Seven years after I Am A Bird Now made a sizeable splash, Antony Hegarty still has one the most distinctive musical sensibilities around.

The British-born singer is now set to apply his strange, beguiling vision in a curatorial capacity. According to Clash, Antony is to curate the 2012 edition of the Meltdown festival.  After the announcement, Antony released a beguiling mission statement for the event:

“I want to create a kind of paradise. I want to walk through that forest and see and hear the hardcore beauty and strength in art and music that makes sense to me. The weather is changing and everybody knows it. I want to participate; what is my relationship and responsibility to the world around me? Frontier expressions of emotion and beauty can be fantastic tools with which to enter that discussion.”

Meltdown is an annual arts festival at London’s Southbank Centre, typically curated by an influential figure from the world of alternative music. Previous curators had included David Bowie, Ornette Coleman, and Robert Wyatt. The 2011 edition of the festival was helmed by ex-Kink Ray Davies.

Meltdown’s curators tend to be pretty adventurous programmers; even Morrissey crammed Jane Birkin, Alan Bennett and Ennio Marchetto onto the same bill in 2004. Even putting that context to one side, Antony has avowedly wide-ranging tastes: he used his Guardian takeover in 2011 to big up Oneohtrix Point Never, William Basinski and punk-funky trio Jessica 6.

Meltdown 2012 will take place at Southbank Centre from August 1-12.