New Video: Anika Shares Tense and Uneasy “Oxygen”

Acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based singer/songwriter and musician Annika Henderson, best known as Anika will be releasing her fourth album Abyss through Sacred Bones on Friday. 

Abyss was born out of the frustration, anger and confusion Henderson feels from existing in our contemporary world. Reportedly much heavier than 2021’s Change, the 10-song album is raw, urgent and fueled by strong emotions, the album’s material takes the acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist on a new sonic journey. 

The soon-to-be released album was recorded live to tape at Berlin’s legendary Hansa Studios. Recording live and with minimal overdubs was an important decision, Henderson stresses, in order to capture the raw immediacy of the album. Much like previously released material, she wrote the songs herself before fleshing them out with Exploded View‘s Martin Thulin, and then assembled a live band to join the pair in the studio that included Andrea Belfi (drums), Mueran Humanos‘ Tomas Nochteff (bass) and The Pleasure Majenta‘s Lawrence Goodwin (guitar). Studio engineering was done by Nanni Johansson and Frida Claeson Johansson. “I always work with people I respect and admire,” Henderson says. “It’s very genuine in that way.” 

The acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist consciously sought to make an album that was inherently physical — one that would take the listener out of their heads and back into their body. The physicality of the album and its material is further emphasized by its album cover, which features androgynous bodies from a drawing by a teenage friend of Anika’s. Fittingly, teenage angst plays a part in the album. “These days it feels like you have to have very catered opinions – like language has gone out the window,” Henderson says. “It makes you feel very much like a restricted child again.” 

With Abyss, the acclaimed British-born, Berlin-based artist was determined to break free from holding back genuine emotions — even if they might seem uncomfortable or too much. “It’s like I’m doing all the things that I never allowed myself to do,” she says. She hopes this pure emotion will position the listener to fully immerse themselves in the album. “There needs to be room for people to put themselves in this album, and put their own narratives on it,” she says. “This is a space for you.”

“There’s so much going on in the world, and you have to sit there and watch it through a screen that you’ve allowed into your home, like a vampire who had been preying at your door, then immediately digest it, have an opinion, and publicly comment on it,” Henderson continues. “The state of the world just feels like an abyss right now.” With this new album, she wants to create a place where people can feel safe to be themselves, and to unite in their diversity. “Abyss is like a call to action,” she says. “To come and figure it out together.”

In the lead-up to the album’s release, I wrote about two of its previously released singles”

• Album opening track “Hearsay,” a gritty Joy Division– meets-PJ Harvey-like tune, anchored around an angular and driving bass line, stuttering four-on-the-floor and slashing guitars paired with Henderson’s melodic, Nico-like croon. The song hones in on the extreme divisions between the left and right in contemporary society with Anika explaining that “this song is about media moguls – about the power of the media, whether social, tv or beyond – we are as much under its spell as we ever were and some nasties are exploiting it for their own gains. Parasites feeding off the blood of the public — PJ Harvey inspired for sure.” 
• “Walk Away,” a surprisingly upbeat 90s alt rock-influenced track that sounds a bit like a synthesis of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea-era PJ Harvey and Hole/Courtney Love paired with the most unflinchingly honest lyrics of the British-born, German-based artist’s career. The song reveals an artist, who is no longer concerned with how others may think or feel about what she feels she has to say. It’s zero-fucks mode, informed by a world that’s gone to completely to hell anyway. “This song is saying all the things I want to say but am too scared to say or that society doesn’t accept me to say. It is dealing with mental health – the state of poor mental health in these fucked up, divided, isolated, social media, war, pest, rise of the right times,” Anika explains. “It is the deconstruction of the feminine – of topics considered to be private realm.” Henderson cites “the reckless nature of 90s/2000s Hole/Courtney Love records — of not giving a shit — telling it how it is, not scared to offend, not scared to be cancelled. We have also lost the space for healthy debate, for difference of opinion, shutting down those we don’t agree with, removing them from our social networks.”

Abyss‘ third and latest single “Oxygen” continues a run of hook-drivenJoy Division-like post-punk, anchored around Henderson’s haunting, Nico-like croon. Bur unlike its predecessors, “Oxygen” evokes the sensation of being restricted against one’s will and struggling to free themselves; of having one’s rights constantly fucked with and never knowing if your rights will be upheld from day to day or month to month.

“’Oxygen’ is about feeling trapped in your own body, in your own narrative, in your own society, within the norms and expected behaviours of this claustrophobic socially constructed world,” Henderson explains. “It wants to break out of this cage, it wants to breathe, it wants to be in tune with its true self, its true feelings, sensations and desires – without restriction.” 

Sonically, the track was “inspired by Breeders and Pixies, the way it creeps in slowly and then crashes with this weird chorus/part that only comes in once,” She adds. “I didn’t want to write things too rigidly, or by the book, more let them flow as they wished.”

The accompanying video continues Anika’s ongoing collaboration with Laura Martinova, who contributes a feverish and at times deeply unsettling visual with a remarkable panache.

Sonically, the track was “inspired by Breeders and Pixies, the way it creeps in slowly and then crashes with this weird chorus/part that only comes in once,” Anika explains. “I didn’t want to write things too rigidly, or by the book, more let them flow as they wished.” The accompanying video was directed by Laura Martinova.