ANNIE ANXIETY Soul Possession LP (DAIS) #HEAVYMUSICINALLSTYLESANDVOLUMES

We all know what was happening between London and New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the very nexus of the International Post-Punk Movement, where African diasporic music was an electric link between punk and cutting-edge disco, club, and pop music, the two cities broadcasting back and forth to each other, pulling in dub reggae from Jamaica, salsa and tango from Latin America, intense and lilting rhythms from all over Africa. From this axis came Annie Anxiety's debut full-length LP genre-destroyer Soul Possession, released on Crass's side label Corpus Christi, recorded in 1983 at what seem to have been freewheeling, free-floating, ongoing sessions at Crass's studio of choice, Southern Studios in London, with none other than Adrian Sherwood at the helm and various members of Crass, Flux of Pink Indians, Family Fodder, African Head Charge, London Underground and Art Interface all contributing. I really have no idea what's even going on here instrumentally, other than some wicked futuristic industrial hip-hop madness, very high on the post-punk evolutionary scale, backing up Ms. Anxiety's intensely witchy vocals. Wouldn't you know it, she was a native New Yorker living in London at the time, having fallen with the extended Dial House scene. Soul Possession has been reissued by current NYC label Dais Records; first pressing sold out, second pressing coming soon.  




P.S. Annie had started playing at Max's Kansas City with her punk band Annie and the Asexuals at the age of 16, apparently recording this wild tune "The Gates of Freedom" in 1978:



There's a Discogs entry for a CDR bootleg of Annie & the Asexuals live at Max's Kansas City in February 1979, with Alan Vega joining the band on vocals. I'd love to hear that one; you can certainly tell that she and Vega were kindred spirits from this live video, apparently from 1980: