Antony and the Johnsons – Cut the World

Album Review by Finbarr Bermingham | 31 Jul 2012
Album title: Cut the World
Artist: Antony and the Johnsons
Label: Rough Trade
Release date: 6 Aug

A quick glance at the lineup of the Antony Hegarty-curated Meltdown Festival shows the breadth to which his social and musical currency stretches. Electronic mavericks (Matmos) sit alongside iconic songstresses (Liz Fraser), rock icons (Lou Reed) and contemporary composers (William Basinski). His oeuvre of work has always been similarly fascinating: combining intelligent, poetic lyrics and his distinctively beautiful voice with his poignant, politicised outlook on life, all of which are present in condensed fashion on Cut the World, his vehicle band’s new live album.

Reworkings of their finest work are rendered even more gorgeous by the full orchestral accompaniment. You Are My Sister and I Fell In Love With a Dead Boy sound fantastic swathed in strings, but it’s the monologue Future Feminism, in which Hegarty ponders the significance of lunar cycles on humanity and life after death, that steals the show. An hour spent with Cut the World is a capitvating one. By now, you wouldn’t expect anything less.