Rapture: Antony and the Johnsons play with gospel and gender.

I Am a Bird Now * Antony and the Johnsons * Secretly Canadian

The new album by performance artist Antony and his chamber orchestra, the Johnsons, contains unmistakable elements of soul music: a brass band and string ensemble, sparse piano-and-vocals arrangements, and Antony's expressive, tremulous voice, reminiscent of Nina Simone. But this is soul music in a more literal sense too. Antony paints gender conflict as a quest for salvation, creating a combination of civil rights opera, cabaret, and gender-queer gospel music.

Hope is elusive throughout much of this album, which features guest appearances from Lou Reed, Boy George, and Rufus Wainwright. The wrenching, elegiac "Man Is the Baby" begs, "Forgive me, let live me, set my spirit free"--but "Fistful of Love," a few tracks later, complicates that plea by evoking a violent god or lover to whom Antony sings, with devastating resignation, "I accept, and I collect upon my body, the memories of your devotion."

But the album's final song, "Bird Girl," is wrapped in warm and comforting tones, and we are left, finally, with a real sense of hope: As Antony sings, "I'm a bird girl, and the bird girls go to heaven ... bird girls can fly," violins swift and climb rapturously, seeming to trace the path of the singer's soul at last in flight.

Marcus writes about music for Time Out New York.