ANIKA

(INVADA / STONES THROW / SACRED BONES)

Born Annika Henderson 1987, Chertsey UK.

Annika Henderson is a musician, writer and artist who rose to fame as ANIKA with two highly acclaimed eponymous records (Recorded with Geoff Barrow of Portishead and his band Beak>, released on Stones Throw in the US, Invada UK), and was touring the world. She is well known as a DJ too, is seen and heard in experimental cinema, contemporary performance art and collaborates with a variety of Berlin, London, or Mexico City-based artists and musicians among them Jandek, Tricky, Shackleton, Melanie Jame Wolf, Rainer Kohlberger (It has to be lived once and dreamed twice), Michael Rother (Neu!), Dave Clarke (Skint), PBDY (Brainfeeder), SYNY, T.Raumschmiere (Sleeping Pills and Habits), Andreas Reihse of Kreidler, Doireann O’Malley, Ricardo Domeneck, Stine Omar / Max Boss (EASTER), Phillip Geist or Yann Tiersen. In 2015, Anika formed Mexico City-based Experimental, Punk, Psych group, Exploded View, who have since released 2 albums and 1 EP on U.S label, Sacred Bones.

Stretching the limits of live, Henderson decided in 2013 to go solo, performing to audiences across the globe, in Japan, the US, Russia, Iran, Europe, Mexico and beyond, with her simultaneously intimidating yet vulnerable performance, engaging audiences with her stripped-back tracks, emphasising voice, spoken word and bringing consciousness to the table. Alongside, Henderson found time to collaborate with some of the pioneers of their field, such as Shackleton, Tricky, Michael Rother and Dave Clarke, as well as travelling back and forth to Mexico, to collaborate with local producers Martin Thulin and Hugo Quezada, as Exploded View, to compile 3 albums worth of dreamy, psychedelic, yet harrowing lullabies, interwoven with Henderson’s reality seeded musings.

In recent years, Henderson has explored the wider arts community, providing the voice to Rainer Kohlberger’s ‚It has to be lived once and dreamed twice’, arranging music for performance artist, Melanie Jame Wolf’s ‚Highness‘, providing the soundtrack to Philipp Geist’s live video mapping project in Iran, Tehran, where Henderson spent some months in music residence, and creating a writing robot with computer programmer, Raoul Sanders, inviting the robot to accompany her on stage, as a live collaborator, writing the lyrics as she intones them, questing the role of writer and of true voice in today’s tech and obedient society. She continues to write freelance for publications.

In 2020 we saw the result of an Anika and Tricky collab, in the form of chilling track ‚Lonely Dancer‘ released on Tricky’s own, False Idols label.