St. Vincent - a.k.a. Annie Clark;

after seeing this thread i relistened to the last one again. i loved it before, still loving it.

Aw, Alex, I've come around on Patrick Wolf, but this isn't the thread for that.

I've just realised I've never actually listened to Marry Me. Which is completely remiss considering how much I loved Actor.

So it's like I get a brand new album now instead of having to wait for one!

To be fair Karen she does have some very large eyeballs

Haha! Oh I'm so looking forward to this. Why did I never check marry me?!?!

New album Sept 13. Stoked.

http://www.4ad.com/news/13/7/2011/stvincentunveilsstrangemercyartworkandtracklisting

Holy moley, her song Surgeon is absolutely dynamite!!

It's really good. Hated that high pitched ending though.

listening to actor atm

Quick trainspotting question for the ILX brane:

The descending vocal part in the intro of this new song, "Surgeon?" It's referencing a big string melody from some kind of soundtrack, something John Barry-ish, or maybe 60s sci-fi -- something I remember mostly because it was prominently sampled as the breakdown of a rave/hardcore track at some point. It's sort of bugging me; anyone recognize those first two lines?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgFtQPgHyek

You Only Live Twice?

Ah, thanks! Thinking it was a score for something sent me barking up all the wrong trees.

Or at least the "score" part of the trees instead of the "title theme" part

it's from You Only Live Twice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDitUVMMzE0

doh too slow

dope song, love the bassline

ha, i came here to ask the question nabisco just asked. it's been bugging me for the last week.

I would absolutely love this song if it wasn't for the lyric repetition part at the end of each verse phrase. Feels so unnecessary to me for it to happen eevvvvrryy time like that

That new song is incredibe, best thing I've heard all year. Loved both her albums I'm now really excited about the new one.

Actor was a weird album for me - I could tell it was good and not unpleasant to listen to but for some reason I could never really engage with it. Listening to Surgeon now and it's gorgeous... not sure about the prog workout at the end though.

http://pitchfork.com/news/43603-video-st-vincent-cruel/

Another really great song from the new album. The video is really good too, very creepy.

I think I might get quite militant about championing this new album. Absolutely wonderful. Everything I liked about the last one, only moreso.

Love the new album so much. It's a really odd record but just stunning in every way.

Streaming on NPR right now. There is sounding really good so far, some really kinda wtf moments too. On first listen I'm liking this more than Actor (which, I know I'm alone on, but I thought it was a minor step down from the debut).

yo thanks 4 the heads up, think i'll check out at least some of it later

There's like several songs with these weird-ass moments with like spacey-synth and guitars that wouldn't have sounded out of place on that Destroyer album.

those are the best bits.

LOVE this

http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8661-st-vincent/

Yeah, this album is great. I've not heard her other albums before either, so I feel like I just opened a whole box of goodies to discover.

can't wait to hear this... gonna wait till i can buy it properly though.

This is definitely one of the best records of the year.

Five tracks in and it's breaking my heart to hear such a lovely voice being wasted in the service of such useless deliberate indie shambolism. That enormous fuzzy bass noise she uses on everything is horrible.

Too many annoying Fiery Furnaces style "ooh look at me" tangents as well.

Difference here is that Fiery Furnaces often forget the song and never come back to it, where St. Vincent always does.

Also, what the hell does "useless deliberate indie shambolism" mean?

Production and arrangement-wise it sounds like a carefully studied mess.

i like the progginess

i find it hard to hear anything she's produced as messy: if anything it's all fussy/neat/antiseptic (choose one)

it seems inevitable-in-retrospect that she'd get into analogue synth (n.b. this is not a complaint)

on one listen the songs struck me more as More Competent Songs In Annie Clark Idiom than as anything great or surprising, though one assumes that'll become more nuanced once i've heard it a little more. but the first time i listened to her seriously was listening to 'actor' a lot a few months ago, so it's a little too close, maybe.

"Strange Mercy" itself is such a fantastic song. I find that the fuzz and squelch - especially when married with how simple and elegant the melodies and songwriting are - is one of my favorite things about her overall sound.

Five tracks in and it's breaking my heart to hear such a lovely voice being wasted in the service of such useless deliberate indie shambolism. That enormous fuzzy bass noise she uses on everything is horrible.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, September 6, 2011 12:12 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Too many annoying Fiery Furnaces style "ooh look at me" tangents as well.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, September 6, 2011 12:15 PM (1 week ago)

Production and arrangement-wise it sounds like a carefully studied mess.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, September 6, 2011 12:29 PM (1 week ago)

on board w/ Matt DC, i played this a couple days back & can't say it really grabbed me at all.

9.0

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15813-strange-mercy/

I don't hear shambolic here at all.

I'm listening to Chloe In The Afternoon again and the production and the arrangement is just horrible, that guitar line and those drums just trampling across everything only just in time with everything. It's either been arranged by someone completely inept or, more likely, she's made a deliberate decision to reframe the song with such jarring elements. And I'm totally down with that being her aesthetic decision and I usually like it when people do that but really the results just sound like shit here.

that guitar line and those drums just trampling across everything only just in time with everything

matt dc makes unconscious effort to make this sound more awesome than i will probably finally think it is

Unfortunately it's neither a good guitar line nor good drums.

the final song on this album is so beautiful

i'm kind of confused by what definition of 'in time' we're using that this incredibly sequenced-sounding and somewhat metronomic drum beat could possibly be 'only just in time' with the incredible sequenced-sounding rest of the track

a 'friend' of mine wrote a 'review' of the radiohead 'album' 'the king of limbs' on his 'blog' (i wasn't sure where i wanted my sarcastic air quotes in that sentence so i just went with all the options) where he was like OH MY GOD THAT PHIL SELWAY IS SUCH A MACHINE HOW DOES HE PLAY IN ALL THESE DIFFERENT WAYS ALL THE TIME ON ALL THESE TRACKS HE'S INHUMAN HE SOUNDS ALMOST PROGRAMMED and it's like c'mon. c'mon dude. think about it

also: incredibly, again, not incredible, oops

I know it's a drum machine ffs. It's that it sounds sloppy and only-just-in-time when paired with the guitar line. Pretty sure the effect is intentional.