Antony goes techno

Hegarty teams up with Bjork collaborator to re-work set for Coachella

02 April 2009 - Antony Hegarty surprised a few people with an album from his disco side-project Hercules and Love Affair in 2008.

2009 will see the Antony And The Johnsons mastermind delving into the world of techno.

The Mercury Prize-winner has revealed he's linking up with Matthew Herbert, the acclaimed producer who has worked with the Icelandic queen of beats, Bjork, in the past.

Hegarty and Herbert are working together on mashing up his latest album,The Crying Light, for Coachella festival in the US between 17-19 April.Speaking exclusively to 6 Music, Antony told us what he's got in store: “We’ve been re-imagining some of the songs from my album as techno songs. I’m curious to keep exploring.”As for how the collaboration came about, he said: “I wanted to do some kind of vivisection, beak a song apart and just pull out its innards, hang them up on a line look at them and reconfigure them.“Also, because festivals are so impossible to do with my instrumentation because it’s all so twee, it just fades away in the distance.”"We've been re-imagining some of the songs from my album as techno songs."

Antony Hegarty

The singer said the festival setting isn’t always ideal for his live shows.

“People are throwing beers at each other,” he laughed. “No one cares about these tiny little sounds so for a festival you want something that’s more structural and stalwart, a sound that’s just gonna load itself into their computer.”

Herbert has produced and remixed artists from REM, Yoko Ono and Serge Gainsbourg to John Cale and Roisin Murphy.

Of his friend, who is also a classically trained pianist, Hegarty said: “He’s great. He’s a mad scientist, kind of like Professor Brainstorm. I used to read a lot of those books as a kid.”

It’s a possibility that fans in England might get to see the final results.

“We might do it at a festival in England too,” said Hegarty. “I’m not quite sure yet, someone will tell me in the end.”