Antony & The Johnsons launch their North American tour Feb. 2 in Philadelphia and will hit Toronto Feb. 17 and Vancouver Feb. 27. (HO)

A 102-year-old Japanese dancer who was one of the founders of Butoh dance rarely seems to be a vital source of inspiration for a new album of music.

But Antony Hegarty, best known as the vocalist for Antony and The Johnsons, isn't exactly your traditional musician.

After making inroads with the thoughtful, tender and at times near tear-inducing I Am A Bird Now in 2005, and performing with Bjork and Lou Reed among others, Hegarty is returning with The Crying Light, an album whose title track is an homage to Kazuo Ohno.

"He's is a very charismatic dancer and kind of an ecstatic performer," Hegarty says of Ohno. "There's a feeling that when he steps on stage the child that’s within him is emerging into the light. Often times he dances in a reverie of his mother’s grave, he seeks to inhabit his feminine ancestors.

"Also one of the themes (in Butoh) is to reach beyond human form and to find empathy with other aspects of the natural, living world. Some of the principles Kazuo embodied in dance was what I sought to translate into music. When he performs on stage, it's very moving. Every time I see him I just start crying."

The Crying Light, released in mid-January, was the first Hegarty says where he felt like, "I was aware of every line that was laid into it." However, it was that same attentiveness which pushed the album's release back.

"I had originally hoped to get it out sooner but it got tied up in details and it was a case of revisiting things so it always takes longer than you think," he says. "I really became very involved with the arranging and editing it."

Recording 30 songs with fuller arrangements than he anticipated, Antony & The Johnsons pared the album down to 11 tracks (including a pre-order bonus track), including the haunting, somber opener Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground and Another World, the latter appearing on the EP Another World released last October.

"My desire with that song was in the simplest language to express how I felt when I look out on this vanishing ecology that we're confronted with now,” he says of Another World. “When I think about the shifting reality and the predictions scientists are making about the future I get very overwhelmed and I tend to shut down emotionally.

"I thought it would be interesting to sit with my feelings and my sense of loss, grief and fear and to walk through it - to see where it might lead so it might be part of the healing process.”

While picking favourite songs off an album is a lot like parents picking their favourite children, Hegarty bypasses the soothing One Dove and opts for Everglade.

"It's just the most up-to-date song for me," he says. "It sort of tells the story of how I'm feeling today and looking out at this very beautiful and mystical world. Yet inside there’s still some brokenness that I'm working through, this feeling of brokenness."

Antony & The Johnsons launch their North American tour Feb. 2 in Philadelphia and will hit Toronto (Feb. 17) and Vancouver (Feb. 27). Hegarty says the concerts will be well-represented by the new material and the band "should be in good shape" after rehearsals conclude.

"I'm looking forward to exploring the material live and what this tour will bring," he says. "It's always a bit of a mystery."

Antony's album release date is like school

Some artists will do some strange things on the day their album is released, whether traveling to different continents in a 24-hour period to promote it to simply going to their local record shop and picking it up off the shelves.

But for Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons, that fateful day makes the performer a little bit nervous.

"It's almost like the first day of school or something because you don't really know what to expect," he says. "But in a way I'm relieved the record is coming out. People have written what they’re going to write about it but I'm fine about it."

And for some writers who seem to become unglued when they go weeks or months without writing a song, Hegarty says the songwriting process isn't something that he forces.

"I've been writing songs my whole life," he says. "I don't feel very structured in my song writing. I just write songs when it occurs to me. Sometimes it's months between songs but I don't really press myself on that."

Another thing Hegarty won't be doing is covering any songs by Hercules and Love Affair. The performer was a member of the disco-oriented project whose debut self-titled album was a critical darling in 2008.

"No, those (songs) are played out I think," Hegarty says after laughing. "They had their year."