Antony and the Johnsons

When Beyonce cavorts in heels and not much else offering up "baby you got me" it does nothing but vaguely offend my olfactory senses. I'm not one of these that appreciates her "head-rush blast of joy" crap, her music bores me and makes me run far away from any thoughts I had for "appreciating" the "pop sensibilities" or whatever that nonsense is.

It all changed last night when Antony Hegarty gave Crazy in Love blue ache, true beauty and somehow a rare candour unseen in music of all kinds. It was only the beginning of a startlingly beautiful performance from a man still far from comfortable in his own skin.

When some prick requested Frankenstein as Hegarty settled in to the Sydney Opera House's gorgeous Steinway grand it only gave the beautiful girl-man more to work with.
"Hmmm, yes, I've been called Frankenstein once before."
He owned a crowd that wanted only to serve, only to applaud. It felt almost greedy to call for an encore, as if somehow it would take too much from Hegarty and the 41 classicially trained musicians playing with him, for him, around him.

Hegarty reached back to a time before his fame to I fell in Love With a Dead Boy and its awkward lyrics of highs and lows set against sombre strings and audience hushed as much by shock as by context.

His rambling intermissions on Murdoch, climate change, art and travel endear him to a crowd of grand parents, uni students, young professionals and Opera House season ticket holders. Hope There's Someone is perhaps the most empathetic song ever written - it sits near Finn's Fall at Your Feet. Hegarty crawled inside the black mass of Steinway and hammered at the strings from in there, too frightened to come out but too frightened at the thought of not playing, off not getting rid of something quite ghastly.

Kiss My Name was perhaps a minor moment of homogeneity, it's easy enough when you're dealing with a voice so readily identifiable but less forgivable when there are 41 strings and drums and horns behind you to differentiate. But the criticism is intended to be ever so light, it mattered little on such a glorious night.

Missing were Her Eyes are Underneath the Ground and Epilepsy is Dancing, both wonderful and fragile and two of the strongest on The Crying Light. But again, it's hard to complain or work to find fault amidst so much magic, an unending stream of beauty.

Some of the Places I Know

For every moment Gyroscope make you think they might go on to something they provide an equally astonishingly annoying piece of junk best left in the landfill bin. Certainly this quartet can write a chunky, indie radio friendly rock song (see: Doctor, Doctor, Snakeskin) but they're yet to fulfill the generous predictions made by many in Australian press. Some of the Places I know is the first single from the Perth quartet's fourth LP, Cohesion.

You can hear producer Gil Norton clearly. The rock has made way for smoother sounds, the guitars are crisp instead of dirty, singer and guitarist Dan Sanders reaches for melodies amongst the layers of his own voice, the percussion does nothing more than play backing, there is no solo and the bass plods at the back.

It's not particularly catchy as pop or rock or pop rock. It sounds dull and maybe five years late. This was fun around Bleed American, even more than fun but what it is now is derivative, incidental and lacking in heart. Sanders asks "is it obvious I ain't got no rhythm?" Lack of rhythm ain't the problem Dan. It is, so unfortunately, lack of chops. It just seems Gyroscope can't quite get there when it comes to the actual writing of the song.

End Times

These 14 mostly short songs mark Mark Oliver Everett's eighth album under the Eels moniker.


E is more defiantly desperate this time, as if it is the only option and he will not go anywhere but down. The press release from Shock rejects the idea it is Eels first "break-up record", pointing back to the 93 Everett LP Broken Toy Shop.


The first effort, The Beginning, is sparse, sombre alt-country with just a lightly strummed acoustic and E's rustic voice talking of how "everything was beautiful and free in the beginning". It's the language of a luckless couple entwined not anymore by love but by habit. "Didn't have nowhere to go, didn't matter that the night was getting cold".


It's countered by Gone Man that's oddly reminiscent of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club when they slow down but maintain the grind. Lyrically E's no happier, pondering "how much longer for this Earth" and find his comfort "in a dying world".


At this point it's clear End Times is what it is, there will be no relent. It puts it beyond a mere break-up album. It sits next to Beck's Seachange. Adjectives likes haunting and beautiful come to the fore but miss the mark.


These songs are honest.


And for that they are very rare and worthy of much admiration. He gets comparison to Springsteen, to the better Oberst work.


Mansions of Los Feliz is an Americana treasure filled with the story of the United States as it stands in 2010. "It's a pretty bad place out there" and E's living on "the edge of my mind". Just like elsewhere there is his voice and a guitar accompanied by the odd strum of a bass. There is no percussion, no call for harmonies or vocal trickery and it's all over in two minutes forty nine.


He finds room for reflection on the piano driven A line in the Dirt with talk of pissing in the yard but soon "things aren't funny" and neither are the minor chords and downcast high hat. It's the finest song amongst a collection of beauties. Gentle horns ache behind a voice marked by the agony of finality.


Given it's only January this is definitely a contender for the album of the year.

Teargarden by Kaleidyscope

A new 44 song project from the Smashing Pumpkins brings too much to mind.

People ask why? I think those people gave up too easy. Corgan most certainly lost his "self-delete" button years ago, the poetry book comes to mind.

But what's to say he's not capable of something grand in 2010? I'm not overly excited by Teargarden, unless I sit and contemplate the latest free song, A Song for a Son is almost understated by Pumpkins standards - a distinct lack of strings in a ballad is a good place for a Corgan ballad to start.
"This is a song for a son, this is a song for a sailor, the best I ever had, he sailed without a map."

It's different, quieter, calmer, somehow more refined.

What might be almost as interesting as the music is how these songs are released. Are we going to download a song a week for much of the year? Another Pumpkins double or even triple album would never sell, there's just not enough belief anymore.

That last sentence risks putting all of this in the land of Smashing Pumpkins eulogy. Let me clarify: there is a whole heap to criticise but that's not as much fun as remembering Tonight, Tonight.