Baltrop of human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, of whom ANOHNI ’s band is named in honour of.
My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons is out July 7 on Rough Trade and Secretly Canadian.
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