Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and The Johnson's I Am A Bird Now, Album Review

Antony and The Johnson's
I Am A Bird Now
Album Review

New York dwelling Brit born Antony Hegarty releases second album, wins Mercury Music Prize (05) and creates one of the tenderest mainstream recordings of this decade so far.

On "I am A Bird Now", Antony and the Johnsons second album, it would be fair to say that the outfit seems to have found its sound. For those of you new to Antony and the Johnson's The band (The Johnson's) is made up of Jazz music graduates, great players, who accompany the singer's dulcet often Kafka-esque songs with the right dark jazzy sound-scapes. The band is essentially the vehicle for singer Antony, and his writing; think Billie Holiday meets Nina Simone what we have here is Blue Jazz for the 21st century.

As insinuated in the title "I Am A Bird Now" covers subjects such as identity, transformation and freedom and this is one of the major reasons the album has been so successful.

Just by looking at Antony Hegarty you can easily see the misfit character and his songs reach out and touch the misfit in us all. Another reason for the run away success of "I am A Bird Now" is because the album is brave, genre busting stuff. "I Am A Bird Now" is just what the over conformist music industry fears. Something it cannot tame or dilute.

Guest vocalists on the album include Devendra Banhart, Boy George, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainright and Julia Yasuda.