Anjimile signs to 4AD, shares new single "Stranger"

North Carolina-based musician and songwriter Anjimile Chithambo released his debut LP as Anjimile, Giver Taker, last year via Father/Daughter. He followed that with Reunion, an EP of orchestral reimaginings of those songs that he worked on with Daniel Hart, earlier this year, and now he’s announced that he’s signed to 4AD. He’s working on a new album for the label, and to tide us over until that comes out, he’s shared a new single. “Stranger” is a moving track with beautiful, melancholy orchestration, and about it, Anjimile says:

Stranger is 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.

Hear “Stranger” below.