I Am a Bird Now
The Mercury Prize winner: ten songs of transformation, with Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart and Lou Reed as guests.
Antony and the Johnsons, 2005
- Released
- 1 February 2005
- Recorded
- 2004
- Label
- Secretly Canadian (US), Rough Trade (UK)
- Producer
- Anohni (credited as Antony)
- Length
- 35:27
Anohni wrote every song, produced the record and played piano and organ, with string arrangements by Maxim Moston and Julia Kent. Dick Kondas and Emery Dobyns tracked it in 2004 and Doug Henderson mixed and mastered it. Fistful of Love, with Lou Reed on guitar and spoken vocal, dates back to her Blacklips days in the 1990s and takes its title from a Marc Almond poem. The cover is Peter Hujar's 1974 photograph Candy Darling on her Deathbed.
It reached No. 16 in the UK and No. 1 on the UK independent chart, and went gold in Britain, Sweden and Norway. Pitchfork gave it 8.6, Rolling Stone four stars and Drowned in Sound ten out of ten, and its Metacritic score is 88. After the Mercury win in September 2005, sales rose by more than 900 percent, by Stereogum's count. Twenty years on, Stereogum's Daniel Bromfield offered a dissent, hearing a transitional record rather than a masterpiece.
Track listing
- Hope There's Someone4:21
- My Lady Story3:33
- For Today I Am a Boy2:36
- Man Is the Baby4:09
- You Are My Sister3:59
- What Can I Do?1:40
- Fistful of Love5:52
- Spiralling4:25
- Free at Last1:36
- Bird Gerhl3:14
Personnel
- Anohni vocals, piano, organ, producer
- Julia Kent cello, string arrangements
- Maxim Moston violin, string arrangements
- Joan Wasser viola
- Jeff Langston bass
- Doug Wieselman saxophone; horn arrangement on Fistful of Love
- Keith Bonner flute
- Paul Shapiro horns
- Steven Bernstein horns
- Parker Kindred drums on Fistful of Love
- Boy George vocals on You Are My Sister
- Devendra Banhart guitar on You Are My Sister, vocals on Spiralling
- Rufus Wainwright vocals on What Can I Do?
- Lou Reed guitar and spoken vocal on Fistful of Love
- Julia Yasuda vocals and Morse code on Free at Last
- Dick Kondas tracking
- Emery Dobyns tracking, mixing
- Doug Henderson mixing, mastering
More from Antony and the Johnsons
I'm Not There: Original Soundtrack (2007), The Crying Light (2009), My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross (2023)
Sources
- I Am a Bird Now, Wikipedia
- I Am a Bird Now (LP), Discogs
- I Am a Bird Now, Secretly Canadian
- I Am A Bird Now Turns 20, Stereogum (2025-01-31)
- Antony and the Johnsons win Mercury Prize, The Advocate (2005-09-06)