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Anima (Thom Yorke album)

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Anima
Studio album by
Thom Yorke
Released27 June 2019 (2019-06-27)
GenreElectronic
Length47:44
LabelXL
ProducerNigel Godrich
Thom Yorke chronology
Suspiria
(2018) 		Anima
(2019)

Anima is the third studio album by the English musician Thom Yorke, released on 27 June 2019 through XL Recordings. It was produced by Yorke's longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich.

Anima comprises electronic music developed through live performances and studio work, with themes of anxiety and dystopia. It was accompanied by a short film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, which was released on Netflix and in select IMAX theatres, and a music video for "Last I Heard (...He Was Circling the Drain)". Yorke embarked on an international tour to support the album; later dates were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Anima became Yorke's first number-one album on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. It received positive reviews and was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package at the 2020 Grammy Awards. The Anima film received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy for Best Music Film. The album was followed by the Not the News Rmx EP, featuring an extended version of "Not the News" plus remixes.

Writing and recording

Yorke wrote Anima following a period of writer's block and anxiety.[1] Inspired by seeing the electronic musician Flying Lotus improvising live with loops, Yorke and longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich developed Anima through live performances and studio work. Yorke would send Godrich "sprawling" unfinished tracks and Godrich would edit them into shorter samples and loops, which Yorke wrote vocals to.[1] They performed several Anima tracks, including "Not the News", on the tour for Yorke's previous album Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.[2] Philip Selway, the drummer for Yorke's band Radiohead, contributed "sped-up drums" to "Impossible Knots". Joey Waronker, the drummer for another Yorke project, Atoms for Peace, appears on the end of "The Axe".[3]

Music and lyrics

Anima comprises electronic music with "layers of electronic fuzz and deconstructed noise".[1] Pitchfork characterised it as "full of wraithlike frequencies and fibrillating pulses".[4] Yorke said its themes include anxiety and dystopia; he felt that dystopian environments were "a really good way of expressing anxiety creatively".[1] The title Anima, a reference to the psychoanalyst Carl Jung's concepts of the anima and animus, came from Yorke's interest in dreams.[5]

The Independent likened the opening track, "Traffic", to the "heady grooves and pulses" of the electronic artist Floating Points.[6] "Dawn Chorus" is a "reverential song about loss, nostalgia, and regret" with "hushed", almost-spoken vocals.[4] The "Not the News" melody resembles a ticking clock[7] and builds to a "mass of chaotic orchestration".[8] "Impossible Knots" features a "propulsive electric bassline", and the final track, "Runwayaway", has "trance-like" blues guitar.[4]

Promotion and release

Anima was promoted with a viral marketing campaign. In June 2019, posters in cities around the world appeared advertising "Anima Technologies", a company claiming to be able to recover lost dreams with a "dream camera". Calling the advertised number led to a prerecorded message advising that Anima Technologies had been "seized" after "unlawful activities", followed by part of the track "Not the News".[9] This was followed by projections on London landmarks.[10]

Yorke announced Anima on social media on 20 June.[11] It was released as a download and on streaming services on 27 June 2019, followed by CD and vinyl editions on 19 July 2019. The vinyl edition includes a bonus track, "Ladies & Gentlemen, Thank You For Coming".[12]

On 2 August, Yorke released the Not the News Rmx EP on digital platforms, comprising an extended version of "Not the News" plus remixes by Mark Pritchard, Clark and Equiknoxx. A limited-edition white-label vinyl version followed.[13] A music video for "Last I Heard (...He Was Circling the Drain)", blending 16mm, 3D and cel animation, was released on 30 October.[14]

To support Anima, Yorke embarked on an international tour, performing with Godrich and visual artist Tarik Barri.[15] A North American tour was due to begin in March 2020, but was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[16]

Film

Promotional poster

Anima was accompanied by a 15-minute film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. The Anima film was played in some IMAX theatres and released on Netflix on the day of the album release.[11] It features Yorke's partner, the actress Dajana Roncione, plus choreography by Damien Jalet, cinematography by Darius Khondji and projections by Tarik Barri.[3] In the film, Yorke rides a train of uniformed passengers ("Not the News"), meets the eye of a woman (Roncione) and pursues her when she forgets her bag ("Traffic"). They meet in the street, dance together and board a tram ("Dawn Chorus").

The film began with a concept from Yorke about workers whose "bodies don't work any more" and are being "pushed by an invisible force". The team wanted the first sequence to be "oppressive and hyper-precise so it feels like a machine", influenced by dystopian stories such as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Metropolis and the physical comedy of Charlie Chaplin.[17] For the "Traffic" sequence, the team created a platform inclined at a 34-degree angle and placed the camera at the same angle, erasing the slope.[17]

At the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the Anima film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 8.05/10.[18] It was nominated for Best Music Film at the 2020 Grammy Awards.[19]

Sales

Anima entered at number 50 on the UK Albums Chart, and re-entered at number five following its retail release three weeks later.[20] It was Yorke's tenth UK top-ten album (including his work with Radiohead), and his second top-ten solo album (after his 2006 album The Eraser).[21] Anima became Yorke's first number-one album on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, selling 10,000 album-equivalent units in the week ending July 25, nearly all from traditional sales.[22] "Traffic" was Yorke's first entry on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and reached number 47.[22]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
AnyDecentMusic?8.0/10[23]
Metacritic84/100[24]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[25]
The Daily Telegraph[26]
The Guardian[27]
The Independent[28]
Mojo[29]
NME[30]
The Observer[31]
Pitchfork8.3/10[4]
Q[32]
Rolling Stone[33]

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Anima has an average score of 84, based on 28 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".[24] Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork awarded it the week's "Best New Music", writing that it was Yorke's most ambitious and assured solo album and the first that felt complete without Radiohead.[4] The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis observed "a preponderance of dance rhythms" but "very little of dance music's propulsive dynamics", and felt the melodies were "fragmentary and vaporous". He concluded that Anima was "like a glimpse through an artist’s sketchbook, interesting rather than essential".[27] At the 2020 Grammy Awards, Anima was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package.[19]

Accolades

Accolades for Anima
Publication List Rank
Afisha Daily (Russia)[34] The Best Foreign Albums of 2019 14
GQ (Russia)[35] The 20 Best Albums of 2019 —

Track listing

All lyrics are written by Thom Yorke; all music is composed by Nigel Godrich and Thom Yorke

Anima track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Traffic"5:16
2."Last I Heard (...He Was Circling the Drain)"5:06
3."Twist"7:03
4."Dawn Chorus"5:23
5."I Am a Very Rude Person"3:44
6."Not the News"3:56
7."The Axe"7:00
8."Impossible Knots"4:20
9."Runwayaway"5:56
Total length:47:44

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Anima.[36]

Additional musicians

  • Joey Waronker – drums at the end of "The Axe"
  • Philip Selway – sped-up drums on "Impossible Knots"
  • London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir
    • Hugh Brunt – conducting, orchestrations
    • Talia Morey – copy
    • Galya Bisengalieva (leader), Alessandro Ruisi, Zara Benyounes, Alexandra Caldon, Venetia Jollands, Patrick Savage, Anna Ovsyanikova, Marianne Haynes – first violins
    • Eloisa-Fleur Thom, Emily Holland, Gillon Cameron, Guy Button, Nicole Stokes, Francesca Barritt, Violeta Barreña, Ed McCullagh – second violins
    • Ian Anderson, Clifton Harrison, Matt Kettle, Matthew Maguire, Diana Matthews, Alison D'Souza, Jenny Lewisohn, Meghan Cassidy – violas
    • Brian O'Kane, Reinoud Ford, Jonny Byers, Gregor Riddell, Zoe Martlew, Sergio Serra – cellos
    • Dave Brown, Roger Linley, Laurence Ungless, Gwen Reed – double basses
    • Pasha Mansurov (solo: piccolo, alto and bass), Zinajda Kodrič (II: alto and bass), Gareth Mclearnon (III: alto, bass and contrabass) – flutes
    • Craig Apps, Zands Duggan, Louise Anna Duggan – percussion
    • Josephine Stephenson, Héloïse Werner, Fiona Fraser, Harriet Armston-Clarke, Laurel Neighbour, Eleanor Gregory – sopranos
    • Rose Martin, Katie Schofield, Amy Lyddon, Emma Lewis, Lissie Paul, Judy Brown – altos

Technical personnel

Artwork

Charts

Weekly sales chart performance for Anima
Chart (2019) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[37] 23
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[38] 19
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[39] 10
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[40] 21
Canadian Albums (Billboard)[41] 58
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[42] 12
French Albums (SNEP)[43] 33
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[44] 21
Irish Albums (IRMA)[45] 19
Italian Albums (FIMI)[46] 15
Japan Hot Albums (Billboard Japan)[47] 29
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[48] 14
Lithuanian Albums (AGATA)[49] 24
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[50] 27
Polish Albums (ZPAV)[51] 35
Portuguese Albums (AFP)[52] 5
Scottish Albums (OCC)[53] 4
South Korean Albums (Gaon)[54] 86
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[55] 13
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[56] 12
UK Albums (OCC)[57] 5
US Billboard 200[58] 59
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard)[59] 1

Year-end charts

Annual sales chart performance for Anima
Chart (2019) Position
US Independent Albums[60] 36

References

  1. ^ a b c d Frost, Thomas (May 2019). "Thom Yorke: Daydream nation". Crack Magazine. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  2. ^ Baesemann, Ryan (17 June 2019). "Thom Yorke seems to have mysteriously announced a new album". Mixmag. Archived from the original on 20 June 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  3. ^ a b Yoo, Noah (26 June 2019). "Five takeaways from Thom Yorke's new album, Anima". Pitchfork. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e Sherburne, Philip (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke: ANIMA". Pitchfork. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  5. ^ "Watch Thom Yorke Discuss New Album ANIMA, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, More in New Interview". Pitchfork. 25 June 2019. Retrieved 25 June 2019.
  6. ^ O'Connor, Roisin (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke review, ANIMA: Radiohead frontman explores the subconscious on this stark album". The Independent. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  7. ^ Trapunski, Richard (27 June 2019). "Review: Thom Yorke's Anima is a trip into your own mind". Now. Archived from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  8. ^ Petridis, Alexis (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke: Anima review – angst, anguish, paranoia and… jokes?". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  9. ^ Madison, Bloom (15 June 2019). "Thom Yorke Previews New Song Via Hotline From Mysterious Ads". Pitchfork. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  10. ^ Reilly, Nick (20 June 2019). "Thom Yorke continues to tease solo album with mysterious projections on London landmarks". NME. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  11. ^ a b Blistein, Jon (20 June 2019). "Thom Yorke Details New Solo Album 'Anima'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  12. ^ Bloom, Madison (20 June 2019). "Thom Yorke Announces New Album ANIMA". Pitchfork. Retrieved 21 June 2019.
  13. ^ Matozzo, Marissa (August 2019). "Thom Yorke Announces Remix EP Not the News". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 2 August 2019.
  14. ^ "Watch Thom Yorke's New Video for "Last I Heard (…He Was Circling The Drain)"". Pitchfork. 31 October 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2019.
  15. ^ "Thom Yorke's Tour Dates For 2020: See Them Here". Billboard. 13 January 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  16. ^ "Thom Yorke Postpones Tour Due to Coronavirus Concerns". Pitchfork. 13 March 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
  17. ^ a b Dazed (15 July 2019). "Choreographer Damien Jalet on the dystopian world of Thom Yorke's ANIMA". Dazed. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
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  19. ^ a b "Grammy Nominations 2020: See the Full List of Nominees Here". Pitchfork. 20 November 2019. Retrieved 20 November 2019.
  20. ^ "Ed Sheeran's 'Collaborations' Leads U.K. Albums Again, Shawn & Camila's 'Señorita' Regains Singles Crown". Billboard. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  21. ^ McIntyre, Hugh. "Ed Sheeran's New Album Holds At No. 1 While Radiohead's Thom Yorke Hits The Top 10". Forbes. Retrieved 29 July 2019.
  22. ^ a b Murray, Gordon (1 August 2019). "Thom Yorke Earns First No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums Chart with 'Anima'". Billboard. Retrieved 3 August 2019.
  23. ^ "ANIMA by Thom Yorke reviews". AnyDecentMusic?. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  24. ^ a b "ANIMA by Thom Yorke Reviews and Tracks". Metacritic. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  25. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Anima – Thom Yorke". AllMusic. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  26. ^ Power, Ed (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke, Anima review: a bleak dystopian rhapsody you can actually dance to". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  27. ^ a b Petridis, Alexis (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke: Anima review – angst, anguish, paranoia and… jokes?". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  28. ^ O'Connor, Roisin (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke review, ANIMA: Radiohead frontman explores the subconscious on this stark album". The Independent. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  29. ^ Eccleston, Danny (September 2019). "Sleepless in suburbia". Mojo (310): 87.
  30. ^ McMahon, James (26 June 2019). "Thom Yorke – 'ANIMA' review". NME. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
  31. ^ Empire, Kitty (30 June 2019). "Thom Yorke: Anima review – instantly recognisable musical signatures". The Observer. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  32. ^ Doherty, Niall (August 2019). "Uneasy Rider". Q (401): 106.
  33. ^ Sheffield, Rob (27 June 2019). "Thom Yorke Creates Dystopian Rapture That's Perfect for Our Terrifying Times on 'Anima'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  34. ^ "Лучшие зарубежные альбомы 2019 года" [The Best Foreign Albums of 2019]. Afisha Daily. 26 December 2019.
  35. ^ Brontwein, Sofia (20 December 2019). "Лучшие музыкальные альбомы 2019 года" [The Best Albums of 2019]. GQ (Russia). Retrieved 2 January 2020.
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