REVIEW : ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS - SWANLIGHTS

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Genre : Art-Pop/Chamber-Pop

Year : 2010

Label : Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade

As much capable of enthralling an opera house as a listener who is looking for a very personal performance and an experience to remember, Antony and the Johnsons, the quintessential art-pop band is one of the most fascinating and emotionally moving acts of our times. Delivering one of the most amiable tracks of the last decade, ‘Hope There Is Someone’ displays the band’s hugely satisfying traits of laying everything bare, the instrumentation in perfect harmony and accentuating the gamut of emotions running through the song and the golden Brian Ferry-esque vibrato and falsetto laden, androgynous and vulnerable voice of Antony Hegarty adorning the song. Antony Hegarty especially steals the show always because of his evergreen and mellifluous croons and warbles as he delicately and effortlessly becomes one with the instrumentation; even the quotidian themes in his songs get a grand treatment because his voice is powerful and hugely impressionistic. It’s as if the man is King Midas, everything he touches turns to gold. Deservedly so, the band has been lauded by artists like Lou Reed (of The Velvet Underground fame) who also collaborates with them; in 2005 they were awarded the Mercury Prize and their next effort, last year’s ‘Crying Light’ went to #1 on the European Billboard Charts. After cooking the appetizer ‘Thank You For Your Love EP’, this year, which featured covers of Bob Dylan’s ‘Pressing On’ and John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, comes the highly delectable full course offering ‘Swanlights’, which proves once again that Antony’s taste in music has not buggered and has only refined with time.

The overarching themes of previous efforts – love, life, happiness, death, after-life and their eternal relationship that define our lives and our aesthetics also inhabit in the sometimes tergiversate wordings and poetry (like in the triumphant Salt Silver Oxygen, exuberant Ghost and the melancholic Christina’s Farm) of Antony (that also show his affinity for water) in this album, as he presents personally affecting and poignant but, universally relevant  musings. Intricately constructed and symphonic, the tracks on this album are very roomy and whippy; the charm of each of these tracks lies in the calculated use of musical spaces; the soft murmurs and his cooing, the use of silent pauses to settle down the tracks like dust in the light of the bright piano keys, the invigorating and charging string and brass arrangements that swell in the climax of the tracks as Antony triumphs or quetches; Antony’s cherubic Nina Simone-esque soulful purrs and his gleeful scatting; his Ryuichi Sakamoto like deft shift from minimalistic compositions to plangent piano flourishes and the congruent arrangement of the rhythm section, all of these are the defining points of the album. Capturing these lucullan and exquisite sound caricatures at best are the tracks ‘The Great White Ocean’ and the collaboration with Bjork ‘Fletta’ which is partly sung in Icelandic and English. The former that metaphorically reproaches familial discord and finds Antony asking for help in the worst times in his life through the motive of death, it says, “Sing to me father, when I die. Please remember father, we must try; try not to forget our family. Oh my darling father, rescue me”. The track shimmers with the warm and gentle guitar chords, as Antony helplessly and breathlessly spills out his emotions; but the burden of emotions is too much to take and in the end he almost breakdowns and whispers his discontent. On the other end of the spectrum, the latter track, an effervescent duet, shows the above hallmarks in its playful use of loud and soft dynamics as it takes it’s time to build steam with both the singers finally wrapping their mellisonant voices around each other’s and soaring in the free skies with the fluttering piano notes; a gorgeous and a memorable piano rendition with thoughtful pacing.

The above surefire qualities apart, there are tracks where Antony refrains from verbiage and lets his vocal delivery and the music speak for itself. These tracks are simplistic and skeletal in the lyrical delivery and involve intensity and when he stresses on the words, their importance is conveyed beautifully. Tracks like ‘Everything Is New’, ‘The Spirit Was Gone’ and ‘Thank You For Your Love’ fit this category. With a sudden start, the album opener, ‘Everything Is New’ builds up a dislodging tension like Radiohead’s ‘Everything In It’s Right Place’ from Kid A, as it repeats the verses “Everything Is New” with the voice rolling and bending to display the various states of emotional unrest. The ecstatic ‘Thank You For Your Love’ finds Antony thanking his lover over and over as if he is indebted to his lover for infusing joy in his life. The elegiac ‘The Spirit Was Gone’ mourns continuously through Antony’s sombre voice and minor-key melodies.

The album also embraces some electronic experimentation, as in the title track ‘Swanlights’, which apart from punctuating instrumental arrangements, features reverb and delay affect layered voice, piano notes and a perturbing guitar drone ultimately tip-toeing and fading into an entrancing harmonium drone. The track is evocative of Radiohead’s ‘Nude’.

Full bodied and glowing with such nuances, multifaceted and multilayered and full to the brim with flowing creative juices, the album, an addition to the slew of successfully executed baroque albums this year (Joanna Newsom's 'Have One On Me' being one of them), sounds awe-inspiring and striking in its blossoming harmony and like Antony says in the track ‘I’m In Love’, “I have been touched. I have been touched. Who needs too much?” ; an album to cherish and die for this year.

Rating : 9/10

http://www.swanlights.com/

http://www.last.fm/music/Antony+and+the+Johnsons

http://www.myspace.com/antonyandthejohnsons

http://www.antonyandthejohnsons.com/