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#1
words: Jamie Milton
Antony And The Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone
The emotional has triumphed in MFM’s top 10 songs of the decade. Without passion of fuel for thought, without uncontrollable frustration or in this case, unrivaled loneliness and doubt, there’s not a hope in hell of reaching the top spot. Antony Hegarty has always been an outsider and this, his most famous song, is not essentially coming from the depths of his inner sadness, but it’s the one song in recent years that has the absolute ability to reduce a good proportion of grown men to tears.
It’s the bitter, melancholic piano chimes, the voice that sounds so unearthly but at the same time, so human and genuine. The opening line, “Hope there’s someone who’ll take care of me, when I die, will I go?” draws you in very well but it’s the sheer unexpectedness and the emotion of the chorus that it truly gripping.
Hegarty has been subjected to many a snide comment, to physical and emotional exclusion. It’s almost as if the howls that close ‘Hope There’s Someone’ represent his cry for help. Thanks to this very song, he won the Mercury Music Prize, he became an accepted musician internationally and he stole the hearts of every unsuspecting listener. The following album, 2009’s ‘The Crying Light‘, is much less defeatist and more assured that ‘I Am A Bird Now‘. It seems as if Hegarty reached an absolute low when writing ‘Hope There’s Someone’, his vocals sound completely on the brink of breaking but they somehow pull through and continue at the very moment that the lump in your throat lends a tear.
mp3// Antony and the Johnsons – Hope There’s Someone
I C I C L E S
LYRICS: Jan ‘09 Best-Of
words: Jamie Milton, Alex Kapronas, Antony Hegarty, Avey Tare
We had a ‘lyrics of the week’ feature going on a while back but we sort of left it lagging due to our inability to find the very best lyrics. We found ourselves wanting to use the same artists over and over again and we saw it as a bit of filler in terms of blog material. But we still adore the good written word. January was excellent musically but only a couple of times did we stop in our tracks, and rewind to listen to a certain sentence one more time.
Here are those couple though:
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“Oh aeon
Love my father
For my father is myself
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']
G R R R
WEEKEND TRACK STACKER (Jan 19th Releases)
words: Jamie Milton
Single releases/reviews aren’t all the rage any more. All retailers are off the pulse with them (Woolworths were still stocking the Spice Girls up until a fortnight ago) and purchasers, that’s you lot, don’t um…purchase anymore. Sure, a 7″ frenzy in yr local recordstore is one of the most liberating shopping experiences a man can get but they only happen on rare occasions. But downloading individual tracks is becoming more of a big deal now. Some charts are devoting their stats solely to downloads. So there might be a chance that a digital revolution can get you interested in celebrating individual tracks again.
Hallelujah, here’s MFM to save the day. I suppose this feature’s pretty heavily inspired by Pop Tarts Suck Toasted in some respects; this feature differs in that it deals with all the care-worthy new single releases IN THE UK, alongside a couple of “so hot right now” tracks which we randomly pick off elbo.ws.
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The Antlers – Bear
Brooklyn is positively buzzing. So much so that anything that drips out of its leaky system gets special treatment. The Antlers deserve that little bit of flocking to however. The delicate charmer ‘Bear’ features on ‘Hospice’, which is the FIFTH album the band are self-releasing. Some feat, you may say. Looks like self-releasing might become a little more time consuming now. This gentle yet subtlely pretty-damn-passionate number could practically lunge into some giant radio-station’s chief executive and it’d become a household hit. Actually, that’s probably not true, contemporary Stars never made it and this is a bit too “alt” for hefty dollar consumption, blame the experimental background groan of interestingness.
78%
mp3: The Antlers – Bear (zshare)
The Antlers Myspace
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Feist + Ben Gibbard – Train Song
As brooklynvegan helped us establish, this brilliant charitable compilation, titled ‘Dark Was The Night’ will be unveiling one of its many talents each day on its myspace. Checked up on it today with fingers crossed that we’d be treated to a good’un and whilst this isn’t the sound of Feist breaking ground with her Vashti Bunyan cover (and you can tell it’s a cover, believe me), it does pleasantly remind you of her blissful 2007 release, ‘The Reminder’, much more than it reminds you of Death Cab, that’s for sure. This must’ve been recorded in the same location as that album. Had I not been aware of Vashti Bunyan I’d have easily felt comfortable with this in the middle of the record. Some reverb, some gently plucked acoustics, and that voice and you’ve actually got a cracking cover to come in at the start of the compilation’s first disc.
70%
mp3: Feist and Ben Gibbard – Train Song (zshare)
Pre-order ‘Dark Was The Night’
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Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses * SINGLE OF THE WEEK *
Much fussed has been made, not least on here, about indie darlings Franz Ferdinand’s much-anticipated third release. ‘Tonight:’ is reasonably filler free in comparison to the Scot’s other two records but the catch is a lack of standout tracks. This first single however, is part of the “all killer” criteria. We’ve already let you know how ghastly an experience it is in getting used to the song but once that’s done and dusted, you’ve got time to appreciate an edgy chorus, placed perfectly in the middle of a soon-to-be-iconic vocal performance from that Alex Kapronos bloke. He’s the lead singer most bands dream of having. Charismatic, clever and somehow cool. We know they’re all geeks deep inside but Franz hide it well in this fidgety number.
82%
mp3: Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
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Little Comets – One Night In October
Cited in some parts as the new band most of us should be lapping up with glee, I personally approach Little Comets with caution. The Geordies’ work so far has been delightful, if a little unconvincing in getting you to crawl back for another listen. They’re a one-night-stand sort of band, love them for a minute and forget about them 24 hours later (don’t go thinking I’ve based this on personal experience, people, I just watch a lot of tv). ‘One Night In October’ is the same game; enjoyable for a fair bit of time and then you just forget to come back to it. So there must be something missing, and there is: charm.
60%
mp3: Little Comets – One Night In October (zshare)
Pre-order the single
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We don’t have quite enough time on our hands to take a look into all the big album releases. We wish we did but here’s a little list of those out tomorrow that’ve been gaining a nice bit of press/praise/buzz. One we’ve reviewed already, the other, we’ll be getting to soon:
Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
White Lies – To Lose My Life
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Have a great week, and keep checking back for that Antony & The Johnsons review, plus a live review of Animal Collective’s Brighton show, and some more rambling paragraphs on the music you should be listening to if you wanna “be there”.
K I S S
M Y
N A M E
JAN – Album Releases Guide
words: Jamie Milton
We won’t be getting into the swing of things with album reviews quite yet but sometime this week you’ll be bombarded with ‘em, maybe. We’ve heard the majority of January’s “big”, hyped-up-to-the-top releases but a couple haven’t found their way here as of yet. All of those we’ve heard so far bar one or two are near-on outstanding. This might even be the most exciting January of the 21st century so far.
Here are the top five releases, in order of excitement-inspiring-ness; then we’ll go into a little more depth with them:
#1 – Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
#2 – Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light
#3 – White Lies – To Lose My Life
#4 – Andrew Bird – Noble Beasts
#5 – Franz Ferdinand – Tonight:
All this talk of Animal Collective’s next album being a possible album of the century or something to that effect, has gone to our heads. There’s already an unstoppable fuss being made towards ‘Merriweather…’ with one review sarcastically suggesting it to be the ‘Smile’ of the 21st century but if this buzz escalates that might be what most of us end up claiming it to be. It is excellent. Undoubtedly it’s their most consistent project, and undoubtedly it’s heavily inspired by Panda Bear’s ‘Person Pitch’. But album of the year? Well actually, yeah maybe.
But after having read this great interview with Antony Hegarty, we might have another contender. In the middle of the piece Antony describes ‘The Crying Light’ to be a more optimistic work than ‘I Am A Bird Now’ but he also dismisses the depressing elements that some associated with breakthrough single ‘Hope There’s Someone’, laughing off the fact that it’s regularly played at funerals. Optimistic is the perfect way to describe his latest album though; it gradually grows into something joyous and celebratory, albeit with the final piece of the happiness jigsaw gone amiss at times. Piano-led efforts are more melancholic than full band performances, with strings and even guitar attatched. But when you learn that it’s a tribute to Butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno (album artwork subject), it suddenly becomes a beautiful, free little thing.
And whilst we’re not getting our hopes up all too much for Franz Ferdinand’s third outing, ‘Ulysses’ is an opinion-splitting gem of a tune and if we have an album full of the sporadic stance on ‘Tonight:’’s lead single, we might be pleasantly surprised. But we’re more holding out for the new kids on the block; White Lies to take the charts by storm with their stylish, synthy take on indie. Inspired by greater assets of the eighties and produced by Ed Buller, who’s worked with both The Killers and Glasvegas, there’s nothing more and nothing less to expect from ‘To Lose My Life’ than a solid batch of heart-stopping, firey melodies combined with some dreamy but dreadfully down atmosphere. And that’s exactly what you get.
And even though it might be altogether less ambitious than our top two efforts, there’s something for all alternative-folk fans in Andrew Bird’s latest release among many. ‘Noble Beast’ full of whistles and a postive heartfelt mood linking all fourteen songs together into one accesible but original effort.
Also out this month than you should take a good, long took into:
It Hugs Back – Inside Your Guitar
Loney Dear Dear John
Telepathe – Dance Mother
mp3: Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying Light (zshare)
[pre-order 'The Crying Light']
F U T U R E
R E F L E C T I O N S
LIST: The rest of 2009’s potential and definite releases
list compiled by: Jamie Milton
top photo: tony hall
Labels, fans, all of you; if you have any details of “fairly big” releases, similar to the ones below that haven’t been mentioned on this list, email us through the link at the top. If some of the details can be updated; same process applies. For now, we hope you find out something new by scrolling below…
potential masterpieces:
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion — 12th JAN
Grizzly Bear – TBA — MID 2009
Patrick Wolf – Battle + Extra Disc — MID 2009
likely greats:
Andrew Bird – Noble Beast — 26th JAN
Antony & the Johnsons – The Crying Light — 19th JAN
Arctic Monkeys – TBA — MID 2009
Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone! — MARCH 2009
Doves – TBA — APRIL 2009
Dirty Projectors – TBA — MID 2009
Fanfarlo – TBA — EARLY 2009
Fever Ray – Fever Ray –APRIL 2009
Final Fantasy – Heartland — SPRING 2009
Florence and the Machine – TBA — SPRING 2009
Franz Ferdinand – Tonight: — 26th JAN
Glassjaw – TBA — EARLY 2009
Grammatics – Grammatics — SPRING 2009
Howling Bells – Radio Wars — 9th Feb
The Maccabees – TBA -- EARLY 2009
Manic Street Preachers – TBA (Richey Edwards lyrical contribution) – MAY 2009
Metric – TBA — SPRING 2009
Midlake – Courage of Others — MID 2009
MSTRKRFT – Fist of God — 16th MARCH
The National – TBA — MID 2009
Passion Pit – TBA — SPRING 2009
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – S/T — JAN 2009
Telepathe – Dance Mother — JAN 2009
Wavves – Wavves — SPRING 2009
White Lies – To Lose My Life… (review) — 12th JAN
Women – Women (UK re-release) — EARLY 2009
Speculations and further releases…:
Beirut – March of the Zapotec — FEB 15th
Burial – TBA – LATE 2009
Dan Deacon -Bromst — 23rd MARCH
The Decemberists – Hazards Of Love — 23rd MARCH
Fields – TBA — EARLY 2009
Green Day – TBA — MID 2009
It Hugs Back – Inside Your Guitar — JAN 2009
Jamie T – TBA — SPRING 2009
Johnny Foreigner – TBA — LATE 2009
Klaxons – TBA — LATE 2009
Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You — 9th FEB
The Mars Volta – TBA — MID 2009
Missy Elliott – Block Party — 9th FEB
Morrissey – Years of Refusal — 15th FEB
Muse – TBA — LATE 09/10
The Shins – TBA — MID 2009
Sufjan Stevens – New Jersey/other state — MID 2009
Radiohead – TBA — LATE 09/10
U2 – No Line On The Horizon — 2nd MARCH
Here are two of the best tracks from albums that are due out very early in 2009.
mp3: Antony & The Johnsons – Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground (zshare)
mp3: Howling Bells – Let’s Be Kids Again
NEW TO US: Antony and the Johnsons -Shake That Devil
words: Jamie Milton
I suppose it’s not like we’ve been totally deprived of Antony Hegarty’s spooky, soothing tones for ages. Hercules & Love Affair treated us with their invite towards him on their d
ebut album and we got to see him in an entirely different light. Turns out he can also work his way through a couple of newly-entered genres through his very own pieces.
‘Shake That Devil’ is set to make the blogosphere (a word we’ve become keen on using, recently) stumble under its own feet. One fifth of a newly unveiled EP, ‘Another World’, iguessimfloating tells us it’s the stand-out track on the EP. Commencing with Hegarty’s voice and Hegarty’s voice only, unearthly sounds begin to enter before a clasping drum beat turns the whole affair into some sort of jazz love-fest and Hegarty is perfect for the role.
Tracklisting for ‘Another World’, released October 7th:
- “Another World”
- “Crackagen”
- “Shake That Devil”
- “Sing For Me”
- “Hope Mountain”
Pre- order the EP
[PLAY: Antony & The Johnsons - Shake That Devil] YSI MP3
MFM @ HYPEM
