ABOUT BIRTH

Release March 18 2022 - SPRINGSTOFF

"A great world-weariness has always been in me".

Text by Thomas Venker, Cologne, September 2021

"The abysses of my ancestors on my shoulders / Can I even get, can I even get darker....". In this lyric from the song "Deep Sea Fish" lies one of the keys to the riddles of “Birth”, the debut album released by Berlin-based musician Anita Goß, aka ANIQO. "It's about my ancestors in the real sense," she elaborates. "Whereby it's not that I have to know them. It's just that you get character traits and also fears transported through generations. Your great-great-great grandmother may have had a fire in the barn and you're afraid of the barn and don't even know why."

Anita Goß comes from deep family roots in Wismar on Germany’s Baltic coast. This is significant, in that her songs have always sounded very metropolitan - imagine the protagonist in a busy scenario, the streets she walks through filled with people full of stories, the side streets dark and mysterious; ANIQO's music is full of longing, but never for another place, just different conditions.

And in other ways too, her ever-evolving themes possess common threads that have been present from the very beginning. "A great world-weariness has always been in me, also a penchant for spirituality, for thinking outside the box to find out what it's all about: What is humanity looking for in the world? What are we doing with this planet? What is the task? How is it solvable?"

It becomes clear that the topics that interest Anita Goß and fill the songs of ANIQO with life are not everyday stories. They go far beyond that, raising philosophical and metaphysical questions and lines of flight - and yet always refer to the protagonist herself.

When Anita Goß looks back, it is striking how much she plays down her own talent, referring to herself for example as "not a great instrumentalist", merely enabling herself at the time to create song structures and work on her voice. While more ego-driven male counterparts might likely be less self-effacing about their own talents, Anita has quietly added guitar, keyboards and sampling to her skill set, and also recorded considerable singles with "New Signs" and "Chess" in Los Angeles together with producer Joe Cardamone (Mark Lanegan, The Bad Seeds’ Warren Ellis, more).

The big step towards what is now “Birth” came with the move to Berlin two and a half years ago, where she met Grant Box from the London-Berlin label Duchess Box, who not only released two singles on his label, but also encouraged Anita to find a band to finally create the sound image she had in mind all along. The band now consists of guitarist Torsten Füchsel (aka Pegman), keyboardist Illia Vovk and drummer Alexander Lode.

“Birth” was mostly produced by Guy Sternberg (whose back catalogue includes collaborations with Kings of Convenience, Feist, Yoko Ono and Zweiraumwohnung). Anita says of Sternberg that he is an "insanely musical fine spirit who knows more about analogue recording methods than almost anyone else and has super fascinating and rare gear in his studio" - or unfortunately had, as one must now say, since the studio was destroyed in a fire a few months ago.

ANIQO's music is influenced by their love for indie artists of the 70s, 80s and 90s like Nick Cave, Nico, Scott Walker or PJ Harvey. The production of “Birth” is softer than much of what the aforementioned musicians have released. Anita Goß is not so interested in living out a late “Sturm und Drang” phase - at least on the album. Live however, one can certainly expect more noisy interpretations of the songs, she notes. Anita prefers instead to cultivate a sensitive intensity that is just as urgent in terms of effect. It is music - and this is where her own personal biography comes into play - characterized by the longing not to keep life at bay through false barriers (such as performed nihilism or cynicism), but to face it, in the face of everything.

“Birth” is not only a personal liberation, but also a call to face life with hope. "I decided I didn't want to be in the darkness anymore," she explains. "I want to be in the light. I want to hope. I want to get back up after the deep pain. I think it's pretty great to be in the world - even though I see a lot of bad things around me and I don't have a lot of hope about being human, either. But I am very grateful to be able to experience this beauty and the diversity of life. That's why it's about bringing out the glimpse of hope in the darkness, hinting at the light."

Credits BIRTH:

All songs written, composed, arranged by Anita Goß/ Additional composition Vivre Libre + Arrangements 1-7/10 by Illia Vovk & Torsten Füchsel /1-7/10 Produced, recorded and mixed by Guy Sternberg at LowSwing Recording Studio, Assistant engineer: Benedikt Vogt, Berlin 2020 / 8-9 Produced, recorded and mixed by Joe Cardamone at Valley Recording Company, Burbank/ Los Angeles, 2017 / Mastering by Darius van Helfteren, amsterdam mastering, Amsterdam 2020

Anita Goß ~ vocals, piano, organ // Torsten Füchsel ~ guitar, bass, backing vocals // Illia Vovk ~ piano, synthesizer, backing vocals // Nicolai Ziel ~ drums // Guy Sternberg ~ synthesizer // Joe Cardamone ~ guitar & synthesizer // Seung Park ~ saxophone // Yoann Pisterman ~ drums & beats (4) //Artwork by Anita Goß, Christoph von Budea, Pegman Graphics