Anthony and the Johnsons to Release New EP & Full-Length
From Secretly Canadian:
Antony and the Johnsons emerged onto the international stage in 2005 with their breakthrough I Am A Bird Now. The group were awarded the Mercury Prize in the UK and toured the world. Since then Antony has collaborated on tracks with Bjork for her latest album Volta, appeared in the Leonard Cohen documentary I’m Your Man, featured as vocalist with disco stars Hercules and Love Affair, recorded for the Todd Haynes bio epic of Bob Dylan I’m Not There, and collaborated with Charles Atlas on a European tour of their stage spectacle Turning. Now Antony and the Johnsons have emerged with a new album, The Crying Light, which will be released January 2009. “Another World” is the first single, and it will be released as part of the five-song Another World EP which is being released on October 7th.
On “Another World”, Antony lists the things he treasures about the natural world, and then expresses how much he will miss them. “Another World” is hypnotic and affecting, as well as timely.
The EP Another World also includes “Shake That Devil”. Part exorcism and part Shangri La, Antony calls out shape-shifting perpetrators, and banishes them one by one.
Two other songs, “Crackagen” and “Sing For Me“ are pastoral and surreal. Finally the epic “Hope Mountain” closes the EP; an episodic narrative set after a flood; people gather on a mountain to witness the emergence of a holy girl.
*Gracing the cover is a photo by Pierre-Oliver Deschamps, taken in 1984, depicting Japanese dance legend Kazuo Ohno.