Anjimile. Photo by Shervin Lainez
Boston-based indie-folk songwriter Anjimile dropped an album last year called Giver Taker, an impressive and enrapturing project. It's little surprise that the album caught the attention of the storied indie label 4AD, who today announced Anjimile's signing with the new loose single "Stranger."
The new song is a welcome return for Anjimile's florid instrumentation and deeply felt lyrics. In a press statement, he described the song as "something of a confrontation between my past and present selves in relationship to my trans identity."
I started testosterone about 3 or 4 years ago, and It’s been simultaneously liberating and alarming to note the changes to my mind and body over the years. 'Stranger 'is an admission to myself that, while I welcome all of those changes - especially the deepening effect of testosterone on my singing and speaking voice - it’s still scary and there is a degree of internal ambivalence to my transition. In transitioning I lost, or gave up, a part of myself. And that is hard to reconcile. 'Stranger' is an attempt at some semblance of reconciliation, I guess.
