Anthony and the Johnsons - The Crying Light (Rough Trade)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
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Us in the office had a conversation earlier about a thing called the theory ladenness of observation. It's an idea which in its simplest form suggests that anything that is presented to you by your senses - music, art, the outside world as a whole - is imbued with a theoretical prejudice. What? Basically, every time you experience something, you do so with every other thing you've ever experienced in mind. Your past shapes you, and determines what you think of your present. It's an idea from scientific philosophy, but instances of it having a strong influence over our way of thinking crop up when listening to a new record more than one might imagine. I'm completely under its spell when it comes to this one.
I'm of the opinion that one's enjoyment of The Crying Light will depend entirely on when one started to enjoy Antony and the Johnsons (the idea of not enjoying the work of Mr. Antony Hegarty is not up for debate here - he's clearly a bloody genius, and if that hasn't dawned on you yet, it will). If you've read all there is to read about his peculiar voice, sexuality, gender issues and Mercury Prize winnings, but are yet to hear his music, then this, his third album, will almost certainly have you smitten from the off. Held as a piece of work on its own, it's a hugely laudable effort.
However, if I Am A Bird Now had you blubbering like the child it turned me in to, you might ponder a few things a little before declaring love for this, its follow up. I'm not going to make any assumptions about the first record, because I've not heard it. Maybe you have - maybe it's your favourite? - but compared to the career-making I Am A Bird Now, this sounds ... well, it sounds pretty much the same. I'm not going to name any bad songs on it, as there are none. But nor is there anything that would have sounded out of place on what came before it. He's pushing no boundaries here - granted, at least he's pushing no boundaries that he himself hasn't flung far in to the distance on his previous work - but was it wrong of me to expect him to keep going further out there?
Perhaps. But not long ago, Antony released an EP entitled Another World (the title track of which is resurrected here as an indisputable highlight). On it, amidst more piano balladry, was a song called 'Shake That Devil', a remarkable and unsettling experimental blues work out that rates, personally, as the best thing he's ever done. The only thing that, for me, tied it to any other Antony and the Johnsons work I'd previously heard was that voice. It got me giddy for the album. But it was a complete red herring.
Other than 'Dust and Water', which comes closest to (but really nowhere near) the spirit of that daring piece we just touched on, what you get here is thoroughly gorgeous piano (and occasional guitar) balladry, the quality of which none of his contemporaries could hope to emulate, and you get twelve tracks of it. But hey, there aren't that many Antony and the Johnsons songs in the world, you know. So it's nice there are a few more. There probably aren't any songs in the world as weepy as opener 'Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground' either - even the title makes Sinead O'Connor's version of 'Nothing Compares 2 U' sound like At The Drive-In in comparison. It's masterfully arranged, too - the string arrangements on 'Kiss My Name' are some Pachelbel type shit. There's a sentence I never thought I'd write. And perhaps should never have written. It's not all Antony's work, the arrangements I mean. There are a number of high profile guest arrangers here who work marvels with the strings especially. He doesn't make a big deal of them. For now, let's just think of them as The Johnsons.
The thing that makes me think it hasn't quite achieved the task of bettering I Am A Bird Now is, in actuality, two things. The Crying Light is a beautiful thing, imbued indeed with such a huge amount of beauty that it actually makes its title seem appropriate to convey the emotional weight of the work, rather than just something really corny, something a satirist would invent if asked to guess what the title of the next Antony and the Johnsons record might be. But what it doesn't have is anything quite at the level of 'Hope There's Someone' - something of such crushing beauty that it actually transcends the record it's housed in and makes a cultural impact. Something your Mum will hear. We could think of 'Another World' as its similarly death-obsessed cousin, but glorious though it is, it's not quite there.
Futhermore, this record lacks, for me, the light at the end of the tunnel for example provided by the euphoric brass blasts of 'Fistful of Love' - there's nothing here that suggests the world is anything other than a very, very sad place. He might be right about that. But even if it's a stance born out of honesty about our shared situation as a species, it still makes for quite a disheartening listen, and makes the nearly 40 minutes to which this album runs seem like a fair bit longer. 'Epilepsy is Dancing' and 'Kiss My Name' aim for something other than the doldrums but never quite reach elation, whereas I Am A Bird Now's chinks of light in the darkness were one of the things that made it such a compelling joy. But I heard that record first, and my observations are so theory laden I might as well be blind, so what the hell do I know?
Don't think about music like I do, and the ease with which one can make a comparison between it and his back catalogue won't be a problem. You'll have a great time with this - as great a time as you can have with such a relentlessly yet beautifully maudlin record. It's important when considering that whole 'theory ladenness of observation' thing I was blathering on about at the beginning that, that once you're aware of the concept, one can attempt in so far as is possible to work around it - imagine this album as a standalone piece, and its merits are bountiful and clear as the daylight it admits no knowledge of. Sure, The Crying Light might sound just like his other records. But that means there are only two records in the world that sound anything like The Crying Light.
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