Antony & The Johnsons - The Crying Light

Everything’s gone green

Antony & The Johnsons’ sleeve artwork is perfect. For his breakthrough second, the Mercury-winning I Am A Bird Now, Warhol’s Candy Darling was seen draped across her deathbed, seemingly saying “this is me”. The Crying Light has 70s “grotesque dancer” Kazuo Ohno caught mid-movement, swirling in the midst of some epiphany.

The new collection, loosely ecological, taking as its tipping point a 90s Cocteau Twins track, swirls in a similar reverie. With an orchestra replacing many of the starker piano passages found on Bird, it’s a softer Antony, but his devastating voice remains to the fore. It’s not always an easy listen – certainly not the “easy listening” one might associate with those said to have great voices, but it’s nevertheless a great voice. On the skeletal Another World – solely feedback and minor chords – Hegarty sings of the need for somewhere after the world has burnt out and the animals have died; another track likens epilepsy to dancing. Antony’s mystique is truly priceless.

Sometimes it’s hard to talk about music. Steve Martin knew this. “Dancing about architecture” was his comparison. Beautifully, and with a sense of keen economy, Antony Hegarty thankfully renders you speechless. Even his sleeves acquiesce.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Rough Trade | RTRAD CD 443

Reviewed by Jake Kennedy
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