ANIQO sometimes sounds wild and loud – sometimes quiet and dreamy. The project of the now Berlin-based artist Anita Goß moves between the extremes like a ping-pong ball. With a commitment to minimalism and an appetite to blend “light and dark” in innovative songs, she forges her own unique sound that swings somewhere between the genres of dark wave, psychedelic rock, singer-songwriter and folk – inspired by rock icons and songwriters such as David Bowie, Beth Gibbons, John Lennon, PJHarvey, Arcade Fire and Sharon van Etten.
ANIQO recorded her first songs in Los Angeles in 2017 with producer and musician Joe Cardamone (The Icarus Line), which also brought them first international attention. Among others, the band Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club published her songs and videos on their website. Far Out Magazine aptly described in 2018: “The darkly subversive pop noire finds a challenging and rewarding vehicle in ANIQO and she’s not afraid to keep flipping her work on its head.”
The first official singles were released via Berlin-based UK label Duchess Box Records in 2019.
Together with Israeli-born producer Guy Sternberg (Kings of Convenience, Zweiraumwohnung, Feist, Giant Sand), who already recorded her single LoveLife in his Berlin studio Low Swing in 2019, and her regular bandmates Torsten Füchsel (Herbst in Peking, Me to my Wall ) and Ukrainian Illia Vovk (Nights Out), she recorded her first album BIRTH in the Corona summer of 2020, to be released in late 2021. A very personal, stirring, liberating, touching but also socio-critical debut, full of dark light moments and fine musical elements.
The new recorded version of the song Must Surrender is the first single from it, which will now be released on 4th of June. ANIQO says of Must Surrender:
“The famous hamster wheel – that so many don’t dare to get out of. We live in an anxious world. Insecurity and control prevents surrender and letting go – and thus we stand in the way of ourselves too often and the life we actually want to live. That’s what the song is about – it’s about the freedom to create your own happiness – it’s there when we take the leap into the unknown.”