ANOHNI announces new Blacklips book & compilation album (stream 2 tracks)
Blacklips Performance Cult, the collective founded by ANOHNI with Johanna Constantine and Psychotic Eve that staged plays at NYC's Pyramid Club from 1992-1995, was recently the subject of an exhibition, and now there's a new book examining the collective on the way. Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths is co-authored by ANOHNI and Marti Wilkerson, with an introduction by Participant, Inc's Lia Gangitano, and it's due out on March 14 via Anthology Editions. You can see the cover art below, and here's more about it from the publisher's description:
From June 1992 to March 1995, in the midst of the AIDS crisis in NYC, an extraordinary theatrical collective emerged from the queer underground. Blacklips Performance Cult, initiated by ANOHNI and joined by a cabal of fellow artists, drag queens, punks, nightlife veterans and students, performed a new play every Monday night at 1:00 a.m. at the Pyramid Club on 101 Avenue A. Blacklips never courted mainstream attention. However, the group left a sustaining impression within New York’s late night subculture by melding hysterical drag, surreal horror, and disconcerting tenderness. In Blacklips: Her Life and Her Many, Many Deaths, ANOHNI and coeditor Marti Wilkerson lay bare the collective’s archives in photographs, scripts, and the assembled ephemera from more than one hundred and twenty original “plays.” Featuring images from newly digitized film and video recordings, texts from participants and audience members, and an introduction by Lia Gangitano, this expansive collection introduces to the twenty-first century the short-lived and ruthlessly creative phenomenon that was Blacklips.
Accompanying the book is a new compilation by ANOHNI, Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants — Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995, due out March 10. It features remastered original recordings by ANOHNI, and select DJ tracks, including ones by Joey Arias (as Billie Holiday), Rozz Williams, Diamanda Galás, Dave Vanian, Edith Massey, Leigh Bowery and his band Minty, and studio recordings by coke, James F. Murphy, Sissy Fitt and Ebony Jet. ANOHNI illustrated and designed the vinyl edition, which is available for pre-order now.
Two tracks from the compilation are available to stream now: ANOHNI's "Rapture" (as Fiona Blue) and James F. Murphy's "Satan's Li'l Lamb." Hear both below.
ANOHNI, Wilkerson, and Laurie Anderson will hold a discussion about the collective on March 9 at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' Bruno Walter Auditorium. It's free to attend with an RSVP.
Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants — Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995 Tracklist
SIDE A
Meng & Ecker - Shoot Yer Load
Joey Arias - Good Morning Heartache
Edith Massey - Punks, Get Off The Grass
ANOHNI (as Precious Liar) - Ladies and Gentlemen
James F. Murphy - Satan's Li’l Lamb
ANOHNI and Pearls - Janet Vampire
Christian Death - Stairs -- Uncertain Journey
Vito Russo (with Gary Reynolds) - Disrupt Their Lives
ANOHNI (as Fiona Blue) - Rapture
SIDE B
Diamanda Galás - Double-Barrel Prayer
Sissy Fitt - Sister Morphine
Tammy Taste Test - Natasha
Divine - You Think You're a Man
Marilyn and The Movie Stars - So Disgraceful
SIDE C
Ebony Jet - Satellite of Love
Dean and the Weenies - Fuck You
ANOHNI (as Justin Grey) - People are Small
Princess Tinymeat - Angels in Pain
coke - Your Cigarette
Dave Vanian - Tenterhook
Sissy Fitt as Carol TooGood - Suspecting Mrs. Shyster
ANOHNI and Johanna Constantine - The Yellowing Angel
SIDE D
Dr. Clark Render - 13 Ways To Die
Minty - Useless Man
Kabuki Starshine - My Final Moments
Meng & Ecker - Golden Showers
ANOHNI (as Fiona Blue) - Love Letters
ANOHNI (as Precious Liar) - Blacklips