All in the family with Antony

Antony Hegarty came home for the holidays, but this Christmas in the Twin Cities would be different. The internationally acclaimed, gender-blending leader of the chamber-pop group Antony and the Johnsons did something he'd never done before: Write a song with his younger brother Nick, guitarist/singer for the little-known Minneapolis indie-rock band Icy Shores.

"We just thought we'd sit down and try some stuff out and see what happened," Nick, 28, recalled of that 2007 session. "We had mentioned it in passing a few times, and the timing just worked out."

"It was just an off-the-cuff moment," Antony, 37, said by phone from his New York apartment, "and we just started creating a melody together." As Antony sang and his brother played chords on guitar, "it just kind of sprung up."

The song, "Her Eyes Are Underneath the Ground," is the opening track on "The Crying Light," the much-anticipated follow-up to 2005's "I Am a Bird Now," which won England's prestigious Mercury Prize for best album.

Inspired by their mother, Antony wrote the lyrics after his brother e-mailed him a demo recording of the song.

"At first, I thought the song was visiting that place in my childhood where I imagined my parents were going to die," he said. "And then I thought maybe this is my mother singing about her mother. ... There's a big theme on the album about my relationship with the natural world or the idea of nature, almost, and about mourning and grieving the ways we have affected the ecology of our home and our planet."

In conversation, Antony -- who brings his band back to Minnesota on Saturday at the Pantages Theatre -- comes across as an eclectic avant-garde artiste.

Meanwhile, he was watching old Boy George videos on YouTube. "They're so touching and beautiful," he gushed. "He's so young."

While he said his debut album was a chillingly vulnerable exploration of "relationships with myself," the equally haunting "The Crying Light" is more about "my relationship with the world around me."

A man of many adjectives

The biggest gender-blurring curiosity in pop since Boy George, Antony is a linebacker-sized creature with a compellingly fluttering, otherworldly voice that is vulnerably honest and emotionally powerful. It is hard to get a handle on this self-aware, sensitive man, who has struggled with gender identity (he calls himself transgender) as he moved from England to California to Minnesota to New York.

He describes himself as voluptuous, flirtatious, abysmal, serious, self-deprecating, hopeful, creative, dreamy, mischievous and confused.

"There was no family band growing up, unfortunately," Nick said of his long-delayed collaboration with Antony. "It's interesting working together, as our influences are pretty different, though we do have some common ground. But we definitely approach making music from different angles, which I think can really work in your favor."

The song about their mother should be in Antony and the Johnsons' set Saturday when his mother, father and brother are in the audience. Will he send a special valentine to his family?

"I don't know if it will change the set, but I'm sure we'll make some mention of it, for sure," he said. "I'm looking forward to that show."