Concert:
Anchoress
AS
21.05.22, 18:00
Anchoress understands music as a method to explore spaces beyond logical boundaries. The band leads its audience into a poetic world of broken hierarchies through a quest for deeper meaning: the spirits of biblical characters are summoned to divine new interpretations of hitherto male-dominated myths. Rejecting the systems imposed upon them, they begin a gnostic search for the divine in the technology surrounding us.
Anchoress crafts dark and epic eulogies by means of a distinctively androgynous “howling” tenor. Accompanied by haunting strings, android choirs and swelling synthesizer drones, Anna Lucia Nissen’s voice metamorphoses into different characters. These lyrical protagonists are amalgamations of historical figures, with references to feminist literature and observations of her surroundings. They each tell stories about female anger, twenty-first century alienation, and a yearning for new forms of collectiveness.
Anchoress is a music project by Anna Lucia Nissen (vocals), Alex Rathbone (guitar), Tobias Textor (percussion), and Agnese Menguzzato (synths). Anchoress’s performance is influenced by film narratives, post-industrial sounds, and devotional music, which are merged into “uncanny ecstatic dirges that oscillate between hopefulness and despair.” Anchoress participated in the Amplify Berlin residency program in 2021. They present their work in clubs, bars, and art spaces, with recent concerts taking place at Tennis Bar, Berlin; Au Topsi Pohl at Isotop Bar, Berlin and CURA Berlin.
Anna Lucia Nissen was a BPA// participant in 2017; she started Anchoress in 2020.
AS is an experimental duo formed by Agnese Menguzzato (lute, electronics) and Sara Persico (voice, electronics, synths). They met through the Amplify Berlin residency program at Kunsthaus ACUD Macht Neu in 2021 and have collaborated since. Their music fuses nostalgic melodies with pulsing analog synth patterns.
