Antony and The Johnsons: Cut the world

I have been playing Antony and The Johnsons´ latest album repeatedly for about a week now. "Cut the world" (Secretly Canadian/Rough Trade) was recorded live in Copenhagen with The Danish National Chamber Orchestra, and we get very fine versions of songs from Antony´s previous albums (Cripple And The Starfish, You Are My Sister, Swanlights, Epilepsy Is Dancing, Another World, Kiss My Name, I Fell In Love With A Dead Boy, Rapture, The Crying Light, Twilight), and the title track "Cut the world", written for Robert Wilson´s piece "The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic".

Willem Defoe played in Robert Wilson´s piece, and is also one of the two main characters in the intense and brutal video for "Cut the World" (Directed by Nabil), with Carice Van Houten.

Prepare yourselves for the track "Future feminism", a speech "Addressing the affects of patriarchy on the global ecology, Antony explores the possibility of shifting towards feminine systems of governance in a gesture to restore our world" according to the record company.

The album is available as mp3, CD, or beautiful double vinyl with CD or download code. Way to do it!

The Unthanks live

Oh no, I´m still not ready to stop writing about The Unthanks, and their versions of the songs of Antony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt!
Here are two videos from Saint James´s Church in London. First Antony´s "Paddy´s Gone" and next Robert Wyatt´s "Sea Song", from the tour happening right now.

Robert and Alfie attended one of the concerts of the tour, leading to the following message on The Unthanks´ Twitter account: "Don't think I'll ever do anything so heightening or stressful as playing Alifib/Alifie in front of Robert Wyatt & Alfie Benge last night."
My guess: No reason to be nervous!

The Unthanks, Antony Hegarty, Robert Wyatt

The Unthanks’ new album, ”The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons” (Rabble Rouser 2011), is out now. The music was recorded live at The Union Chapel in London, and is probably the first one in a series a bit on the side of their ordinary releases, since it’s subtitle is ”Diversions Vol. 1”.

Previous to this one, The Unthanks, with sisters Rachel and Becky in the lead, have released four albums (the two first ones as Rachel Unthank and The Winterset), ”Cruel Sister” (2005), ”The Bairns” (2007), ”Here’s the Tender Coming” (2009) and ”Last” (2011).
On the albums they play traditional folk, self penned folk and a nice selection of cover songs by artists like Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, Bonnie Prince Billy, King Crimson and Tom Waits. They have also done ”Sexy Sadie” by The Beatles on a CD included with Mojo magazine.

I guess it will not come as a shock, but on the new album they only sing Antony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt’s songs, all done perfectly (well “Dondestan” perhaps too lively!) with a touch of folk and presented in a charming way. Antony’s songs are mostly taken from the album "I am a Bird Now", while Wyatt’s are harvested from "Comicopera", "Dondestan (revisited)", "Cuckooland", "Shleep" and "Rock Bottom" ("Sea Song" of course!).
One of ”Wyatt’s songs” is Norwegian Anja Garbarek’s fantastic ”Stay Tuned”. Nice!

Oh yes, this is indeed a live recording. We hear several coughs, slips of the tounge and wrong starts, but that doesn’t matter really, it’s like being there in person. I play it loud (as suggested in the liner notes too), and like it a lot!

The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons

The Unthanks will release "The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons, Live from The Union Chapel (Diversions Vol 1.)" on November 28th. Looking forward to this one!

The tracklist:

Antony & The Johnsons
01 Bird Gerhl
02 Man is the Baby
03 You Are My Sister
04 For Today I Am A Boy
05 Paddy’s Gone
06 Spiraling

Robert Wyatt
07 Stay Tuned (Anja Garbarek) from Comicopera
08 Dondestan (Wyatt) from Dondestan (revisited)
09 Lullaby for Hamza (Wyatt/Benge) from Cuckooland
10 Lisp Service (Hopper/Wyatt) from Dondestan (revisited)
11 Free Will and Testament (Wyatt/Kramer) from Shleep
12 Out of the Blue (Wyatt/Elfriede Ellidge) from Comicopera
13 Cuckoo Madame (Wyatt/Benge) from Cuckooland
14 Sea Song (Wyatt) from Rock Bottom
15 Forest (excerpt) from Cuckooland

The Unthanks to tour with Antony H. and Robert W.

The Unthanks are going on tour in December, doing songs by Antony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt. Check out the tour dates, and see if you are lucky to live close by one of the venues.
A live album with the same material, recorded in December 2010, is also on it's way.

And so I have an excuse to post The Unthanks' version of "Lullaby for Hamza" once more!

The Unthanks + Wyatt + Antony

The live album with The Unthanks doing songs by Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons is scheduled for release later this year! We have mentioned the project several times, see one of them here.

Over at The Unthanks we steal this info:

"It was December 2010 that The Unthanks staged a concert that was at once both a slice of fun and probably their most daunting project yet. Over two sold out nights at the Union Chapel, London, their exploration of music by Antony & The Johnsons and Robert Wyatt was an irreverent joy, making The Independent’s Gigs of the Year list. Those London shows are captured on a live album which will be available later this year, and to mark the release, The Unthanks will take their Robert/Antony show on a short tour of UK and Ireland dates, previously only seen in London".

Maverick eccentrics

Since Antony Hegarty and Robert Wyatt are called "maverick eccentrics" by Irish Independent, we celebrate with a new Antony video ("Swanlights"), and some "Wyatt links". Maverick eccentrics or fine vocalists? I know what I will call them.
(The video might bee seen on Antony´s site, if removed from YouTube).

- Mr. E recommended "Mr and Mrs song"! The Guardian 7 April 2011.

- The Unthanks. It's afamily affair.Galway Advertiser 7 April 2011.

- Nile Rodgers. Your music is your soul. The Guardian 8 April 2011.

- Unthank you for the music. Irish Independent April 9 2011.

The Unthanks: Last

Just pull out your credit cards, The Unthanks are back with a new album called "Last" (!) (Rabble Rouser 2011). They blend traditional folk songs and cover songs into fine modern folk (as they have done on previous albums too).
Since they already made covers of Robert Wyatt´s "Sea song" and Nick Drake´s "River man", and have done concerts with songs by Wyatt and Antony and The Johnsons, I want to mention the cover songs on "Last" here.
We get Jon Redfern´s "Give away your heart" (Redfern being a new name to me), Tom Waits´ "No one knows I´m gone" (a bit nicer than the original, and perhaps not so terribly sad) and my favorite,  King Crimson´s "Starless". "Starless" is great on Crimson´s "Red" from 1974, but The Unthanks makes it their own song, with beautiful vocal and letting a trumpet (played by Lizzie Jones) play the guitar melody.
Adrian McNally writes this in the liner notes: "Like Robert Wyatt, King Crimson are one of the few prog acts from that time that outside the prog world still have some cred...".

The Unthanks are: Rachel Unthank (voc), Becky Unthank (voc), Niopha Keegan (violin), Adrian McNally (piano) og Chris Price (bass).

Best of 2010 and The Unthanks concert

"Maryan" from Robert Wyatt, Gilad Atzmon & Ros Stephen´s "For The Ghosts Within" (Domino 2010) is one of the tracks on Uncut´s "Best of 2010" CD (no 164, January 2011).
"For The Ghosts Within" is number 38 on the the list of the best albums of 2010, one step up from Mojo´s list!

The Independent (13  December 2010) review The Unthanks concert, where they performed songs by  Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons.

The Unthanks posted the set lists too, and advice people to get out and buy some albums by said artists!


Antony Set:
You Are The Treasure
Another World
Bird Girl
Man Is The Baby
Paddy's Gone
For Today I Am A Boy
You Are My Sister
Spiralling


Robert Wyatt set:
Stay Tuned (from the album Comic Opera)
Dondestan (from the album Dondestan)
Lisp Service (from Dondestan)
Lullaby For Hanze (from Cuckooland)
Cuckoo Madame (from Cuckooland)
Soup Song (from Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard)
Sea Song (from Rock Bottom)
Free Will and Testament (from Shleep)
Out of The Blue (from Comic Opera)
Forest (from Cuckooland)

The Unthanks sing Wyatt and Antony

The Unthanks just did  two concerts at Union Chapel in London, singing Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons´s songs.

I got a friendly e-mail after the first show, making it sound like  it had been relaxed fun, with lots of good music. I was also told that both shows were recorded for possible release.
So far I have found four videos on YouTube, and I´ll make room for The Unthanks´ version of Antony´s "Paddy´s gone" and Wyatt´s funniest (?) song, "Soup song",  in this post. Check the other videos  here and here.
It really sounds like both musicians and audience had a good time.

The Unthanks, Robert Wyatt and Antony

Let me remind you about the concert at The Union Chapel in London December 8th and 9th, where The Unthanks "Explore and perform the music of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons"!

Antony: "Thank you for your love"

Antony and The Johnsons new album "Swanlights" is just around the corner, and the teaser EP "Thank you for your love" has been on heavy rotation on my iPod and CD player lately.

At first I wondered if we really needed this one, the music sound very familiar to other Antony songs, but hell yes, I think we need it!

Blame me for liking Antony´s voice too much, if you disagree. 

"Thank you for your love" is from "Swanlights" (watch video with a young Antony here), but you also get four more songs that are not on the album. Antony´s "My Lord My Love" is just beautiful, and I really like the cover of "Pressing on" from Bob Dylan´s "Saved".

And then the  EP is ending with John Lennons "Imagine"! Ouch! This is one of the pop songs I am more than a bit fed up with (no offense meant and so on), but it works just fine here, with guitar instead of piano, and I hate to admit it, but I have been humming "Imagine" this afternoon. Sorry.

London, Wednesday 8th December 2010

London might be the city to visit, at least on 8th of December. The Unthanks explore and perform the music of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons ! As all regular readers of this blog know, The Unthanks and Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, have covered Wyatt´s "Sea Song" on "The Bairns" and live too (thanks to YouTube).

Now they are going to pick more songs from the Wyatt catalogue, and even add a folk touch to Antony´s music.

Will somebody please, record this concert?!

Wyatt on Mojo and Uncut CDs

I guess the rest of the world already know this, but the new Mojo and Uncut issues just arrived here in Norway, so here we go.
MOJO´s album is called "The man machine. Mojo celebrates the electronic revolution", and Hot Chip with Robert Wyatt and Geese´s "We´re looking for a lot of love" is on it.
The people of Uncut have chosen the best 150 albums of this decade (as they see it), and on the accompanying CD we find 15 tracks from some of these fine albums. Robert Wyatt is here with "Lullaloop" from "Cuckooland".

Robert Wyatt got two albums among the 150 chosen ones, "Cuckooland" (2003) and "Comicopera" (2007) (57th and 144th place). Wyatt is also represented on two other albums, Paul Weller´s "22 Dreams" (2008) (he´s on one track) and Rachel Unthank & The Wintersets "The Bairns" (2007) (perfect "Sea Song" cover).
I´m also glad to find John Cale, Richard Thompson, PJ Harvey and Antony & The Johnsons on the list, and I don´t mind White Stripes and Jack White either, being the real winners of the game.

Antony and Yoko

Antony Hegarty & Yoko Ono- "I'm Going Away Smiling" at this year´s Meltdown in London. See Pitchfork for more.

Antony

Pitchfork recently did an in-depth profile on Antony that should be proper reading for people who have tickets to see him on his tour (and verybody else too). Antony and the Johnsons will perform on the roof of the Oslo Opera House Sunday 9 August, as part of the Oslo Jazz Festival.
Antony and the Johnsons just released a cover of Beyonce´s "Crazy in love" , and if the Oslo audience will experience something close to what we see on the video with Amsterdam´s Metropole Orkest, I might get just a little bit envious.

Antony in Bergen

I'm really looking forward to Antony and The Johnsons concert in Bergen tomorrow, and are doing my homework today, listening to their records. Read about Antony Hegarty in Wikipedia, and Antony and The Johnsons here.
If you are a collector you probably know, or would like to know, about the Norwegian magazine HotRod. Their issue no 31 in 2007 had an interview with Antony (and great pictures), and you also got the 7" picture disc with "Whose are these" and "Tears Tears Tears".

Antony live in Washington

Pitchfork TV are showing a concert by Antony and The Johnsons from Washington.
And next Sunday they are in Bergen!

The Crying Light

Sometimes I wonder why I like Antony & The Johnson's music, because my first guess would be that this is not my kind of stuff. But as soon as Antony starts to sing, all doubt is gone, because he's got one of the most convincing voices on the market. I don't always get what it's about, but still it's just so good! The latest CD "The Crying Light" (Rough Trade 2009) is at least as good as the previous ones, and 15 March he's in Bergen to perform!
The cover is a portrait of the dancer Kazuo Ohno, taken by Naoya Ikegami.

You may watch a video of "Epilepsy is Dancing" at PitchFork, who also review the album. That video is a bit over the top, isn't it?

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull's new album is a collection af covers. "Easy Come Easy Go" (Naive 2008) may be bought as a single CD or a double CD (and DVD). She sings Dolly Parton, Traffic, Eno, Smokey Robinson, Merle Haggard (and others) and brings along people like Hal Willmer (prod), Mark Ribot and Joey Baron in the band. Guest vocalists are (among others!) Keith Richards, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker and the usual suspects Antony, Rufus Wainwright, the McGarrigle sisters and Teddy Thompson. Marianne Faithfull's voice is just beautiful, and the album is great. A lot of the songs were recorded live in the studio, on the first take. Way to go. On the video she sings Eno's "How many worlds".