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By: Jan Bunny
Date: 27th Jul 06
Release: Album
To Cure: A broken heart
What:Antony and the Johnsons second release I Am a Bird Now may see you spirited away into the sullied glamour of a downtown New York cabaret. Or, you may feel as though your heart is breaking. Antony's mournful falsetto and rich lower register transcends gender, identity and emotion. Devendra Barnhart described him as "the modern day Nina Simone." Antony is duplicitous at times; his grand, sweeping crescendos inspire love and lust, soon thwarted into longing and loss.A unique delivery of intimate lyrics guides us into that grey area between misery and rage. But the real delicacy of I Am a Bird Now is its empathy rather than voyeurism, like the album's cover art; a 1974 photograph of Warhol It-girl Candy Darling on her deathbed. Fleetingly, we see an angelic and alluring CandyDarling. The image is gentle yet heroic. She died soon after, aged 26. Like her this album is a synergy of beauty and sorrow.