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Jun 13, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Nomi Ruiz

ANOHNI is releasing a new album with ANOHNI and the Johnsons, My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross, on July 7 via Secretly Canadian and Rough Trade. Now she has shared its second single, “Sliver of Ice,” which is inspired by some of the last words Lou Reed said to her before his passing. It was shared via a music video. Watch it below.

ANOHNI had this to say about the song in a press release, referring to Reed: “A friend of mine expressed to me in the final months of his life that the simplest sensations had begun to feel almost rapturous; a carer had placed a shard of ice on his tongue one day and it was such a sweet and unbelievable feeling that it caused him to weep with gratitude. He was a hardcore kind of guy and these moments were transforming the way he was seeing things. I wrote ‘Sliver of Ice,’ remembering those words of his.”

ANOHNI and the Johnsons previously shared the album’s first single, “It Must Change,” via a music video. “It Must Change” was one of our Songs of the Week.

My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross is ANOHNI’s first album since 2016’s HOPELESSNESS and the first album to bear the Johnsons name since 2010’s Swanlights (released under the Antony and the Johnsons moniker). ANOHNI, who was born in the UK but is based in New York City, teamed with soul producer Jimmy Hogarth (Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Tina Turner) for My Back Was a Bridge For You to Cross. They then assembled a backing band consisting of Leo Abrahams, Chris Vatalaro, Sam Dixon, and string arranger Rob Moose.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. That was a really important touchstone in my mind,” said ANOHNI in a previous press release. “Some of these songs respond to global and environmental concerns first voiced in popular music over 50 years ago.”

A lot of the songs on the album are first vocal takes. ANOHNI explained: “Many of the recordings on this record—like ‘It Must Change’ and ‘Can’t’—capture the first and only time I have sung those songs through. There’s a magic when you suddenly place words you have been thinking about for a long time into melody. A neural system awakens. It isn’t personal and yet is so personal. Things connect and come alive.”

Summing up the album, ANOHNI said: “I want the record to be useful. I learned with HOPELESSNESS that I can provide a soundtrack that might fortify people in their work, in their activism, in their dreaming and decision-making. I can sing of an awareness that makes others feel less alone, people for whom the frank articulation of these frightening times is not a source of discomfort but a cause for identification and relief. I want the work to be useful, to help others move with dignity and resilience through these conversations we are now facing.”

The album’s cover artwork features a 1970s portrait of human rights activist Marsha P. Johnson, taken by Alvin Baltrop.

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