Tag: St Vincent

Listened All Born Screaming, by st. vincent from st. vincent

10 track album

“You’re either alive or you’re dead,” she tells Double J. “And if you’re alive you better live life to the fullest.”

Source: St. Vincent – All Born Screaming) by Al Newstead

I remember when Daddy’s Home was released reading a passing comment from St. Vincent about nearly making a Tool-inspired album, but instead going all 70’s.

Appearing on Radio.com’s New Arrivals show (via Uproxx), St. Vincent explained that she was “dead set” on creating a “heavy record” as the follow-up to 2017’s ‘Masseduction’). “Like just heavy the whole time – like, ‘Hey kids, you like Tool? Well, you’ll love the St. Vincent record’, you know?” she said.

Source: St. Vincent reveals she almost made a “heavy” Tool-inspired album)

I was intrigued what that would actually sound like. When I heard the first few singles, ‘Broken Man’ and ‘Flea’ I was a bit taken back. It was dark and brooding, but not the Tool-inspired album I expected. I was therefore unsure in listening to the album. I felt a bit lost.

I listened to a couple of interviews, one with Zane Lowe) and the other as a part of the Tape Notes podcast. Both spoke about the beginnings in playing industrial dance music, but this foundation was brought to the fore with Tape Notes, especially when she started remixing her tracks on the fly. After this I felt that Tool may have been a distraction in part and that the electrical modular underpinnings is what makes this album.

I was reading a BBC article) about the return of the album over singles. In it, there was a quote from Billie Eilish about why she is against singles:

“I don’t like singles from albums,” she admits. “Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating on it. I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”

Source: Billie Eilish Would Like to Reintroduce Herself) by Angie Martoccio

I was left wondering if the initial singles associated with All Born Screaming where a help or a hindrance? I feel that this albums is definitely better as a whole.

Much like the album’s artwork, it’s a dark, fiery listening experience that will win you over with its sonic surprises and sense of raw urgency.

Source: Best new music to hear from St. Vincent, Ngaiire, Kamasi Washington and more) by Al Newstead

In an interview with Karen Leng, St Vincent talks about inventing an alphabet around electricity and chaos, with a balance between the raw and the perfect. I think that like all languages, St Vincent borrows from many places to make her own. Zooming into the different parts on the Tape It podcast, these influences are made clear, whether it be Massive Attack or Tool, however as a whole the album is definitely St Vincent.

All Born Screaming certainly lives up to that philosophy. It’s the sound of an artist rediscovering the most vital parts of themselves, a musical chameleon forging renewed purpose from primal instincts.

Source: St. Vincent – All Born Screaming) by Al Newstead

Also, a part of this new alphabet is an element of urgency.

Grief shaped much of the album, says the notoriously private Clark, who was rattled by an unspecified personal loss during the album’s making. But All Born Screaming is animated by a sense of urgency, not melancholy.

Source: St. Vincent – All Born Screaming) by Al Newstead

Listened
I wondered what a ‘heavy’ St Vincent album might sound like, maybe this is a taste?

Appearing on Radio.com’s New Arrivals show (via Uproxx), St. Vincent explained that she was “dead set” on creating a “heavy record” as the follow-up to 2017’s ‘Masseduction’. “Like just heavy the whole time – like, ‘Hey kids, you like Tool? Well, you’ll love the St. Vincent record’, you know?” she said.
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I also am intrigued if Jack Antonoff had an part to play in this recording or if St. Vincent simply self-produced it?

Listened Daddy’s Home, by st. vincent from st. vincent

14 track album

“I felt I had gone as far as I could possibly go with angularity,” Clark said when announcing Daddy’s Home. Instead, she dug back into the records of her youth: Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Bowie. Daddy’s Home was positioned as a warmer, more lived-in collection steeped in the big comedown of the ‘70s and specifically the sleazy, druggy glamor of ‘70s New York.

I feel that the sound and setting of this album requires a particular setting. I liked Spencer Kornhaber’s point about a ‘bar perfumed by cigarette smoke’:

Daddy’s Home, upon first listen, seems like it might impress her critics. St. Vincent has undertaken a dramatic sonic reinvention that emphasizes, in her words, “looseness and groove.” The palette is early-’70s rock and soul: the boogying synths of Stevie Wonder, the spacey noodling of Pink Floyd, the rhythmic urgency of War, the haughty haze of the Velvet Underground. Though the producer Jack Antonoff worked with St. Vincent on her 2017 album, Masseduction, his linkup with her now more recalls the finely detailed nostalgia trips he’s undertaken with Lana Del Rey. Some Daddy’s Home songs are physically nauseating in the same fun way that Parliament-Funkadelic can be. Many are full-band workouts begging to be performed in a bar whose carpeting is perfumed with cigarette smoke.

This album just makes me want to go back and listen to St. Vincent’s back catalogue all over again and appreciated the sounds and exploration.

Place next to Lana Del Ray

Listened St. Vincent from Double J

Join Tim Shiel for the St Vincent J Files, Thursday 11 August from 8pm on Double J.

This episode of the J Files takes a dive into the music of St Vincent. It was recorded before Masseduction. One of the things I like about St Vincent is her self-reflective nature. One point captured is her thoughts on albums as children. She explains how the first one is often micromanaged, but by the third you learn to let go.
Listened Annie Clark (St. Vincent) Talks with Andy Gill (Gang of Four) for The Talkhouse Music Podcast by Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Andy Gill from Talkhouse Podcast

One of Annie Clark from St. Vincent’s favorite guitarists is Andy Gill from Gang of Four, among the most iconic bands of the post-punk era. And one of Andy Gill’s favorite guitarists is Annie Clark. So we figured we’d put them together for a little chat. They talked about guitars, soccer tricks, Sufjan Stevens, withholding tax, politics in rock music, and the relative merits of Dr. Feelgood and the Grateful Dead.

One of the things that I was left thinking about after listening to this conversation was the difference between structured music that sticks to its form (Dr Feelgood) and free wheeling music that is unique every time (The Grateful Dead). Both artists swayed towards structure. However, what intrigues me about St. Vincent is the way in which she reworks her songs. This is epitomised by Slow Dance, which she has played acoustically, sped up and performed with piano. Although the structure stays the same, Clark seems brings something new each time.
Listened St. Vincent Details ‘Masseduction’ Redux LP ‘MassEducation’ by Kory Grow from Rolling Stone

When Annie Clark was mixing last year’s critically acclaimed Masseduction, she cut another version of the same album that she’s since dubbed MassEducation. The reworked LP, which will come out on October 12th, features only her on vocals and Thomas Bartlett on piano. She described the record in a statement as “two dear friends playing songs together with the kind of secret understanding one can only get through endless nights in New York City.”

I loved MassEduction, but the rawness of just voice and piano in this version of the album takes the music to a whole new level for me.