Product Description

'I Am A Bird Now' is the second full-length release from eccentric American combo Antony & The Johnsons. The band's unconventional appearance and their unique, bluesy torch songs make for an interesting and beguiling combination. Includes the single 'Hope There's Someone'.

Track Listing

1. Hope There’s Someone
2. My Lady Story
3. For Today I Am A Boy
4. Man Is The Baby
5. You Are My Sister
6. What Can I Do?
7. Fistful Of Love
8. Spiralling
9. Free At Last
10. Bird Gerhl

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #809 in Music
• Released on: 2005-02-07
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Antony and the Johnsons' second full-length recording, the haunting and affecting I Am a Bird Now, is a far more intimate affair than their debut. Antony's bluesy parlour room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience that's both exhilarating and disquieting. "Hope There's Someone" is a sombre opener, and its plea for companionship, augmented by a sparse piano/vocal arrangement that rises into the air by song's end in a swirl of multi-tracked harmonies, is ultimately uplifting. This formula is applied to too much of the record and never ceases to elicit honest emotion from either Antony or his numerous guests. Rufus Wainwright takes the lead on "What Can I Do?," a languid meditation on death that conjures up images of rainy streets, lonely lampposts, and cigar smoke--it's brief (under two minutes) but alluring like the cover of a Raymond Chandler novel. Boy George joins Antony for a duet on the soulful and empowering "You Are My Sister," Devendra Banhart lends his warbly tenor to the lush "Spiraling," and Lou Reed plays noodly guitar and recites an anonymous poem on the mischievous "Fistful of Love." It's a testament to Antony's skill as a writer and arranger that these guest appearances are completely devoid of pretence, and while each artist is reverent to the source material, it's still Antony's show, as the most powerful moments on I Am a Bird Now are his. --James Christopher Monger, All Music Guide

Customer Reviews

frenzy
i have to stop playing this cd in the car. track 7, oh antony if you knew how this song works me into a frenzy, is 'Fistful of Love' and i can't help but launch into tremulous duet, especially at this part: ' and i feeel your burning eyeees, burning holes, straight through my heart, it's outta lo-u-ve, it's outta lo-uve'. Frankly it's dangerous and not just because whipped up like that i am distracted but also because i start waving my fist around and other drivers think i am in the throes of road rage. far from it... they could cut me up all they like and all i would care about is antony, me, lou, love, fists, violence, burning eyes etc. the other songs are great too by the way.

Oh God it's good
This is the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. It grabs you by the throat and never lets you go. It is a cry for freedom and I love every last second of it. I could listen to Antony all day, only maybe it is a little morbid at times. I'm not religious but I think that if a God existed he would make music like this.

Incandescent Exposure
One thing leads to another.

Occasionally.

Join up the dots and sometimes what's left turns out to be
more than the sum of its' parts.

Mr Wainwright; Ms Wasser; Ms Gudmundsdottir; Mr Hegarty.

Sometimes we invite Outsiders to come in from the cold to warm themselves
for a while by our firesides.
We welcome them even though the icy draught that follows
through the doorway challenges us in our comfort zone.

Listening to Anthony Hegarty is not a comfortable experience.
Bearing witness to another's pain should raise ambivalence.
Should I be listening ? Should I be watching ?

These ten songs dig deep into the heart and soul of one
man's experience. Confessional doesn't quite describe it.
It's more of a motorway pileup of emotions with me in this
moment as an all too willing witness.

Once you're here it's impossible to turn a blind eye.

Violence; loss; confusion; shame; self-hatred/forgiveness;
exposure; alienation; transformation; valediction.

Somewhere over a rainbow?

The opening bars of 'Hope There's Someone' shook me to my core.
The otherworldly vibrato cuts like a knife.
Skin and sinew and blood and bone all blown apart in this
brave existential prayer.

"Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die.... "

A hope we all share , surely ?

That these thoughts and emotions found the light of day
in song is ultimately good cause for celebration.

Extraordinary.