ANOHNI and The Johnsons live at the Barbican
…or else ANOHNI – transformed, transcendent, and risen like a phoenix – conjures up the spirit of the Johnsons and offers a career best performance at the Barbican.
I’ll try to put into words something of the energy we all felt coming from the stage last night that made us wiser, enlightened – and a bit sadder.
By now, those familiar with the career of ANOHNI – but also those who experienced her music for the first time last night – know that soul, jazz, rock, and psych come out of her as something with a very different potency than previously experienced. Having followed her career since the early 2000s and having seen her three times throughout the years in key moments of this career, I can admit with some certainty that yesterday’s performance was the best of all. It was the first time ANOHNI talked so comfortably about her collaborators and their lives, and the first time that I felt she was addressing each of us individually with a nonchalance and a warmth that can only come when someone is feeling content and at ease without the need to entertain just for the hell of it.
A month whose soundtrack includes new albums by and also the trees, PET NEEDS and Whispering Sons is not one to pass by!
The dark alternative music scene has had a myriad of new bands emerge during the last decade but very few have stuck around. Even fewer have consistently released interesting and genre-bending music. 
