People don't change. At least that's what they say. It's not true. It's just an excuse. Sometimes it's an excuse for the speaker. A way of saying, "I won't change," when presented with the opportunity to do so. Other times it's an expression of cynicism, disparaging a person who the speaker doesn't believe deserves empathy due to their pattern of choices. Again, both are lies. People can change. They do change, little by little, each day. People's opinions and values change based on their experiences. People change their professions, often, sometimes well into middle age. They move, they fall in love, they fall out of love, they embrace a passion then leave it behind to pursue another, etc... If there is one thing that defines humans qua humans, it is their ability to change. Singer and songwriter Anika is not a stranger to this observation about the human species, as she is a model study in homo-plasticity herself; she has been a journalist, a poet, a filmmaker, a bandleader, and now living permanently in Berlin, a British ex-pat. Her latest album Change is a reflection on the constant motion of our lives, even in the stillest of moments. It is the first solo album she has made in 10 years and was written during the pandemic lockdown while observing the strangeness of her homeland during this period of rapid stagnation, viewed that filled her with no small amount of trepidation and a wariness intensified by frequent glimpses of the chaos churning on the distant mainland of America, rising over Mother England's shoulder like a dreadful omen and bubbling up over the horizon like a spout of crude. Even though fear could have seized her in this long moment, gripping any sense of hope she stored in her breast and pulling it out of her like a mass of cobwebs plucked piecemeal out of a vacuum cleaner's hose, the strangeness and dislocation of that period did not manage to shove her down a well of despair. Instead, she used the distance she felt at that time to return to her craft. To make something rooted in the real during a period of disassociation. Change is governed in its mood and sound by a charter of optimism, and a certainty that the better angels of humanity's disposition will win out in the end. It is couched by the simple premise that even those who have sailed a dismal channel can right course for calmer, more prosperous seas. It is illuminated by the hope that dark paths, while long, eventually curve back towards the light. And it is passed of the courage and belief that you can run up the steepest hill, sprint like a panther up its impossible incline, and see father and better for the effort it took to get you there.
