Antony’s Meltdown

1-12 August 2012

Each year Southbank Centre’s Meltdown Festival opens up the world of one mercurial artist. In August 2012, audiences get the chance to encounter the musicians, performers and thinkers who have helped shape the life and art of Antony, lead singer with Mercury Award-winning Antony and the Johnsons and one of the world’s most idiosyncratic performers. Antony’s Meltdown is part of Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World with MasterCard, which runs from 1 June to 9 September 2012. More artists and a series of talks and lectures will be announced soon.

Meltdown is renowned for delivering unmissable events that have gone down in history, from the New York Dolls reforming for Morrissey’s Meltdown to Jeff Buckley’s last-ever UK performance at Elvis Costello’s. Antony’s Meltdown will see an incredibly rare live performance by the much-loved and hugely missed singer Elizabeth Fraser (6/7 August, Royal Festival Hall). While the Scottish singer has lent her stunning voice to projects with Massive Attack, Craig Armstrong and Peter Gabriel in recent years, these will be her first full shows since she left the Cocteau Twins in 1998. Other iconic artists performing at Antony’s Meltdown include Lou Reed, Marc Almond, Diamanda Galas and Turkish singer Selda.

It is perhaps no surprise that a significant part of Meltdown reads like a who’s who of the New York underground scene, where Antony forged his identity as a performer and an artist in the 1990s. On 2 August Meltdown sees a performance by one of New York’s most totemic musical icons Laurie Anderson, who herself was a Meltdown curator in 1997.  She performs Dirtday, a collection of songs and stories on evolution, families, history and animals set against a lush and hallucinatory sonic landscape. The festival will also feature performances by Joey Arias, Kembra Pfahler and her band the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, Joan as Policewoman.  Video artist Charles Atlas will present the UK premiere of the film Turning, which was a collaboration with Antony and the Johnsons.

Following his wonderfully anarchic Disney tribute at Jarvis’ Meltdown in 2007, Meltdown veteran and maverick producer Hal Willner returns to the stage of the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 12 August with his usual, surprising and eclectic array of musicians, actors and other artists – established, emerging, famous and infamous – to perform songs that inspired and illuminated the Civil Rights Movement. Artists confirmed so far include Martin and Eliza Carthy, Billy Bragg and Shoreshank Redemption actor Tim Robbins.

Visit the website here for more information and to book.