ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS
''TURNING''
NOVEMBER 11 2014
76:45
1 Everything Is New (Live) 04:48
2 My Lord, My Love (Live) 03:18
3 Cripple and the Starfish (Live) 05:15
4 For Today I Am a Boy (Live) 03:32
5 Where Is My Power (Live) 05:31
6 Spiralling (Live) 03:57
7 Find the Rhythm of Your Love (Live) 06:03
8 I Fell In Love with a Dead Boy (Live) 04:28
9 Bird Gerhl (Live) 03:22
10 Kiss My Name (Live) 04:09
11 Daylight and the Sun (Live) 05:43
12 One Dove (Live) 06:28
13 Hope There's Someone (Live) 04:42
14 Twilight (Live) 05:57
15 You Are My Sister (Live) 04:14
16 Whose Are These (Live) 02:44
17 Tears Tears Tears (Live) 02:27
TURNING - A concert film documentary captured during the critically acclaimed tour of Europe by Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas during the fall of 2006, it explores the heart and experience of that series of performances. Through its synthesis of Antony's songs and unfurling video portraiture of the 13 beauties who performed on stage, TURNING creates an intimate and cinematic experience exploring themes of identity, transcendence and the revelation of essence.
Also included in the deluxe package is the full TURNING concert recorded live at The Barbican, London, Nov. 2006 and contains songs across the first three Antony and the Johnsons' full length albums along with bonus tracks never before released songs - "Whose are These" and "Tears Tears Tears". The classic lineup of Antony, Maxim Moston, Rob Moose, Julia Kent, Parker Kindred, Jeff Langston, and Thomas Bartlett can be heard on these recordings as Charles Atlas's projected portraits of the girls light up the stage from behind the band for the duration of the concert.
(Official WebSite)
REVIEW
by Mark Deming (AllMusic)
Antony Hegarty has no apparent interest in being an ordinary pop star, and it stands to reason he wouldn't be interested in making an ordinary live album, either. In 2006, Hegarty collaborated with artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas on a performance piece called Turning, in which Atlas created carefully detourned video projections of a handful of women ("beauties," as they were identified by Hegarty and Atlas) whose difficult life experiences often belied their appearance, while Hegarty's band Antony and the Johnsons performed a set of their powerfully emotional and atmospheric songs. Atlas directed a documentary about the tour, also called Turning, while Antony and the Johnsons have released a soundtrack album that documents the London date on the tour. Stripped of its visuals (and even without Atlas's images, watching Hegarty wring the joy and horror of this music out of himself is powerful stuff), the Turning album seems significantly less ambitious than either the film or the stage show, but the strong palette of human passions is very much the same in these 17 songs, and the performances are extraordinary. Hegarty has a one-of-a-kind voice, and a near operatic control over his instrument; he doesn't sound much like anyone else in contemporary popular music as he glides from note to note aided by his carefully modulated vibrato, and his ability to make his songs of outcasts and lost souls come to vivid, heartbreaking life is truly remarkable. Just as impressive are the Johnsons, whose arrangements are artful and an ideal match for Hegarty, while leaving enough aural and emotional breathing room to make the most of the dynamics. In addition, these recordings are pristine, catching the interplay between the singer and the musicians with striking and transparent clarity. In short, without seeing Atlas's film, Turning is simply a live recording of Antony and the Johnsons on-stage in London, but thankfully, given their talent and their commitment to their craft, that's more than enough to make this a remarkable experience.
BIOGRAPHY
by James Christopher Monger (AllMusic)
U.K.-born, California-raised Antony Hegarty felt like the consummate outsider until coming face to face with the image of Boy George on the cover of the Culture Club's 1982 debut album, Kissing to Be Clever. Eight years later, Hegarty relocated to New York City and found a world more accepting of avant-garde sensibilities and a sexually ambiguous nature. An early incarnation was the cabaret ensemble Blacklips, modeled after Blue Velvet-era Isabella Rossellini and the drag queen who graced the cover of Soft Cell's 1982 single "Torch."
Hegarty formed Antony and the Johnsons in 1998, and the band released its self-titled debut on David Tibet's Durtro label in 2000, followed by an appearance on the Lou Reed albums The Raven and Animal Serenade, plus a tour with Reed throughout 2003. (Hegarty also appeared in the 2000 Steve Buscemi film Animal Factory as an androgynous convict.) Antony and the Johnsons released a series of EPs in 2004, followed by the band's second full-length, the Mercury Prize-winning I Am a Bird Now, in February of 2005. Antony spent the next two years on the road, as well as appearing on Björk's Volta and in the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man before returning to the studio for the 2008 EP, Another World, which preceded 2009's full-length The Crying Light.
Antony and the Johnsons' fourth studio album, Swanlights, arrived the following year. In 2011, the album's publisher, Abrams, issued a companion edition of Swanlights collected in book form, with Antony's paintings, drawings, photography, collages, song lyrics, and writings. In 2012, the band released Cut the World, a symphonic retrospective arranged and performed in collaboration with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. It featured 11 tracks from their catalog and the title cut, a new song written for Robert Wilson's stage production The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. In 2006, Hegarty collaborated with video artist Charles Atlas on a performance piece called Turning, which combined a live performance by Antony and the Johnsons with video projections created by Atlas and featuring women who had struggled with self-image and sexual identity in their lives. Atlas later made a documentary about the show, simply titled Turning, and in 2014 the film's soundtrack album was released in tandem with a DVD edition of the film.
OFFICIAL SITE
''TURNING''
NOVEMBER 11 2014
76:45
1 Everything Is New (Live) 04:48
2 My Lord, My Love (Live) 03:18
3 Cripple and the Starfish (Live) 05:15
4 For Today I Am a Boy (Live) 03:32
5 Where Is My Power (Live) 05:31
6 Spiralling (Live) 03:57
7 Find the Rhythm of Your Love (Live) 06:03
8 I Fell In Love with a Dead Boy (Live) 04:28
9 Bird Gerhl (Live) 03:22
10 Kiss My Name (Live) 04:09
11 Daylight and the Sun (Live) 05:43
12 One Dove (Live) 06:28
13 Hope There's Someone (Live) 04:42
14 Twilight (Live) 05:57
15 You Are My Sister (Live) 04:14
16 Whose Are These (Live) 02:44
17 Tears Tears Tears (Live) 02:27
TURNING - A concert film documentary captured during the critically acclaimed tour of Europe by Antony and the Johnsons and Charles Atlas during the fall of 2006, it explores the heart and experience of that series of performances. Through its synthesis of Antony's songs and unfurling video portraiture of the 13 beauties who performed on stage, TURNING creates an intimate and cinematic experience exploring themes of identity, transcendence and the revelation of essence.
Also included in the deluxe package is the full TURNING concert recorded live at The Barbican, London, Nov. 2006 and contains songs across the first three Antony and the Johnsons' full length albums along with bonus tracks never before released songs - "Whose are These" and "Tears Tears Tears". The classic lineup of Antony, Maxim Moston, Rob Moose, Julia Kent, Parker Kindred, Jeff Langston, and Thomas Bartlett can be heard on these recordings as Charles Atlas's projected portraits of the girls light up the stage from behind the band for the duration of the concert.
(Official WebSite)
REVIEW
by Mark Deming (AllMusic)
Antony Hegarty has no apparent interest in being an ordinary pop star, and it stands to reason he wouldn't be interested in making an ordinary live album, either. In 2006, Hegarty collaborated with artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas on a performance piece called Turning, in which Atlas created carefully detourned video projections of a handful of women ("beauties," as they were identified by Hegarty and Atlas) whose difficult life experiences often belied their appearance, while Hegarty's band Antony and the Johnsons performed a set of their powerfully emotional and atmospheric songs. Atlas directed a documentary about the tour, also called Turning, while Antony and the Johnsons have released a soundtrack album that documents the London date on the tour. Stripped of its visuals (and even without Atlas's images, watching Hegarty wring the joy and horror of this music out of himself is powerful stuff), the Turning album seems significantly less ambitious than either the film or the stage show, but the strong palette of human passions is very much the same in these 17 songs, and the performances are extraordinary. Hegarty has a one-of-a-kind voice, and a near operatic control over his instrument; he doesn't sound much like anyone else in contemporary popular music as he glides from note to note aided by his carefully modulated vibrato, and his ability to make his songs of outcasts and lost souls come to vivid, heartbreaking life is truly remarkable. Just as impressive are the Johnsons, whose arrangements are artful and an ideal match for Hegarty, while leaving enough aural and emotional breathing room to make the most of the dynamics. In addition, these recordings are pristine, catching the interplay between the singer and the musicians with striking and transparent clarity. In short, without seeing Atlas's film, Turning is simply a live recording of Antony and the Johnsons on-stage in London, but thankfully, given their talent and their commitment to their craft, that's more than enough to make this a remarkable experience.
BIOGRAPHY
by James Christopher Monger (AllMusic)
U.K.-born, California-raised Antony Hegarty felt like the consummate outsider until coming face to face with the image of Boy George on the cover of the Culture Club's 1982 debut album, Kissing to Be Clever. Eight years later, Hegarty relocated to New York City and found a world more accepting of avant-garde sensibilities and a sexually ambiguous nature. An early incarnation was the cabaret ensemble Blacklips, modeled after Blue Velvet-era Isabella Rossellini and the drag queen who graced the cover of Soft Cell's 1982 single "Torch."
Hegarty formed Antony and the Johnsons in 1998, and the band released its self-titled debut on David Tibet's Durtro label in 2000, followed by an appearance on the Lou Reed albums The Raven and Animal Serenade, plus a tour with Reed throughout 2003. (Hegarty also appeared in the 2000 Steve Buscemi film Animal Factory as an androgynous convict.) Antony and the Johnsons released a series of EPs in 2004, followed by the band's second full-length, the Mercury Prize-winning I Am a Bird Now, in February of 2005. Antony spent the next two years on the road, as well as appearing on Björk's Volta and in the Leonard Cohen documentary I'm Your Man before returning to the studio for the 2008 EP, Another World, which preceded 2009's full-length The Crying Light.
Antony and the Johnsons' fourth studio album, Swanlights, arrived the following year. In 2011, the album's publisher, Abrams, issued a companion edition of Swanlights collected in book form, with Antony's paintings, drawings, photography, collages, song lyrics, and writings. In 2012, the band released Cut the World, a symphonic retrospective arranged and performed in collaboration with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. It featured 11 tracks from their catalog and the title cut, a new song written for Robert Wilson's stage production The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. In 2006, Hegarty collaborated with video artist Charles Atlas on a performance piece called Turning, which combined a live performance by Antony and the Johnsons with video projections created by Atlas and featuring women who had struggled with self-image and sexual identity in their lives. Atlas later made a documentary about the show, simply titled Turning, and in 2014 the film's soundtrack album was released in tandem with a DVD edition of the film.
OFFICIAL SITE