Antony and the Johnsons

Antony and the Johnsons' 2005 album I Am a Bird Now took a lot of people by surprise–but in hindsight, it was an album that was well primed for a breakthrough. Artistically, it was a substantial leap from its eponymous predecessor. He'd landed on one of the country's top indie labels (Secretly Canadian) and attracted an A-list coterie of fans, who also joined him on the record (Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart and Boy George among them). After about a decade on the fringes of New York City's experimental theatre and performance art communities, the big man who sang about being a girl–with a stunningly dramatic voice that invited comparisons to Nina Simone–was a Mercury Prize winner.

In advance of The Crying Light, Antony and his Johnsons played a handful of concerts alongside world-class orchestras, debuting much of the material from their new album. These performances helped cement Antony’s reputation as a showstopper, and showcased a dynamic collaboration with acclaimed composer Nico Muhly. Maxim Moston and Doug Wieselman, both members of the Johnsons, also receive arrangement credit on The Crying Light. Despite his flair for melodrama, Antony and his collaborators gravitate toward subtler shades of orchestration, most effectively on the opening combo "Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground" and "Epilepsy is Dancing." The sparse piano ballad "Another World," featured on an EP of the same name in 2008, takes on new weight with its placement at mid-album (not to mention certain current events that make its message feel especially pertinent).

Antony’s mannered quaver is his signature; now that it's become more familiar, it's lost some of its shock value, but still packs a serious emotional punch on tracks like "Another World" and "Epilepsy is Dancing." The effect is diluted when the melodies are allowed to drift, which happens more often on The Crying Light than I Am a Bird Now. The material remains incalculably pained and pretty, to be sure, but lacks some of the power that characterized earlier tracks like "River of Sorrow" and "Fistful of Love." The most electric moment on The Crying Light–which comes a few minutes into "Aeon"–finds Antony hitting one of those raw nerves as he sings, "Hold that man I love so much! Hold that man I love so much!” It’s the sort of shattering moment that’s his specialty. The orchestral restraint disappears on the ornate closer, "Everglade," which may be a little rich for some tastes, but makes for a triumphant send-off. His success, delayed and richly deserved, seems sure to sustain.

—Adam McKibbin
01.30.09

The black-and-white image of legendary Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno that adorns the cover of The Crying Light, the third full-length by Antony and the Johnsons, seems to offer a view of a being enveloped in both ecstasy and agony -- or does it? The songs contained here offer something else: a glimpse of a universe beyond the pale of vision, seen only by the individual experiencing it. Antony Hegarty recorded and considered 25 songs for inclusion on The Crying Light, before settling on ten. The Johnsons are the inimitable cellist Julia Kent, Thomas Bartlett, Maxim Moston, Rob Moose, Jeff Langston, Parker Kindred, Doug Wieselman, and Will Holshouser. The additional orchestra includes Greg Cohen, Suzy Perelman, Tim Albright, and Lisa Albrecht, to name a few. Hegarty and composer Nico Muhly did the string arrangements. The Crying Light preoccupies itself with very different concerns than either of its predecessors. Whereas the material on I Am a Bird Now focused on sadness -- grasped and projected -- and in some cases real redemption, these songs look at a larger universe as reflected in the mirror of the individual. The natural world, the vast landscape of interconnectivity with all things, seems to be the primary focus on which the individual protagonists focus their gazes. That doesn't mean that the viewpoint of the singer is necessarily more optimistic. If anything, the truth offered here, and there is plenty of it, is acceptance. Musically, the softness and restrained textural lushness -- always propelled by the intimate, mysterious, exploring piano of Hegarty -- is highlighted by his voice that bears the traces of every heartbreak ever confessed, every quiet yet desperate hope ever held, and each prayer whispered to an unknown and unknowable God.

Neo-classical underpinnings are entwined lovingly with broken pop songs and secretive after-hours cabaret poems. Check the opener, "Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground." The piano and cello fall together as one slow dancer, alone in the spotlight, keeping memory as time: "In the garden, with my mother/I stole a flower/With my mother, in her power/I chose a flower/I saw six eyes glistening in my womb/I felt you calling me in the gloom/Rest assured your love is pure...." The power of Mother Nature as it echoes inside the individual with all of its power and impersonal tenderness is embraced, accepted for what it teaches as well as what it offers. Elsewhere, on the gorgeous chamber pop of "Epilepsy Is Dancing," terror, power, and beauty are wrapped as one entity: "Epilepsy is dancing/She's the Christ now departing/And I'm finding my rhythm/As I twist in the snow...Cut me in quadrants/Leave me in the corner/Oh now it's passing/Oh now I'm dancing." Curse and blessing, sacrament and damnation. Other standouts, including the utterly gorgeous, elliptical "One Dove" and the single "Another World," reflect similar themes, though always from the projection of the most hidden flicker that seeks union with a larger illumination. Certainly this is spiritual, but it is not limited to that because it also exists in the physical world. Death is the constant undercurrent, but it's not so much morbid as another shade of the verdant universe. "Kiss My Name" is the hinge track, in waltz time with lovely reeds and violins, skittering with a drum kit -- it is both an anthem of love to life itself and a self-penned epitaph in advance. Whatever hopes you held in the aftermath of I Am a Bird Now, they have been exponentially exceeded in poetry, music, and honesty here. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide