ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS i am a bird now"dear antony... my children call you antony the angel and i believe you are."
"i always tell myself to love, but i 'forget' always. your music has caused an emotion to uprise within me, one i don't think i've felt before...ever"
"i brought my family (to your concert) because i wanted my child to hear and see art, beauty and love..."
"i tried to hold back the tears during the concert... but just couldn't stop them rolling down my cheeks"
(these words were taken from antony and the johnsons' official website message board).
back in march, when i first listened to i am a bird now, i knew that i was holding my favourite record of the year; that no other album this year could match the purity and sincerity weeping off antony's intense new album.
i don't usually try to intelectualize my love for music. i've always found most of the people who do so boring and weird. -nothing worse than a guy who tries to get me into an artist or a record with some brainy and heartless remarks.
sometimes though, i stumble onto an album which moves me so much that i can't help but think that there has to be some kind of rational explanation behind my reaction.
the sound of deeply expressive voices which can play with an extensive range of emotions and turn pain and frustrations into hope or even joy has always been one of my sources of inspiration.
the voices of jacques brel, lisa gerrard, tom waits, edith piaf, elizabeth fraser, nina simone, jeff buckley, diamanda galás and especially maria callas, are the only ones who'd really rocked my world so far. since march, antony's joined the club.
antony's lyrics may find their roots in personal traumas and quite uncommon experiences, yet they have found their way into a great number of hearts.
turning your very own beauty and demons into emotions that will be felt by a diverse and eclectic audience of all ages is a beautiful and rare achievement.
indeed, it is not often that a musician brings so many different people together. where i live, the johnsons have never been on telly and the mercury awards are unknown. so, it's not as if antony winning this year's mercury 20,000 quid had had any kind of influence on the people asking for the cd down their record store. on the other hand, word of mouth played a significant role in making i am a bird now a popular success.
the notion of popular music, popular as in touching a diverse and large audience, is important to me. the idea of uniting listeners who have apparently no musical taste in common is important to me. and i find it really cool when once in a while a band or a singer with great artistic integrity, whose records are released by small structures, turn from an independent music phenomena to a more popular act with a record as personal as i am a bird now.
one of the reasons for antony's popularity is that open minded music lovers, which means an awful lot of people once we've put the fundamentalists aside, recognise sincerity and generosity when they have the opportunity to do so. no matter how personal the lyrics are or how difficult and strange the music is. it's all about universal and very strong emotions most of us feel at one point or another.
for instance, most people will be touched by a good live rendition of mozart's requiem because even if we don't know what a requiem is about, mozart's piece, when well executed, does sound like what many of us feel like what death and the after-life must be like.
many people will also like björk's painful and hopeful ode to life "all is full of love" because these five words alone sum up what most of us want so badly to believe from the very first day we stumble on nastiness to the minute we pass away.
now, put mozart and björk in a bed and what do you get nine months later? well, you get a lovely fucked up family...
[-björk at the maternity shows little antony to wolfgang for the first time:
"-wolfgang, look at our baby! he looks like a gay robert smith! he's so cute!
-oh, my god! send the chubby prat back to where he comes from! we'll never have enough money to pay for the mountain of lipstick and the bad wigs he'll want to wear in a few years from now!"]
... and you get i am a bird now opening lines:
"hope there's someone / who will take care of me / when i die / will i go"
death, love and hope all rolled into one big ball of painful emotions. very simple, yet extremely strong words that make you connect with your most hidden secrets, your neighbour and humanity as a whole. now, that is what i call beauty.
of course, you'll find a whole bunch of people out there who find antony's lyrics cringe-inducing.
i understand how stuff such as "one day I'll grow up / i'll be a beautiful woman / but for today i am a child / for today i am a boy" can make people feel that way. especially those who have a hard time reading words metaphorically.
on the other hand, many operas' librettos are cringe-worthy too. we either like opera or not but when i am in the audience of a concert hall with good professional singers on stage spouting all these words which on the paper make me go "oh for christ's sake, get a grip on yourself!", it doesn't sound cringe-worthy anymore. it sounds like the most beautiful thing on the planet. it even sounds like the most rock 'n' roll and humane music this side of godspeed you black emperor or a silver mt zion.
antony's eyes may bear the traces of far too many tears shed in the name of an innocence taken away by man's hideous survival tricks. but on i am a bird now, he sounds like he's killed all the bastards. he sounds like a survivor who now raises the seal of an insidious subversive beauty the highest he can. a weapon of mass destruction and a brainwashing machinery that is called HOPE. a middle finger in the face of life's established order.
i am a bird now is innocence regained. proof that it is not only in the creator's ability to assist humanity but in everyone's hands.
see, it's in mimi and alan's truly spellbinding and effortless voices. i could listen to them for hours on end, intertwining their dark and beautiful words with their dark and beautiful melodies. these two lovebirds could even sing their weekly shooping list, i'd still go pwoooar!
much rockier than any of their previous efforts, -well, it's not heavy metal yet though, the great destroyer also has the best album opener i have heard since... trust, their previous record.
low: some of the most heartrending music out there.
illinoise is an incredibly poetic, versatile and beautiful album. every song on here is a sparkling ode.
is it pop? it is folk? it is just amazing that someone that young can come up with what's already heralded as a classic as was jeff buckley's grace just after its release.
there's so much going on on illinoise. so much richness in the melodies, the arrangements, the words; so much fun, tenderness, humour and sadness. such a cute voice and lovely choir too!
one of these extremely rare and ambitious records that will probably grow on me for years to come.
sometimes when it's early morning and cold outside, when the hordes of tourists haven't arrived yet or when they've fled to night-time paris' groovier parts, as i walk alone in my warm green parka around montmartre, i realise that cocorosie's cute, twisted and rusty music is montmartre.
i don't know how long the casady sisters have lived in montmartre for and how they managed to capture the atmosphère montmartroise so well. it may even be a coincidence. but what i do know is that the day i move out of montmartre, it'll just take a spin of one of coco's records to make me feel like i'm back there.
the other day, whilst listening to remembranza, i was thinking that should i play this album on my mp3 player whilst walking at night in the woods, i would probably run like hell towards the nearest house, knock at the door with both fists whilst screaming "i'm followed by dark forces! please help!"
mind you, murcof is in no way your mexican version of british dark ambient master lustmord. although no less atonal in some respect, there is more complexity at work, here.
built around layers of atmospheric electronica, bleeps, strings and piano motives, mosf of the tracks are like modern short symphonies.
darker than martes, his previous effort and more post-classical, remembranza is in no way less essential.
owen pallett may be a classically trained musician, but this, his first solo album, is a very romantic affair.
in music, romanticism is, -or at least that is the way i see it, about turning your back on conventions and entering a very intimate world where exaltation and ecstatic debauchery of the senses is the name of the game. a kind of ego-driven exercise with a heart galloping towards eternityville that sometimes ends up by making sparkles that listeners can play with too.
although i wouldn't recommend anyone to go out with a romantic (bunch of self-centred twats, most of them), what a man can do with his voice, a violin and a looping pedal in all seriousness but not so serious ways is quite extraordinary.
i've always had a hard time with singers who can't sing or singers who sing so off-key it hurts. thing is, when efrim, one of a silver mt zion protagonists and the worst singer i've ever caught on record, goes "when the world is sick / can't no one be well / but i dreamt we was all beautiful and strong" or "please believe in gentle dreams / the sweetness of people / whistling in their sleep", he does it with such conviction, vulnerability, passion and humanity that i find it overwhelming. should these words be sung by a classically trained singer or your average singer who-can-sing, i probably wouldn't be as deeply touched as i am here. in fact, it may not work at all.
that said, all this singing biz' isn't really necessary to me. efrim and his off-key brothers and sisters may now feel the need to share their beautiful, hopeful and hopeless words with us. but horses in the sky's poetry sounds very much like the one my heart would feel whilst listening to their mainly instrumental and moving 2 first albums.
in any case, i'll still hang around the campfire at night. not too close though cos all that hippie shit kind of drives me coco after a wee while.
bands who have a vision, and in the case of mt. zion, a vision which seems pretty close to mine, are too rare and too important to let them sing on their own with eyes as big, teary and comforting as my first teddy's. after all, moi aussi, je chante comme une casserole.
although takk... is at number 8, it has been the biggest disappointment of the year. see, i was not prepared for not being moved to great extremes by sigur rós. takk... did the job extremely well.
what saves sigur ros' 4th album is that 3 of the songs, glósóli, svo hljótt and especially sæglópur are some of my favourite songs of the year. what also saves takk... is that i have rarely heard such amazing drums.
this album may be better than most of the stuff i've listened to all year. trouble is, it is nowhere near as special as i'd have loved it to be. and for a band who's penned 2 of the most original and beautiful albums i have ever immersed myself in, ágætis byrjun and ( ), jonsi n friends' newie is nothing i'm going to rave about.
in any case, three of the most glorious songs of the year + great drums = very good stuff. -always been shit at maths, so don't ask.
although i was surprised at the cocteau twins' reunion announcement earlier this year and their planned appearance at the coachella festival, i didn't find it so surprising when the band pulled out. after all, we all know that elizabeth fraser, the cocteaus' singer, can be a bit funny at times.
i have read truly horrendous stuff on various forums from fans spitting on liz for being at the origin of the cancellation. i understand the frustration some hardcore fans may have felt but this is no way to treat a human being. and if you think that an artist who cancels a gig you've been dreaming of for 10 years is such a fucking terrible thing, then you obviously need to have your head checked out.
anyway, seeing the cocteau twins in daylight in the desert under 30°C or something? it'd very probably have been shit and we all know it.
besides, who needs a freakin' cocteau reunion when robin guthrie, the one and only mastermind behind the cocteau twins' sound, goes on releasing gorgeous stuff such as the music he's done with harold budd for gregg araki's latest film, mysterious skin or imperial, his previous solo record? not me, anyway. -okay, i'm kind of lying, here. but this lie keeps me warm. so, there!
am i going to shut the fuck up about the cocteau twins and start talking about mysterious skin - music from the film? well, no. all you need to know is that robin doesn't need liz to make records that sound like sparkling christmas tree ornaments dancing hand in hand and colliding in slow motion.
speaking of celebratory music, here comes pilotdrift and their cinematic tunes. as a fan of danny elfman's the nightmare before christmas soundtrack and old black and white horror movies; as a sucker for spacey and feel-good hymns such as electric light orchestra's mr. blue sky or new prog a la ok computer (wasn't ok computer so prog, kids?), water sphere has totally won me over.
now, throw a little bit of psychedelic rock, tons of violins (or is it just extravagant synths?) and a pinch of utter silliness in there and you're in for a treat.
yes, i know, it kind of sound all over the place and over the top. which it is. but it works so well. it's like watching a film without the pictures (-are you following me or what?) and reaching for the box of tissues by the end cos you know, even though it was a wee bit creepy, it was all so pretty and sad.
oh and the singer sounds exactly like thom yorke on many tracks. like a paranoia-free tommy. see? i told you it was all very exciting!
one to stock for christmas and one all tim burton lovers and flotation toy warning fans out there should buy.
she may look and sound like your average french chanteuse: effortlessly stylish and a voice that sounds so french and sultry you wonder how she does it. -well, she's just... french, you know! thing is, françoiz is much more than an exotic 60ies light-weight gaelic pop inspired little lost girl.
serene, hopeful and melancholic whilst being quite frankly hopeless at times, une saison volée, françoiz's 3rd album is a beautifully arranged affair.
forget the boring so-called french chanson revival and its cohort of 30 something pretty boys and girls ripping of the worse bits off serge gainsbourg & francoise hardy. this year, françoiz and her saison volée are well above the pack.
blame it on our hectic lifestyle, these days many of our record stores have a new age/ambient/relaxing music dedicated section. most of the records filled in there are plain shit but they do the trick pretty well. back home, over-stressed managers seem to enjoy them very much with a glass of brandy in one hand and a spliff in the other after a nice and long shower. -that's when they don't do it all at once.
the music made by french girl cécile schott, aka colleen, wouldn't fit too badly in the ambient department. on the other hand, i doubt our stressed manager would enjoy it very much. cos for all its instrumental prettiness, there's also dark overtones at work here.
the golden morning breaks is quite a departure from colleen's first and previous album, everybody here wants answers, a collection of instrumental pieces largely made up with various sampled sounds.
we may still be in late night music territory but cécile's second album is a live acoustic instruments affair.
sampler or not, it can become strangely addictive. introspective at times whilst being an open window with a view on the immensity of others the golden morning breaks is a voyage in both worlds: the real one and... the other one.
i am pretty sure that when collisions, calla's 4th album, hits european shores next year, critics and fans alike won't be too kind with it. "-mainstream alternative rock!", they may even scream.
after all, i was disappointed myself the first time i listened to it. bland and boring are the 2 adjectives that i used to describe it to a friend.
first impressions can be so wrong. a few spins later, i realised that collisions is the kind of record that shows its true face after repeated listens. what i had enjoyed on calla's previous albums, the tension and the slow-building drama, is all here but hidden under a production that is much slicker than on their breakthrough album, televise.
elsewhere, it's business as usual. senior valle's voice has the same claustrophobic qualities as ever and his lyrics won't make you roll on the carpet in laughter.
now, if they could stop cancelling their gigs, -is it just me or it's becoming a habit?- it would be great.
"-you know what? / you know what? / you know what? / shut the fuck up! / oh oh oh."
man, how i love kristin hersh! and you should hear the emphasis she puts on the 'fuck'. it's quite something. her four kids must be proud.
if only all musicians and married mums could grow older so... gracefully. -if only we all grew older so gracefully!
golden ocean is the rockiest, loudest and fastest record i have listened to all year. and i listened to it many times cos it's seemed to be the perfect antidote to... feeling old at times.
i've always liked kristin's solo records very much but i've never been a throwing muses enthusiast. i now may give the muses catalogue a second chance though.
"-what could be more fun that turning up to '10' and screaming your head off for an hour every night?" said kristin in some recent interview about the art of touring with 50 foot wave. well, i don't know. to scream at my boss to fuck off whilst jumping up and down naked on my desk, maybe?
funny that electrelane should always be compared to stereolab cos personally, they've always made me thing of early dEUS. especially on this, their 3rd album, once again produced by steve albini.
intense, raw, extremely varied and pretty uneasy at times, axes displays a punk aesthetic that is incredibly refreshing and.... beautiful. yes, beautiful. -oh the first time i listened to dEUS debut, worst case scenario...
a mainly instrumental affair, our english quartet have never sounded so mad. more often than not, you get kind of scared that our 4 english girls, especially the drummer, are about to suffer apoplexy. i wouldn't go anywhere near your sticks after a gig, emma! 3rd degree burns have never been a fantasy of mine.
passion, emergency and unadulterated punk spirit, electrelane cultivate a very pure approach to music that is remarkable. you just don't let us kids down.
'over the top melodrama blah.' 'electric light orchestra kitsch blah.' 'jean-michel jarre and tangerine dream blah blah.' *yawn yawn*. no wonder before the dawn heals us was so well received in north america and with suspicion in europe. many of us, europeans, are so bloody cynical and... old.
m83's third album sounds like the music of a young man who doesn't want to grow up. at least, not as long as some fuckwits out there don't give a toss if the only way to breathe in the very near future will be through gas masks. (near future on the scale of mother earth's history, that is. which will be very soon, should we go on putting economic interests at the very top of our preoccupations).
before the dawn heals us sounds like the music of a young man who wants to feel that innocence is still shaping every one of his steps. cos he knows that keeping a tender heart is a great weapon against our money-driven, individualistic and cynical ways.
parts of before the dawn heals us may over do it at times. granted. but so were many of the japanese cartoons they would show on tv and which we were addicted to when we were young. -go and figure it out for yourself.
jersey are five young men hailing from germany whose debut wouldn't look out of place on the catalogue of every indie boy's favourite german label, morr music. although jersey's eponymous album is more pop than electronic; more melodic, airy and gentle than ms. john soda or lali puna, it still is electro-pop at its finest.
unpretentious and carefully crafted songs (too polished, some may say), this record has had the same effect on me as neon golden by the notwist had a few years ago. and that's a compliment.
in a year infested by music made by young men who've just discovered their older brothers' goth record collection, jersey has been a breath of fresh air.
4ad's very own post-punk revival starts here! hoooray! oh, it's going to be fun! let's goooo!
celebration may be much more groovy than most of their illustrious 4ad post-punk 80ies colleagues such as the birthday party, the wolfgang press, modern english or even early x-mal deutschland. but they make me think of all of them, in one way or another.
all together now! fucked-up-hammond-led-groovy-cabaret-infectious-vocals shit is what we need!
i find young bands who proudly wear their influences on their sleeves quite touching. if i was robert smith (which i'm not since i don't look more and more like liz taylor) or morrissey (which i'm not either since i've never waved freakin gladioli around my head) i'd send all my best wishes to the organ girls.
in the 80ies revival busy department, they are without a doubt the most exciting band out there.
although katie, the organ's singer, sounds like morrissey when she opens her mouth and although the bass could be simon gallup's and the guitar could very well be johnny marr's, they don't make plain sub smiths or plain sub cure. in fact they don't make sub anything. such compliments could hardly be made to all the chameleons/joy division clones out there. -okay, i'll stop my early 80ies revival bashing now.
OTHER ALBUMS I'VE REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR BUT CAN'T BE ARSED TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT
Piano Magic, disaffected
Mew, and the glass handed kites
Matt Elliott, drinking songs
Out Hud, let us never speak of it again
Thunderbirds Are Now!, justamustache
Stars, set yourself on fire
Minotaur Shock, maritime
Broadcast, tender buttons
Mono & World End's Girlfriend, palmless prayer/mass murder refrain
FAVOURITE REISSUES OF THE YEAR
maybe, neil has been asleep for the last 5 years or something (which would be surprising since he treats us with a beautiful mojave 3 album every 2 years or so) but the number of successful bands going on today who've been influenced by slowdive is great.
people always go on and on about how kevin shields, my bloody valentine slow-as-a-snail master, invented the whole mid-90ies shoegazing genre. -well, it seems to me that robin guthrie, the cocteau twins maestro, has much more to answer for than shields in that department. but anyway. point is, when it comes to shoegazing, slowdive have as great a legacy as my bloody valentine.
i was introduced to just for a day, slowdive's first album by a friend of mine who had bought the tape. i don't remember being much impressed by it the first time round. well, i was still very young and a little bit silly.
a year later, as i was going through some racks of cds in london, i stumbled onto that familiar orange cover and decided to buy it. the next day, i was back in the very same shop and bought souvlaki, slowdive's 2nd album. and the day after, i bought both 5 EP eps. on vinyl cos i loved the covers so much.
in 1995, slowdive released their farewell album, pygmalion. a record that would become hugely influential on the whole german electro-pop scene ala morr music.
due to some fuck up with their record company, creation, pygmalion was never made wildly available at that time. as a consequence, i only discovered this album a few years ago through... internet downloading.
right, listen mr. neil: i don't care much about slowdive's relevance in 2005. you just reform! As for your guitar pedals, you break into kevin shields' studio in camden or robin guthrie's house in brittany and steal theirs. see? sorted!
FAVOURITE GIGS OF THE YEAR
LOW la maroquinerie, paris - 30apr05
DEAD CAN DANCE forum, london - 07apr05
THE CURE la route du rock festival, st malo - 13aug05
BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE la maroquinerie, paris - 16dec05
ARCADE FIRE elysée montmartre, paris - 16may05
DAVID THOMAS & TWO PALE BOYS primavera sound festival, barcelona - 27may05
| sweeten the bride brighten your way through stubborn pain through stubborn pain | drunk with your tongue dragging new hole a starry wound outside the womb | shooting a path catching a flame where is the start hope is ahead |
| shimmer the light ah fuck i là death is no end death in no end | used to be fine dripping on lies patience in tow am i the crime | time to slow down crash and be calm safe in the sound girl as a knife // |
