Label: Durtro Format: CD
So the story goes that David Tibet of Current 93 found this act in some seedy New York drag cabaret and was so knocked out that he brought them to his Durtro label and released this CD as soon as possible. Well, it is little wonder that Antony & The Johnsons would cause such a stir. Thematically the most “Goth” music I have come across in years, this highly dramatic work pierces the subconcious with visions of everything black and bleak and toturous and painful disguised in the most beautiful gossamer folliage of clean pure blue light music.
By far the most impressive track is “Cripple and the Starfish” which leaves its indelible and invisible brand in the heart such as that of “Song to the Siren” done by This Mortal Coil or Bobby Conn‘s aching version of “Without You “. It is the type of track that one wishes to place on repeat and let the evocative strings and cryptically painful lyrics pull and tug whatever tears out that one might be saving for only the most private of moments. What this man must have been through as a child… and what he has done with it all in public as an adult; it is impossible not to be affected utterly by this song. A saxophone swells just like the pus-filled aberation of injury and bleeds out across a range of vocal emotion and violins until breath is finally elusive. Jesus….
Other songs bring less gushing through the veins, but are no less masterful. M. Antony has a voice recalling Boy George and Alison Moyet, and it is speculated that perhaps they are all on the same oestrogen therapy. Still, the honesty and purity of Antony rises and outweighs his sound-a-likes tenfold. Should the listener strike him, or protect him – this is the dilema. The CD also includes a lovely tribute to the late Divine, and this no doubt has contributed to the album’s quick rise through the numbers on gay charts. In fact it is in the “divine” style that Antony seems to smile and bleed right in front of us all, shame being only a vehicle for emotional transport. Another track, “Rapture”, is difficult to listen to without realizing the scope of death this man/woman must have contended with to come to all this happy bleeding. Playing the record for several cross-sections of audiences, no one yet has been able to deny the loveliness of it all, and so far, no one can quite cope with the absence of egoism Antony is cooing at us. This may be the voice of all pain. “Happy bleedy happy bruisy…” indeed.
-Lillia Novak-
