ANTONY: THE CRYING LIGHT
D A Y L I G H T
K I S S E S
E V E R Y T H I N G
ALBUM: Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
words: Jamie Milton
‘Hope There’s Someone’ is fast becoming a common song to play at funerals. Antony Hegarty, the voice behind the tearjerker, doesn’t make too much of that. “It’s a song for the living, not a tribute to the dead,” he told the Guardian a month back. Thing is, those playing the song for a loved one are only choosing it for one reason: because it can make a grown man cry. It’s the combination of Hegarty’s deep, soulful voice with inclusion of a soft, chiming piano, and nothing else. That’s what makes it so moving and with a song like that, you shouldn’t have to find the true meaning in it, you should just let it do what it pleases to you. Many people hate Antony & the Johnsons purely on the basis of that song. Others seek refuge from a hard day in its gentle warmth. And whether Antony realises it or not, people will tackle ‘The Crying Light’ with a similar attitude to how they took to his breakthrough song. And once again, it’ll make them cry.
But meanings are easier to seek out with this album. Maybe because of what Antony’s revealed in his interviews, or maybe it’s the feeling you eventually get from hearing this downbeat, truly depressing beginning turn into a triumphant glow of self-affirmed glory, Hegarty never sounding so obviously happy. In his third album, he becomes the honest figure instead of a star who shadows himself in his identity and interests. Here, we see his personality. For such a large part of you record, you feel you can understand the man, someone who’s most likely the complete opposite to you. When he breaks free from routine to triumphantly gasp “that man I love SO MUCH” in ‘Aeon’, you feel like he’s only centimetres from the side of you, giving everything he has to you. It’s such an integral segment of the album, so unexpected it makes you gasp in surprise. Then comes the shivers.
It’s refreshing to hear Antony back behind his piano, with little else to focus on. A full band appear regularly, perhaps preventing the open stance Hegarty takes from becoming too much to take, by adding a less personal touch with their soothing instrumental parts. Last year, we found Antony surrounded by disco balls and electronic grooves. It gave us one of the most enjoyable listens of 2008, shedding a whole new light into his already impressive career, but it also forced us to want the more exposed, heartfelt side of him return to the limelight.
The four year wait has been worth it. Hegarty swings between positive and negative emotions, from the saddening opener ‘Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground’ to that testament of the steps he’s taken in ‘Aeon’, he never falters in exposing a feeling we weren’t expecting to be introduced to. It’s his most sensible, mature work to date and the perfectly-produced full band parts reflect this. He freely gives an almost foreign, unheard of sound in ‘Dust And Water’ one minute, and then the next he returns to delicate tones in closer ‘Everglade’, with a plethora of strings and horns progressing the song from sitting pretty as a traditional ballad.
A tribute to Kazuo Ohno, a figure commonly associated with a dance form (Butoh) Hegarty has fallen in love with, the album hits its peak early on during ‘Epilepsy Is Dancing’ and in similar style to the form of dance, its free movement is where the appeal stems from. “Cut me in quadrants, leave me in the corner” pleads Antony during the opening stage of the album in which it hasn’t yet taken off into it’s positive vibes. A tender build-up only adds to this and you get the feeling Antony knows it.
He probably knows exactly what sort of an impact ‘The Crying Light’ will have on us all. As much as he’d cower at the idea, its greatest moments will be played at funerals to commence the waterworks. But other listeners will do nothing but respect the incredible structure the album has; songs sound so organised, so practised. Four years it may have taken but you’d be willing to wait a decade for Antony to top this.
8.4
mp3: Antony & The Johnsons – Daylight and the Sun (zshare)
[buy 'The Crying Light']
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