Antony & The Johnsons: A voice that dwells on desires...

[softgrey]

'i am a bird now'...Album by Antony and the Johnsons

ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS
I am a Bird now (SC105)

Hope There's Someone * My Lady Story * For Today I ama Bouy * Man Is the Baby * You Are My Sister * What Can I Do * Fistful of Love * Spiralling * Free At last * Bird Gerhl

The critically acclaimed new album featuring the Johnsons plus special guests Julia Yasuda, Lou Reed, Devendra Banhart, Rufus Wainwright and Boy George. With photography by Peter Hujar, Don Felix Cervantes and Josef Astor.

 

[softgrey]

for brian...

 

[softgrey]

Antony and the Johnsons, I Am a Bird Now

(Rough Trade)

Betty Clarke
Friday March 11, 2005
The Guardian


Buy I Am a Bird Now now
*It sounds like hard work: an album by a man who sings like a woman, which deconstructs gender and jumps back and forth over the fault-line between performance art and commercial music. But the truth lies in the title. Along with the broad themes of transformation and freedom comes a knowing wink.

Antony, a UK-born, US-raised cabaret artist, is gifted with a vibrato voice - think Nina Simone, Billie Holiday - that sighs with sincerity and the lyrical prowess to make the profoundly personal both accessible and ambiguous. The haunting My Lady Story could be about spirituality, femininity or identity; Spiralling might be a delicious sensation or a dreaded malaise.

review from the london guardian...

 

[travolta]

Ah! i was trying to spread the word before on this album haha! actually someone said he was overrated..but i don't think so..i unfortunately missed the show in mn about a month ago. i heard he's huge in ny, but not a lot of people know him in minneapolis.he said he was just happy people showed up! my friends actually ended up chatting w/ him a bit..they said he was wearing a wig? it made him look like jack white from the white stripes. but they said he seemed very nice. lou reed totally supports this guy too! the first day i got this cd (burned from a friend) i listened to it all day.. also i love the candy darling pic on the cover...gorgeous...

 

[softgrey]

rolling stone gave the album 4 STARS...

Antony is a ghost-white giant with a voice of singular majesty -- an instrument of delicacy and rapture in which Nina Simone, Morrissey and Joni Mitchell seem to inhabit the same breath. A harmony-vocal angel on Lou Reed's 2003 tour, Antony stole the encore each night, kissing anguished life into the Velvet Underground sigh "Candy Says." His soft but dogged longing for transformation in that song illuminates the whole of his second album. I Am a Bird Now opens with the full-force yearning of Antony's falsetto fluttering over stern gospel piano in "Hope There's Someone." In "Fistful of Love," his voice cuts through distortion-hell guitar (played by Reed) and roughhouse brass like a glass spear. Even in duets with Rufus Wainwright (wonderfully languid in "What Can I Do?") and Boy George, Antony is the dominant voice of solitude and agonized waiting. "One day I'll grow up and feel the power in me," he sings in "For Today I Am a Boy," a song only partly about the trap of gender. The lesson in this magnificence: That day has come.

 

[softgrey]

my friend recommended this album to me...

she's registered here as summer black...but she never comes on...
she's an incredible designer...modern couture stuff...
she lives in vancouver...

i've mentioned her before...
here is one of her beautiful designs...

 

[MulletProof]

YAY SOFTIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lena]

i need to hear this NOW, thanks for bringing this in softie

 

[purechris]

now I'm regretting not buying this last week....I had it in my hand and put it back after I realized I had over $100 of music....now I'll have to go back and that means I'll find even more

 

[MulletProof]

possibly my favorite track from I am a bird now..

for today i am a boy

 

[softgrey]

haha...lena...
the lou reed part got to you i bet...

i know what a fan you are...!!...

it's really a wonderful recording...

 

[jennifer~]

Lou Reed

That was all I needed to see.

 

[MulletProof]

bump


* "what can i do?" *

 

[purechris]

missed the performance last week...........

 

[MulletProof]

some people!




may i ask if there was another equally important event going on, same day same hour?

 

[iperlchen]

I'm still in the process of getting used to it, 54% already, I will really enjoy this at the end of the month.

 

[rubyredcherrypie]

'hope there's someone' is such a beautiful song.

 

[purechris]

some people!




may i ask if there was another equally important event going on, same day same hour?

spending all my money on signing the lease to my new apartment..........broke for a week..........

.........making it up this wknd with M.I.A. for free in Central Park!!!

 

[MulletProof]

i hear you on that, chris..


oh, i've been really intrigued to see m.i.a. live, you need to tell me/us how it went

 

[purechris]

don't worry, I will


I'm sure there will be some great street style pics from it as well