ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS: CUT THE WORLD (2012)
1) Cut The World; 2) Future
Feminism; 3) Cripple And The Starfish; 4) You Are My Sister; 5) Swanlights; 6)
Epilepsy Is Dancing; 7) Another World; 8) Kiss My Name; 9) I Fell In Love With
A Dead Boy; 10) Rapture; 11) The Crying Light; 12) Twilight.
Poseur or not, Antony Hegarty is enough of a professional
singer to merit hearing live; but even then, there must have been some extra
measures taken to ensure that a live album from Antony & The Johnsons would
make commercial and critical sense. The measure in question was to hook up with
The Danish National Chamber Orchestra, and rearrange the setlist with the aid
of a whole arsenal of classical tricks — in the grand old tradition of Procol
Harum. The addition of an orchestra would hardly raise the bar on
«pretentiousness» (this transcendental quality had already built its nest in
Hegarty's mouth quite some time ago), but could allow to explore some
additional opportunities. Besides, Antony and strings had been on friendly
terms from the start.
The setlist opens with one new song (title
track), a trademark Hegarty lament with relatively few lyrics and lots of swooping
orchestral atmospherics; includes ʽI Fell In Love With A Dead Boyʼ from a rare
EP (Alice Cooper would have definitely misinterpreted that title); and, for the
rest, concentrates mainly on selections from the band's self-titled debut and The Crying Light — I Am A Bird Now and Swanlights,
for some reason, are underrepresented, although the title track from Swanlights does get a major
restructuring — the dark nightmare of the original is replaced by regular
pianos and strings, as if acknowledging that the original went way too far in
the «creepy» department, and that there's always another chance to cut back.
I cannot say that the rearrangements open up a
new dimension in the music, or anything equally presumptuous. Like the absolute
majority of classical reworkings of pop songs, they have a glossy,
soundtrackish quality to them, and I believe that, in addition to all the
strings, pianos, and woodwinds, they could have definitely used more brass
(there is a small trombone blast at
the beginning of ʽCripple And The Starfishʼ, and brass plays a big part in the
crescendo at the end of ʽTwilightʼ, but otherwise it is mostly flutes and
recorders), but, understandably, they did not want to cut down too much on the
overall fragility and wimpiness of the proceedings — Antony has so consistently
cultivated this image of a living being made entirely of pure glass, that a
really strong brass blast could shatter him to pieces right there in the
concert hall.
That said, the arrangements do fit the music
and the voice — never detracting from the emotionality already present in the
songs; the best news is basically that I do not mind their presence, and it
makes for a good pretext to hear these songs once more, and since these are
mostly good songs, then what's the problem? In a way, it is fun to discover
that the effect that Antony Hegarty produces on your senses stays exactly the
same regardless of whether he is being backed with forty academic musicians or
just a lonesome string quartet (or trio, or duo) in the studio. Maybe that is
because he is a like a small chamber orchestra in himself.
The very fact that this is a live album,
though, is consciously downplayed: audience applause is only included in the
mix at the very end of the record, as if the ten songs in question were just
separate movements of one single suite (well, in a way you could say they are —
in a way, Antony's entire career seems to be), and the only chunk of stage
banter is a seven-minute speech that presages the suite and is included as a
separate track, called ʽFuture Feminismʼ. Now, in a way, the speech is just a
lot of post-New Age mystical bullshit, centered around Hegarty's trans-gender
issues and his ideas on the femininity in human nature. But there is something
about the way in which he delivers it
that commands sympathy — a sort of lightweight, humorous teenage naiveté that
makes you forget all the silliness because somehow it all feels normal: just a little fantasizing on
issues of nature to help justify your perfectly normal inner queer. Presumably,
not all the people with transgender
mentality really seem like they feel at home with that mentality. Antony
Hegarty, over these seven minutes, gives convincing proof that he does — and,
as a bonus, throws in an intelligent crack at the Pope, which is not something
that everyone in his profession does
in an intelligent manner. Good speech.
Overall, this is certainly not an essential
purchase, and even the hardcore fans should take note — many will find the
orchestration excessive, if not generic or downright cheesy, compared to the
sparse, elegiac arrangements on the studio records. But even then, it might be
interesting to see how easily and comfortably Antony works in a live setting:
his songs are so paranoid and claustrophobic, after all, that it is almost
unimaginable to have him reproduce all that suffering and fear of the world before
a big bunch of real people — you'd rather imagine him as this total recluse,
recording in a self-made studio in some log cabin somewhere in Tibet. Well now,
at least we know that much — that he does venture as far out as Copenhagen, and
that he does not have an artist's block when working with a large ensemble of
classical musicians. Should we feel disappointment over the lack of
integrity, or relief over the physical and psychiatric sanity? Make your buying
choice, depending on the answer.
Check "Cut The World" (MP3) on Amazon
Twilight with orchestra is still utter crap. This time I will compare with Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death. While I slightly prefer the arrangement for piano and voice (there are excellent performances by the great Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya to be found on YouTube) I'll be fair and give this:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yf1zHbuC6g
Hegarty is as fake as a plastic sex doll.