by Sean Fennell (@seanrfennell)
If you look up at the right time, you can see it. It’s up there somewhere, the satellite Anjimile calls Giver Taker, orbiting us slowly, defying gravity. A lot could have gone wrong here, a lot. Tons of combustible material, a million bits and pieces of expert engineering fused together, O-Rings! (Full disclosure: I just mainlined Netflix’s devastating Challenger docuseries, so you’ll have to humor me). Most would be happy to get a few feet off the ground, maybe a hundred yards, but this is something else entirely. This is one of the best debut albums you will ever hear, full stop. Anjimile’s shown flashes here and there, hot-air balloon singles and jet-stream EPs, but nothing this complex and well executed, nothing this brave and vulnerable. Taken alone, Giver Taker’s sheer ambition would be impressive, a bold show of uncompromising gumption, but it didn’t just take off, it’s still up there and not coming down anytime soon.
A record this good shouldn’t be hard to sell, but in today’s world of attention deficit and stimulus surplus, everything needs to get a foot in the stuffed doorway and Anjimile Chithambo’s story is a size-15 shoe. The child of Malawi-born parents, Chithambo’s life has been shaped by change, whether that’s their transition to a new existence embracing their non-binary identity, fighting to wrestle free from addiction, or reaching out for acceptance from those closest to them. This is not to belittle any bit of Chithambo’s story, but it’s undeniable these kinds of new beginnings and rebirths are pure PR catnip, a way to package something as complex as Giver Taker into something digestible. Often, this can become a weight around an album’s neck, a burden too great to hold, but Anjimile is working in zero gravity here, so it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
Anjimile lived their story but their story is not them and is most definitely not the pure focus of this record, which is an important distinction. Yes their story peaks its head above the surface here and there, but it’s in moments and flashes rather than didactic morality tales. “1978” is very specific, starting, as many songs on Giver Taker do, small, spare and intimate. “Give to me mother’s trust, I’ve never seen her face, but I think she looks like us,” they sing, packing a lifetime of defenseless yearning within this quivering line. It’s later on, just as “1978” reaches toward its implausibly lush, Sufjan-level crescendo, that Anjimile truly devastates. “I am ashamed of the awful things I have done to you,” threatening to turn any listener within earshot into a puddle of their own regret and longing.
Giver Taker’s two best singles, “Baby No More” and “Maker” take the final third of “1978” and expand them into full tapestries. This is when Anjimile becomes fully untethered, where even contemporary comparisons as lofty as Sufjan Stevens, Moses Sumney, or Perfume Genius don’t capture the sheer inventiveness of their palette. Not only are these ethereal, personal songs where silence finds a home next to a grandiose collection of cascading melodies, but they’re damned fun too, resisting the temptation to get lost in their own affectation. This continues throughout the record, as each song feels eminently essential, each of a piece in the story Chithambo is searching to tell, where lofty, poetically distorted confessionals blend seamlessly with their sonic equals.
What’s perhaps most impressive is how Anjimile is able to hold the whole thing together, despite Giver Taker’s propensity to float in a world separate from our terrestrial plane. This is a record of endless expansion where, somehow, nothing is superfluous. This should be an artist on their third record finally putting it all together and it’s a wonderful thought to know that isn’t the case at all.