New Buzz : Antony and the Johnsons

I Am A Bird Now

Antony and the Johnsons' second full-length recording, the haunting and affecting I Am a Bird Now, is a far more intimate affair than their debut. Antony's bluesy parlor room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience that's both exhilarating and disquieting. "Hope There's Someone" is a somber opener, and its plea for companionship, augmented by a sparse piano/vocal arrangement that rises into the air by song's end in a swirl of multi-tracked harmonies, is ultimately uplifting. This formula is applied to much of the record and never ceases to elicit honest emotion from either Antony or his numerous guests.

Rufus Wainwright takes the lead on "What Can I Do?," a languid meditation on death that conjures up images of rainy streets, lonely lampposts, and cigar smoke -- it's brief (under two minutes) but alluring like the cover of a Raymond Chandler novel. Boy George joins Antony for a duet on the soulful and empowering "You Are My Sister," Devendra Banhart lends his warbly tenor to the lush "Spiraling," and Lou Reed plays noodly guitar and recites an anonymous poem on the mischievous "Fistful of Love."

It's a testament to Antony's skill as a writer and arranger that these guest appearances are completely devoid of pretense, and while each artist is reverent to the source material, it's still Antony's show, as the most powerful moments on I Am a Bird Now are his.

Biography
Antony and the Johnsons are an award-winning music act from New York City.

The band is essentially the vehicle for singer Antony, whose full name is Antony Hegarty. Born in Chichester, West Sussex, England in 1971, Antony moved to Amsterdam in 1977 before settling in California the following year. As a teenager he was enthused by the British synth pop of the time — in particular emotive torch singers such as Marc Almond and Boy George. In 1990 he moved to Manhattan and founded the performance collective Blacklips with creative partner Johanna Constantine.

British neofolk musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label; the debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released in 1998. In 2001, Antony released a short follow-up EP, I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy, which, in addition to the title track, included a cover of a David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti song and a Current 93 song.

Producer Hal Wilner heard the EP and played it to Lou Reed, who immediately recruited him for his project The Raven. Now gaining more attention, Antony signed to US-based record label Secretly Canadian, and released another EP, The Lake, with Lou Reed guest-performing on one of the tracks. Secretly Canadian also re-released Antony's debut album in the United States to wider distribution in 2004.

Antony's second full-length album, 2005's I Am a Bird Now, gained rave reviews and significantly more mainstream attention, winning the Mercury Music Prize for the best album of 2005. Rival Mercury nominees, and favourites for the prize, the Kaiser Chiefs suggested that Antony got in on a technicality; despite the fact he was born in the United Kingdom he spent much of his time in the US - although they later apologised for the suggestion that he wasn't a deserving winner.

Antony's voice seems to channel Nina Simone and Bryan Ferry, and he has many celebrity admirers such as Philip Glass, Marc Almond, Lou Reed and the guest vocalists on I Am a Bird Now, Boy George, Rufus Wainwright and Devendra Banhart.

Albums

* Antony and the Johnsons (Durtro 1998; Secretly Canadian 2004)
* I Am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian 2005) #5 UK

EPs and singles

* I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy (Durtro 2001)
* The Lake (Secretly Canadian 2004)
* Hope There's Someone (Secretly Canadian 2004) #46 UK (charted in 2005)
* You Are My Sister (Rough Trade 2005)