Swanlights

ANOHNI of Antony and the Johnsons released her new album, 'Swanlights', on October 12th in the US via Secretly Canadian. Abrams Image simultaneously released a special edition of 'Swanlights’ which included the CD inside a 144-page art book containing ANOHNI's paintings, collages, photography and writing. The album only version of 'Swanlights' on Secretly Canadian also included the song Fletta, a duet with Bjork.

On ‘Swanlights’ ANOHNI continues to explore environmental issues and her relationship to the rest of the natural world. While 'I Am a Bird Now' employed simplicity in its vision and 'The Crying Light' austerity, ‘Swanlights’ is more maximal, employing exotic percussive elements, string drones, distorted guitars and shimmering symphonic stages. In the lyris of "Everything is New” ANOHNI asserts that each moment takes its own breath and be reborn. The title track “Swanlights” navigates a primordial and elusive plane, using expanding guitar tones and melodies to evoke a feeling of volatile majesty: “I’m gifted by your grace /It’s the Swanlights on the water / on that shining face". On "Thank You For Your Love", ANOHNI reiterates gratitude for care in a soulful track that suggests an escalation into crisis.

The book contains a selection of ANOHNI’s paintings, drawings, photography, collage, and writing. Fragmentary images reflect glimpses of liminal states and illuminate ANOHNI’s animist approach. In one series in the book, entitled “Ctut Away The Bad”, ANOHNI identifies a corrupting element within a newsprint image of a landscape and removes it; by doing so, she suggests creating space for the restabilization of other elements reflected in the image. In the cover image of Swanlights, ANOHNI “cut away” the image of the hunter looming over his prey in an effort to refocus the viewers attention on the specific character and dignity of the bear at her moment of expiry, banishing the presence of the human predator from the intimate image of the dying bear. Intersecting visual and musical gestures amplify ANOHNI’s developing mythologies. 'Swanlights' is the fourth Antony and the Johnsons album and the follow up to the critically acclaimed 'The Crying Light' which was included on year-end lists across the globe in 2009.