How to describe Antony and the Johnsons’ new album, Swanlights, and how it makes us feel? Bewildered, initially – that’s how I felt upon first hearing Antony Hegarty on “The Dull Flame of Desire”, a song found on Bjork’s album, Volta. You aren’t sure quite what to expect, but that doesn’t mean the album is suspenseful; it just means the songs aren’t as predictable as an AABA sequence, or a 1-5-4 chord progression.
Antony’s voice is haunting, quite simply. Otherworldly. Akin to that of an opera singer, without the pyrotechnics. You realize there is something there that not many other humans possess and you wonder how that sound is produced. At least I do. Swanlights, like other Antony and the Johnsons records, is hard to pin down genre-wise but that is not bad at all. It is experimental and progressive in its quest to explore the limits of the music we listen to and while some critics haven’t been receptive to that, your faithful writer definitely is.
I think for all of the confusion folks get while listening to an Antony and the Johnsons record, there is much more to be said about the musicianship of the album. A few tracks, like “Thank You For Your Love”, are radio friendly, demonstrating that the album can be formatted for the purposes of general consumption or heck, even to be the subject of a ballet. It’s something we should treasure even if we don’t always understand it.
Here is a clip of Antony Hegarty performing “Thank You For Your Love”: