This Week in the Mercury
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
MP3 St. Vincent Sings, I Cry ... Then Break Things
Posted by Andrew Stout on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:26 AM
“That album took forever to make," Annie Clark said last year. "I call the time I spent on it ‘invisible hours,’ because no one knows how long it took but me.”
If only that were so.
But, in truth, the effort Clark (as St. Vincent) put into her debut album was plenty apparent. Marry Me was another in a long line of ProTools casualties and the most frustrating album of 2007. Despite sublime moments like the torch-bubblegum title track and the proggy-sweet "Your Lips Are Red," its fussy production and mannered arrangements squeezed the breath out of an extraordinary set of songs. How butchered was Marry Me? The maligning was detailed in this feature in The New York Times Magazine, from which the above quote was taken. Though, rather than mourning the loss of a should-have-been classic debut, the article celebrates Clark's laptop skills and lumps her in with the rise of the indie one-man band.
In May, Clark returns as St. Vincent with album number two: Actor. She has the voice, the songs, and the restless mind to do singer-songwriter correctly, ala Harry Nilsson or pre-Fairlight Kate Bush. And with Actor's opener, "The Strangers," she just might have the year's best song.
Though the arrangement here is every bit as ornate as Clark's previous album, the various woodwinds, vocal harmonies, and fuzz guitars are used more artfully than before, pulling our focus sharp on the words. I still don't quite understand what it's about but the whole equation is unexpectedly moving.
Or, as I sighed to a friend just awhile ago, "it's, like, 'Nothing Compares 2 U'-moving!" Then let out a masculinity-compensating, "dude." And smashed my fist into something. Perhaps a man.
Anyway, while I sort all this out, have a listen to the only song I've wanted to hear since I downloaded it last week.
Listen:
"The Strangers" (St. Vincent — from Actor, coming May 5th)
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