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

The 90s Tori stan awakes.

Lex, have you heard the Actor album from 2009? I'd suggest checking it out before you dismiss St Vincent outright. Personally found that album a lot more enjoyable than this recent one.

'tori + fripp' kind of works

lexxx i don't know if i have any interest particularly in trying to talk you into liking st. vincent but i don't think breadth of sound and genre is what her last two records are going for at all?

neither did i - i've tried st vincent and it wasn't for me, i was just taking issue with the tori comparison

i didn't really hear any tori in st vincent tbh

a particular way of deploying their high registers strategically? i think there's a resemblance more on the line of one or two common tricks rather than a similarity in the grand shape of their projects. (which is true of the comparison to robert fripp as well obv)

although i would probably rather hear annie clark cover 'in the court of the crimson king' than i would 'cornflake girl#

i didn't really hear any toriesque bloodnguts viscera in annie clark. or any of the wails in the higher register. idk that st vincent album was so low-key charisma-wise, i didn't like her arrangements or production at all but her personality didn't exactly bust through them like tori's would.

Hmm, bloodnguts viscera is exactly the impression I got from her show last night. I hate the "you have to see x live" argument — obviously you won't want to bother if you're not a fan — but the way she swings between vulnerability and violence is gripping. Not that I'd compare her to Tori myself, but I think she has charisma in spades.

Yeah, I'm surprised at what Lex is saying really, and agree with thomp and DL - this is has a lot of character to it - something very frail yet hugely defiant about her sound and lyrics. That video for Cheerleader, where she's gigantic and tied up as a museum exhibit, tries to break the shackles but crumbles to dust, is a perfect representation of her sound. It's like that moment just before you feel as though you're about to have an emotional breakdown and you're trying to keep it together. "You show up with a black eye/Looking to finish the fight/Paint the black hole blacker" is about as much blood'n'guts viscera as it gets really...

yeh she don't sing it like she means it tho. it's like an exercise in songwriting and by the same token it's not dead-eyed stina style deadpan either.
was so pleased my "strange mercy" was faulty. i couldn't conscionably have it knocking about the house.
she writes a corkin' good refrain but can't link them up or develop them adequately to write a good (let alone great) song which is an awful, crying shame. given "marrow" was pretty much flawless, but she needs a producer who will tell her "no, go back and write it again", rather than fleshing out half-arsed sequenced up demos in a cluttery mush of production. eg "Cruel", "swoon"-part, "riff"-part, connected by "drivel"-part (even the riff needs to go up 3 semitones on the last stroke - it disappoints me that my memory of the song is better than the actual song). "chloe in the afternoon" STORMs in, in a prince style, and to my mind doesn't fall apart through design but through not taking the optimum compositional decisions. and so on, and so on. undeserving of the foisted elevation she receives for lack of anything better being offered. the attempted lionization is wish fulfilment

This is all down to a matter of taste, but I think the whole "structures falling apart" is what makes her sound unique. I do much prefer Actor to Strange Mercy, but it's the ever-so-slightly skewed quality, the uneasiness of her sound that makes it what it is.

I thought immediately of St. Vincent vs. Tori b/c they both have the song "Cruel", with a similar sentiment.
Disgree on the Fripp comparison // splitting hairs // Annie is Adrian Belew, in tone, in performance, even in lyrical bent.
There is a selfish part of me that only wants to hear Annie making music in the vein of her Rapeman/Pop Group covers

problem is it's crap-structures-falling-apart.
the refrains are GRAND, but she doesn't know what to do with them. these songs could be so much better and that is what i find so enormously frustrating.

gawd, tori's "cruel" is so much better it's ridiculous, the production and rhythm are so insane on it

like, MARIMBAS

get back to me when annie clark starts using marimbas and whistles in her songs

correction there - i think it's adequate but oft unrelated structures falling apart craply and not in aid of the music, but for lack of an idea what to do with them otherwise. yegads, anyone would think she is ruins / misha mengelberg / the dead c the way people are vaunting this as some kinda revelation. just so peculiar that someone so obviously a very talented musician should have so many absolutely and completely dud chord progressions & unmemorable bridging parts.

get back to me when annie clark starts using marimbas and whistles in her songs

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 29 February 2012 00:22 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's some pretty narrow criteria for good music TBF. I think the point with Annie Clarke is that she can make her guitar sound like marimbas and whistles.

She's a phenom guitarist trapped in a art pop singer/songwriter that wants to soundtrack movies. The inevitable covers album will be a monster.

saw her last night in oakland, wonderful, even with the bad mushy sound of the fox. major crowd surfing; i'm sure she only weight like 80 pounds but I still wouldn't have wanted to have gotten clocked in the head by her boots. her guitar playing actually reminds me more of adrian belew than fripp, and she has the stage presence of prince.

YES I've been saying Belew for years. Absolutely.

it's funny because i just went back and read an interview with her (av club I think) and he asked her if she'd seen Home of the Brave (Laurie Anderson) and she said no but he drew the same comparison. Glad to know it wasn't my sometimes overly 80's KC-saturated brain making this up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urJZfwaRyFg&feature=share

David Byrne & St. Vincent collaborate for new LP "Love This Giant" out September 10(UK)/11(US) ON 4AD/Todo Mundo

is this the only mention of it on ilx? hm.

hmmm. Single did not wow me.

she has the stage presence of prince

Wow, really? Never seen her live

there's lots of great st. vincent live online - pf linked this one some time back, it's awesome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N66HPoQBChk

saw her live once and was blown away, only thing might annoy you she's not that "true" to the songs' album sound but if you can get past that it's really something special. there's so much dynamics and she is wiiild :-)

Hmm, the times I've seen her she's generally been very formal, except for the guitar freakouts, which seemed kind of ironic counterpoints to her otherwise intentionally stylized/stiff/cold stage demeanor. I mean, it works, but I would not put her on my short list of dynamic, charismatic performers.

Love her covers, though, which is when I usually see her go nuts. Her Pop Group cover was incredible.

I wish I liked Strange Mercy more, i really do but I don't

Hmm, the times I've seen her she's generally been very formal, except for the guitar freakouts, which seemed kind of ironic counterpoints to her otherwise intentionally stylized/stiff/cold stage demeanor. I mean, it works, but I would not put her on my short list of dynamic, charismatic performers.

Love her covers, though, which is when I usually see her go nuts. Her Pop Group cover was incredible.

I'd echo this. Her songs live were very true to the album versions minus some extra-skronky guitar workouts. That being said---excellent live show. She also crowd-surfed during her Pop Group cover...I was impressed.

I thought she was amazing live. Also, and I hate to say it, much more strikingly beautiful than I'd imagined - her eyes were just luminescent and absorbing. And she rocked. Like Robert Fripp.

Haha, I read your post as

I thought she was amazing live. Also, and I hate to say it, much more strikingly beautiful than I'd imagined - her eyes were just like Robert Fripp's.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 31 August 2012 16:07 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

someone has never seen Prince

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/02/160262123/first-listen-david-byrne-st-vincent-love-this-giant?sc=fb&cc=fmp

still need to listen to this some more

a frigid creature this one is

I'm loving it.

THere was a piece on them in the Guardian yesterday
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/sep/08/david-byrne-st-vincent?INTCMP=SRCH

"I saw this diminutive minx open for John Vanderslice this past Saturday night"

I definitely wake up when she's singing lead, or better yet, solo. If Byrne's writing or co-writing those songs, good for him, but so far I'm wishing he'd stayed more in the background. "I Used To Watch TV" has some of the old T.Heads engagement, though, and I'll listen some more. Good horns, wish she was playing more audible guitar.

fun detail from the guardian thing is that the prosthetics for the cover are by the guy who did matthew barney's

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WsJG6wD__Os/SjvqgNBdljI/AAAAAAAABVE/sI_d21bh9fg/s400/Cremaster4.jpg

eh-- my reaction so far to the new album

Sonically, texturally, in terms of energy, ideas, this is great on first exposure. Dunno how the songs will hold up in time but they don't quite seem like the primary focus yet.

What other records use brass in ways comparable to this? There must be some but I can't think of anything off he top of my head.

this is the first thing byrne has done in years that I've liked. probably the first album since his s/t one.

I was expecting it to be not so great, as 1) Melissa said she didn't like it and 2) BRASS. I am semi-allergic to brass but wow, this album was actually all kinds of awesome, I liked it from the first hearing, and it got even better the more I listened to it. The brass arrangements are really quite unusual, not what I was expecting at all, and really quite moreish.

(But mostly it made me dig out a bunch of old Talking Heads records I haven't listened to since I was in high school.)

Do you like St Vincent's other stuff WCC?

Yes.