As I a child I knew, that the stars could only get brighter

I like to think I’m sort of a pop music know it all. Someone who knows what’s best for the artists I love, whether it be song selection or choice of a significant other. But sometimes I’m wrong and the results are spectacular.

Take for instance Antony Hegarty, lead singer of the acclaimed New York City-based Antony and the Johnsons. Hegarty, a retiring, gender-blurring chanteuse possesses the kind of unique, tremulous, yet strangely powerful voice that you either love or hate. The kind of voice whose vigor is forged in the fire of adversity and whose sensitivity suggests the hope of making it through.

On 2005’s haunting I’m A Bird Now, the group’s masterwork, Hegarty lent that stunning instrument to ten hushed, emotionally drenched and somewhat autobiograpichal examinations of physical and spiritual confinement and redemption. The record moved me deeply and made me feel very protective and (defensive) of critical assessments of Antony and also certain of the kind of musical direction he would likely take going forward.

So it is with great surprise that I must type the following phrase: Antony Hegarty, Disco Diva. Yes, as the result of a collaboration with Brooklyn electronic quartet Hercules and Love Affair, Hegarty has been elevated to that lofty and rarefied status on the group’s first single, “Blind.” And it works. Better than I ever would have imagined. Hegarty’s voice rides the track’s retro 70’s jazz-inflected disco-funk beat assuredly and with confidence. Never belting or showing off, alternatively cooing and showing quiet, burning power. Thematically, he’s in his comfort zone and dressing in familiar lyrical clothes, singing about self-awareness and personal transformation. Stylistically, he evokes legends like the mighty real Sylvester. Some mean feat and no small achievement.

The video–in which neither Hercules, Love Affair or Antony appear–has something to do with people in togas and I think is supposed to be about accepting the goddess within or something or other. The song however is a knockout.

“Blind” is released in the UK on March 3rd and is a good placeholder for Antony fans until his group’s new LP, The Crying Light, bows in the Fall.

~ by agitpoptimist on February 11, 2008.