The Lake

VINYL FORMAT. Conceived as an introduction to Antony & the Johnson' full length I Am a Bird Now, The Lake consists of three songs, including the lead-off single to I Am a Bird Now, "Fistful of Love." Perhaps Antony & the Johnsons' finest work to date, the song features a scorching horn section and sub-cultural icon Lou Reed on vocals and searing lead guitar. In the tradition of subversive soul classics like The Crystals' "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" and Millie Jackson's "Hurts So Good," Antony sings this ode to getting the shit kicked out of you and learning to love every minute of it. Could this be the overlooked theme song to J.T. Leroy's The Heart is Deceitful? The complex emotional undertow of this track reaches a cathartic roar by the song's finale. Antony shifts from a tremble to a wail - a tempest of emotion - while Lou makes that crucial Berlin connection. "The Lake," the title track of the EP, is an adaptation of a poem by Edgar Allen Poe set to original music. The track features Kevin Barker of Currituck Co. on guitar and Julia Kent on cello. Antony murmurs the lyrics inwardly, communicating at once the longing, comfort, and existential fear evoked by the mythic lake. The EP closes out with a lullaby, "The Horror Has Gone," a simple fable with a hypnotic melody. A word should be said about the portrait of Candy Darling on the cover of The Lake. This immortal close-up, entitled "Candy Darling on Her Deathbed," is a never before published portrait of the famed Warhol superstar in hospital shortly before she died in 1974. The picture is one of a series taken by the late underground photographer Peter Hujar, a visionary artist.