Anno Birkin

Anno Birkin
Birkin in June 2001
Born	(1980-12-09)9 December 1980 London, England
Died	8 November 2001(2001-11-08) (aged 20) Milan, Italy
Cause of death	Road accident
Parent(s)	Andrew Birkin Bee Gilbert
Relatives	Judy Campbell (grandmother) Ned Birkin (brother) David Birkin (half-brother) Jane Birkin (aunt) Kate Barry (cousin) Charlotte Gainsbourg (cousin) Lou Doillon (cousin)

Alexander Kingdom Nik-o "Anno" Birkin (9 December 1980 – 8 November 2001) was an English poet and musician.

Birkin's father is Andrew Birkin, his mother Bee Gilbert, brother Ned Birkin, his half-siblings David Birkin, Melissa Holm and Barnaby Holm, his aunt Jane Birkin, and his cousins Kate Barry, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lou Doillon. His grandparents on his father's side were Judy Campbell and Lt Cdr David Birkin.

Birkin named himself Anno when he was three, after his favourite book, Anno's Journey by Mitsumasa Anno. When he was five, his parents bought an old farmhouse on the Lleyn peninsula in Wales, and it was here that Birkin and his brother Ned spent most of their childhood, "living what friends describe as a Bohemian lifestyle where the house was forever full of friends".

Birkin's first band, called Midstream, formed in 1994 with his school-friends Billy Scherer and JS Rafaeli, gigged in London until 1996 when it split up. Durango 95 was put together that same year, but split up in 1997. For the next two years, Birkin composed and played on his own as well as worked with Scherer.

While visiting his father on the film set of The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc in 1998, Birkin fell in love with the actress Milla Jovovich. Anno and Milla wrote and recorded a number of songs together. She later wrote, "I remember the absolute wonder I felt when he first wrote to me. I was bowled over by his choices, his words." His fiancée Honeysuckle Weeks wrote, "I think what Anno was doing in his writing as well as in life was trying to separate the pure from the sordid. Like a lot of teenage boys, he felt guilty about his own desires and he tried to elevate them through poetry."

During the summer of 1999, Birkin wrote and recorded a number of songs, both solo and with Scherer; the two wrote Ultraviolence together, that led to a recording offer from Virgin. They turned it down and in August formed Flying Mango Attack with bassist Lee Citron and drummer Christian Smith-Pancorvo (both formerly of Stony Sleep) and recorded the album Karmageddon. They briefly broke up after various drummers came and went, and once again Birkin and Scherer spent time recording together in Los Angeles.