A Venue, A Living Room, A Cathedral: Anjimile Headlines Ballard Homestead
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
By Lark Peterson
In the early movements of sunset on May 16, Ballard Homestead is starting to come to life. The occasion is a pit stop on the immensely talented indie-musician, Anjimile’s cross country headline tour.
As some personal context, this is a moment I’ve been hoping for since I first stumbled across their voice in early 2020 as a guest appearance in the Penumbra Podcast – my favorite show at the time. Their first vocal appearance happened to be their song, “Maker” in the background of the episode before their character officially appeared. To say that I was enraptured would be an understatement. “Maker” got at a feeling that I was struggling with at the time, and as it later turned out, Anjimile was too.
The 2020 album that “Maker” hails from, “Giver Taker”, soared to the top of my personal charts and has remained steadfast as a forever favorite to this day. From there Anjimile went on to release two more albums: “The King” in 2023, and most recently “You’re Free to Go” this past March. Needless to say, he has a musically deft and deeply emotional catalogue to pull from.
But back to Ballard. The room is darkened, lit gently by string lights and ambient jewel tones. My partner is watching me excitedly flit back and forth between preliminary notes on my beat up notepad from my former photojournalism gig and my camera. The main thing though is that it is arguably too empty for the magic I know is about to happen.
First up is the local act Townsend’s Solitaire with aid from Claire Conway, who are both complete unknowns to me. Bobby Odle– the voice behind Townsend’s Solitaire – came out the gate swinging with jokes, asked the crowd for our opinions, questions, and our attention to detail as they played.
He also plucks at my heartstrings as he deftly strums and croons about lost loves spent on comedians. I find myself feeling grateful to have a hand to reach for as he sings. After a number of songs, they ask Conway to join them onstage, and their harmonies blend and blur in a way that feels like they’ve been singing together for years, and not just since March. Needless to say, I am thrilled.
All the while, Anjimile is sitting politely in the back, beaming.
The set transitions and before long, the crowd fills in more and Anjimile and their accomplice for the tour, Sinclair Palmer take to the stage. They briefly introduce themselves and comment that, “It’s so nice to see y’all’s faces. This is a really sweet spot and I’m feeling all tender about it.”
And it’s true, the Homestead is taking form around us, shifting as Anjimile begins to play their guitar. Perhaps it’s a gently lit living room, as warm and comfortable as their voice mixing with Palmer’s in harmony. Perhaps it’s a cathedral, fit to hold the space for spirituality and pain that resides in their lyrics. Regardless, it is a room that is breathless in our rapture as we listen, and kind in clapping after each song concludes. At several points during the performance I hear people thank him for playing. Especially after he reveals that one of the songs in the set, “Destroying You” is incredibly hard to play, both emotionally and physically. The strumming pattern is complex and the story behind it is one of pain. He plays it anyways, claiming it feels restorative to sing it tonight, and his sentiment echoes as it washes over us.
The main thing I noticed is that Anjimile smiles through singing. The set in its near-entirety pulls from his latest album, which feels open to love in a way the first two haven’t found yet. This makes sense, in this room, in these songs, Anjimile seems to have found himself.
“For all you transgenders out there, you know what I’m talking about. See me after class” he remarks after bringing tears to my eyes with “Waits for Me.” It’s a healing song about finding yourself after being a little girl that wanted to be free and a little boy that wanted to be real.
It’s lines like these that shape Anjimile’s craftsmanship. They are brutally honest, inquisitive, searching and raw in their discoveries. The set revolves around love – whether it be love songs to themself, love songs to their lover, or the workings through the absence of love in response to their intersections.
All of that feels heavy, but I promise that between all of the introspection, we are sharing interludes of laughter that have begun to feel rare in the music scene. It is apparent that although the room is small, we are all here because we truly want to be. I am struck with the feeling all of a sudden that I will never be in this room again. How beautiful, how strange.
The deviations from the new album pull from “Giver Taker” as they play two solo songs in the middle of the set. The first is “1978” and the second is the aforementioned “Maker.” In its introduction he dedicates it to the other trans folks in the room, saying “I actually wrote this song before I transed my gender, which you can do.”
And it’s true. I found their music before I was fully myself, and now I’m here as an adult in a room that might be a venue, a home, or a cathedral listening to the lilting, shifting power that a trans person holds in their voice.
You might have not been here, but I encourage you to find your way to places that can hold you as sweetly and powerfully as the music that wrapped around me tonight. I encourage you to seek out Anjimile’s work, and sincerely hope you love it as much as I do. I implore you to listen to trans voices, especially now, especially in this city, past our artistry and into our living breathing lives.
