release date: Feb. 15, 1999
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,66]
producer: The Creatures
label: Sioux Records / PIAS - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "2nd Floor" (video) - 2. "Disconnected" - 4. "Take Mine" - 5. "Say" - 7. "Prettiest Thing" (live) - 8. "Exterminating Angel" (live) - 9. "Another Planet"
3rd studio album by The Creatures (Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie) released a little more than 9 years following the sophomore Boomerang (Nov. 1989) is issued on the newly established Sioux Records. The album appears to have been more or less ready to be recorded in '96, but after Siouxsie and the Banshees were released from their contract with Polydor, that also had meant a farewell for The Creatures on the label, and the duo were therefore effectively without a record deal and established in '98 the company Sioux Records only for their own releases.
A lot has clearly happened since the duo's most recent album, and although the duo experimented with electronic beats early on, Anima Animus marks a clear transition from a mainly organic sound to more pure electronic-founded music. There are still ties to a strong rhythm section with percussion as the basic structure and the sound of the marimba, but there has also been room for the inclusion of electric guitar - here handled by Psychedelic Fur's tour guitarist Knox Chandler, who also happened to play on the live tour after the album The Rapture (1995) by Siouxsie and the Banshees, just as he's also found on the same band's live album The Seven Year Itch - Live (2003). Despite the use of a vast variety of instrumentation, it's still unmistakable characteristics of The Creatures' musical universe. There is an austerity and simplicity about the compositions - they often contain progressive structures and patterns, and percussion and drums can indicate quite complex patterns, but the overall experience is that of a flow of simplicity. Perhaps because the rhythm section alone takes up a major part of the overall picture, and then there is always room for Sioux's original vocal, which lift and create a harmonic link.
The album came out to positive reviews, but simply missed a larger audience - perhaps also as a result of the band no longer being cared for by the interests of a major record company. The three singles, tracks #1, #5 and #7 were released without charting higher than No. #72 ("Say").
Anima Animus is a quite fine album where Budgie once again is left room to demonstrate his skills as an percussionist equilibrist and where Sioux also impresses with one of her finest vocal performances. PJ Harvey, for example, has included the album on her top-10 list of the best albums of '99.
The album is no less than the very best in the discography of The Creatures.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5, The Times, Uncut 4 / 5 stars ]
