Label: JagjaguwarRelease Date: 31st May Anastasia Coope is part of a New York art collective called 'Bonzo' and of course she is, her music, whilst not throwback, does hark back to a spirit of multi-disciplined DIY artistry. This isn't pop music but it grabs you with the immediacy of one, it's experimental but not abrasive, not overly indulgent, it's a recording of moments, collages of sounds, layers of noise and vocals. For those who dig: Nico, Yoko Ono, Cate Le Bon, Sonic Youth... Darning Woman is an intentional, beautiful, sometimes confrontational album that shreds expectations of DIY, bedroom music, and feminine themes. There’s a lushness and maternal instinct at play, as Coope connects the dots between physicality, ephemera, and the ultrafeminine. “I don’t really like to deal that much with themes of personal hardships, or heartache and love,” says Anastasia Coope. “Ultimately, I work most honestly with the language of what is happening in a moment and the passage of time around it. That, coupled with my reaction to entering the artistic landscape, and my thoughts about what does and doesn’t get representation, comprises most of this album.” Darning Woman explores, among other things, the meditative aspect of sewing, patching and embellishment, care and repair, collection not as modern, craven consumption but as a counterpoint to materialism. This sort of collection – the good kind, the gathering of things to make a home – can be, in Coope’s words, “A very baby way to critique capitalism. Birds make nests, right? It can be a new life for a thing that was made. What you surround yourself with matters.” To that end, Anastasia Coope is also the founder and leader of the Bonzo collective and show series, an exciting new home for the type of expansive, profoundly creative scene that New York has been missing for some time. And while Bonzo may well be the ascent of a new community, Darning Woman is the story of Anastasia Coope, herself. It is the sound of Coope entering the world as an artist, acknowledging the tangle of what changes – the gaze of the world, Coope’s art in reaction and community to art in general – and what does not: her ideas and her own self.
