Hercules and Love Affair

"Blind" (Featuring Antony Hegarty)

BY Cam LindsayPublished Jan 13, 2009

Click Hear's choice song of 2008 is no surprise really. One of the first songs I remember scrambling to hear when the new year hit, the track proved to be a precursor to one of my, and many others, favourite albums. Most importanly, the song "Blind" demonstrated that Antony can become the next Donna Summer, should he ever decide to give up fragile torch songs or gown designing.

Originally posted on January 17, 2008:
DFA's next big act is the curiously named Hercules and Love Affair, which is essentially the work of DJ/producer Andrew Butler. Schooled in every kind of disco - from the leftist experimentations of Dinosaur L, the roboto Italo slickness of Giorgio Moroder and the commercial draw of Chic - Butler doesn't stop there, as the titular "Hercules Theme" demonstrates, moving further back in time to the hot-steppin' days of early '70s Philly funk.

But Hercules and Love Affair have a secret weapon that I expect to be talked about through most of 2008; it's called "Blind" and it features the gifted songbird we know simply as Antony. Not the first collaboration we've heard in recent times from the Mercury Prize-winning leader of the Johnsons (he's also joined Björk, Joan As Police Woman, Rufus Wainwright and CocoRosie), "Blind" shows the breadth of Antony's voice, which to many is still an instrument of complete bewilderment.

On top of a smashingly good palette of stretchy disco - a pretty standard rhythm elevated by slinky horns and burping synths - Antony becomes Butler's diva, moving along like the best sirens heard in the Paradise Garage.

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