I Am a Bird Now＜Opaque Green Vinyl＞

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. Anohnis bluesy parlor room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience thats both exhilarating and disquieting. Hope Theres Someone is a somber opener, and its plea for companionship, augmented by a sparse piano/vocal arrangement that rises into the air by songs end in a swirl of multi-tracked harmonies, is ultimately uplifting. This formula is applied to much of the record and never ceases to elicit honest emotion from Anohni and her 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 -- its brief (under two minutes) but alluring like the cover of a Raymond Chandler novel. Boy George joins Anohni 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. Its a testament to Anohnis skill as a writer and arranger that these guest appearances are completely devoid of pretense, and while each artist is reverent to the source material, its still Anohnis show, as the most powerful moments on I Am a Bird Now are hers. ~ James Christopher Monger