I would be your only dream

Nine times out of ten it's a rare delight to find one of your favourite artists has covered another, and done it well. Lykke Li's version of "Silver Springs", an absolute gem on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours could have been directly lifted from either of her albums. Antony Hegarty's sublime golden syrup vocals sweep across one of our all time Mac songs, "Landslide", while hipster-band-of-the-moment-for-some-time-now Best Coast have taken "Rhiannon" from the Welsh moors to the Californian beach. We're not usually all over tribute albums but this looks like it's gonna be a good'en.

Incredible.

Just recently Antony Hegarty off-of the Johnsons linked to this new track he'd posted on his Tumblr, on his Twitter account (that he had profiles on either - who knew?) and it is a DELIGHT. Ostensibly it's 'feat. Björk', but she basically owns this track as she does every track she ever sings on. According to people who've actually heard the album, this, as opposed to the more jaunty "Thank You for your Love", is actually the overall tone for the new album. If so: colour us excited.

Thank you for your songs, Antony...

Antony & The Johnsons have a new album coming out soon it is called Swanlights. We are all very excited about it because it will doubtless be incredible and includes a feature by the incomparable Björk so prepare yourself for incoming astonishingnosity. In the meantime here is a video for "Thank You For Your Love". It's going to be on the album, but also, apparently, on an up-coming EP out August 30th. We're not sure of the precise details but they've done this sort of thing before so it all sounds above board. Yet again, if Antony's people would like to add us to their mailing list so we can actually GET press releases and write more accurately about the music we love, that would be great. You can get us at chazandlindy (at) gmail (dot) com. Very exciting.

The video is composed of footage of Antony when he first moved to New York as a teen, just FYI.

This is one of those 'apropos of nothing' posts...

This is completely camp, over-egged and lush to the point of grotesqueness. But you've still got to admire it. Just because.

Stuck In Our Head: "My Lady Story" - Antony and the Johnsons

We're not always in the mood for Antony and his Johnsons, but when we are, we are. Lush, cooling and melancholic this is something for clear summer days when the sun is sinking down into a plush orange glow leaving a warm yellow rinse across the edge of the sky. Oh and what do you know!?!! It's one of those days.

Recommendations
"Epilepsy is Dancing" - Antony and the Johnsons
"Crazy in Love [Live]" - Antony and the Johnsons
"You Are My Sister" - Antony and the Johnsons

BEST OF 2009 SO FAR

It's only FEBRUARY (YES... FEBRUARY!?) and already there have been some brilliant and gorgeous musical offerings this year. These six albums are all uniquely interesting and very special and if they're not in our top 20 albums of 2009 it will have been a VERY VERY VERY good year for music.

Clockwise from top left we have:

• Bat For Lashes' second 'LP' is a rich and varied departure from her more folksy first album.
• Alela Diane's To Be Still is about as achingly lovely and evocative as acoustic folk can get.
• The Crying Light by Antony & The Johnsons is a brutally gorgeous orchestral paean to nature.
• The Yeah Yeah Yeah's third album sees them embracing an epic, synthier sound.
• India.Arie's second instalment of her 'Testimony's is an exotically woven musical tapestry.
• Vienna Teng's 4th album sees her departing somewhat from her piano into more adventurous territory.

It's the first great album of 2009!

No. Not Lily Allen.

The Antony & The Johnsons album, The Crying Light may be, on the surface, more of the same depressing and beautiful piano balladry, but if you dig deeper it's a hauntingly dark record about environmentalism. We know... doesn't exactly sound a thrilling hoot, does it?

Well anyway it's bloody brilliant and completely lush and if this isn't in the top 20, or even 10 records of 2009, it will have been a 'bloody, fucking' (technical term) amazing year for albums.

Speaking of which... almost every year there are at least 2 blindingly good POP records that just come completely out of leftfield. Last year it was Ladyhawke and Lady GaGa, the year before it was Robyn and Róisín, the year before it was... er... well in 2006 we didn't run a showbiz blog so we can't really remember. It was probably Margaret Berger and er... Nelly Furtado (!?). Actually 2006 was a good year for mainstream artists making brilliant pop records. Nelly, Justin, Shakira, Beyoncé...

WE'VE GONE ON A TANGENT.

Where were we?

*gives up*

OH YES. So we're hoping that this year we get at LEAST 2 amazing out-of-the-blue pop records and we're hoping that they come from either Little Boots or La Roux. We're sure anything Janelle Monáe releases will be blinding, but we're not sure if she works within the confines of 'pop'. So there we go. Little Boots and La Roux, the pressure is on. Fantastic pop albums, please, OR BLOODY ELSE.

And now for some 'real' music...

Here at Shiny & New we actually have taste, but you'd be forgiven for thinking that all we do is bang on about why we love shit music. Anyway we love Björk. She's fucking great. She's the bestest. She's the greatest sonic innovator of the "Popular Music" era. She's beautiful. Her videos are almost invariably shit.

Here's the new one for "Dull Flame of Desire", a beautiful epic and majestic duet with Antony Hegarty that gender-confused one off-of Antony & The Johnsons fame, with lyrics translated from some Russian poet. Top 5 smash hit, surely? The video speaks for itself really. WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?