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ST. VINCENT

Annie Clark made her recorded debut as St. Vincent in 2007 with Marry Me, quickly becoming regarded as one of the most innovative and fascinating presences in modern music. Her subsequent albums would include Actor (2009), Strange Mercy (2011), her self-titled fourth album and winner of the 2014 GRAMMY for Best Alternative Album. In 2017, her fifth album MASSEDUCTION would break St. Vincent into the U.S. and UK top 10s and win two more GRAMMYs (Best Rock Song for its title track, and Best Recording Package). 2021’s Daddy’s Home found St. Vincent channeling the hungover glamor and gritty sepia-toned soundtrack of 1970s downtown NYC to an ecstatic reception, ultimately winning her a second Best Alternative Album GRAMMY.

Following a 2021-2022 global tour that reaffirmed St. Vincent’s status as one of live music's preeminent forces with headline appearances at the likes of the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City Music Hall, Clark would begin work on album number seven: Her first fully self-produced album (having co-produced every one of her previous efforts), All Born Screaming is St. Vincent at her most primal. Featuring Clark leading “a curated group of rippers” through the brawny “Broken Man,” the mordant catwalk sashay through the deafening assault of self-loathing that is “Big Time Nothing,” the sublime, elegiac earworm “Sweetest Fruit," All Born Screaming is equal parts spiritual desolation and rapturous acceptance. “If you’re born screaming, that’s a great sign,” says Clark, “because it means you’re breathing. You’re alive. My god. It’s joyous. And then it’s also a protest. We’re all born in protest in a certain way. It’s terrifying to be alive, it’s ecstatic to be alive. It’s everything.” 

TRACK LISTING

1. Hell Is Near
2. Reckless
3. Broken Man
4. Flea
5. Big Time Nothing
6. Violent Times
7. The Power’s Out
8. Sweetest Fruit
9. So Many Planets
10. All Born Screaming

St. Vincent

The Nowhere Inn (RSD22 EDITION)

    THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2022 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

    The soundtrack accompaniment to the film of the same title, The Nowhere Inn. Features three original St. Vincent songs: ìNowhere Innî, ìPalm Desertî and ìWaveî. The Bill Benz-directed film features St. Vincent, Carrie Brownstein & was released Friday, 17th September in the US. Website: https://nowhereinn.movie

    St. Vincent

    Daddy's Home

      Fifth studio album by the American musician, produced by pop producer and long-term collaborator Jack Antonoff and featuring the single 'Pay Your Way in Pain'. 'I was inspired by the classic records of the '70s. Stevie, Sly, Stones, Steely Dan, Chords, Groove. The days when sophisticated harmony and rhythm didn't sound heady - they just sounded, and felt good. Lots of guitar. But warm sounds, not distortion and chaos. Hopefully a turn nobody will see coming' - Annie Clark.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: 'Daddy's Home' mixes Clark's keen, rawkous production aesthetic with an undeniable nod to 70's rock, and displays an ongoing mastery of her craft.

      TRACK LISTING

      CD Tracklisting:
      01. Pay Your Way In Pain
      02. Down And Out Downtown
      03. Daddy’s Home
      04. Live In The Dream
      05. The Melting Of The Sun
      06. Humming Interlude 1
      07. The Laughing Man
      08. Down
      09. Humming Interlude 2
      10. Somebody Like Me
      11. My Baby Wants A Baby
      12. …At The Holiday Party
      13. Candy Darling
      14. Humming Interlude 3

      Vinyl Tracklisting:
      The Interlude Tracks Are Not Credited On The Vinyl, Although The Interludes Do Still Appear On The Disc Itself
      01. Pay Your Way In Pain
      02. Down And Out Downtown
      03. Daddy’s Home
      04. Live In The Dream
      05. The Melting Of The Sun
      06. The Laughing Man
      07. Down
      08. Somebody Like Me
      09. My Baby Wants A Baby
      10. …At The Holiday Party
      11. Candy Darling

      St. Vincent’s highly anticipated new album - the culmination of years of writing, with songs crafted from voice memos, text messages, and snippets of melodies that came to Clark while traveling the globe. Special guests on the album include Thomas Bartlett on piano, Kamasi Washington on saxophone, Jenny Lewis on vocals, and beat production from Sounwave. Greg Leisz and Rich Hinman add pedal steel, and Tuck and Patti Andress contribute guitar and vocals respectively on select tracks.

      TRACK LISTING

      Hang On Me
      Pills
      Masseduction
      Sugarboy
      Los Ageless
      Happy Birthday, Johnny
      Savior
      New York
      Fear The Future
      Young Lover
      Dancing With A Ghost
      Slow Disco
      Smoking Section

      David Byrne & St Vincent

      Love This Giant

        Recorded over two years largely at Water Music in Hoboken, NJ, the album is a collaboration in the truest sense of the word, with Byrne and St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) co-writing ten of the album’s twelve tracks, and each artist penning one song individually.

        The album centres around an explosive brass band and is propelled by John Congleton’s drum programming.

        “There was no delineating what the roles were,” explains Clark. “It’s a collaboration I’m truly proud of.” The duo also split lyrical and vocal duties on the record which, despite eschewing a traditional guitar / bass / drums line-up in favour of idiosyncratic horn arrangements, presents itself as infectious and modern hook-laden rock.

        Byrne and Clark spin their intriguingly enigmatic tales, by turns whimsical and dark, backed by a large brass band in lieu of a traditional rock lineup. There is a magical urbanity to ‘Love This Giant’: It’s as if they’re dancing in the streets, their voices soaring over the rhythms, the melodies, the barely contained cacophony of the city.

        Though Byrne and Clark each have an unmistakable sound and persona that have made them such compelling performers on their own, their voices manage to blend naturally, effortlessly, here. Sometimes they trade verses, at others they sing in unison. Like friends who can finish each other’s sentences, when one takes the spotlight alone, it’s often with words that the other provided. The brass lends the songs an appealing theatrical sheen while programmed percussion provides a contemporary feel.

        Byrne and Clark met in 2009 at the ‘Dark Was The Night’ benefit at Radio City Music Hall and were approached shortly after by the Housing Works Bookstore to collaborate on a night of music. They began composing remotely, trading song ideas and structures online while Clark toured and it quickly became apparent that they had more than just one night of music in them. Byrne performed with Clark at her ‘American Songbook’ show at Lincoln Center in 2010, and Clark contributed vocals to Byrne’s ‘Here Lies Love’ album, released the same year.

        St. Vincent

        Strange Mercy

          St. Vincent, the nom-de-stage of Annie Clark, releases the new album, ‘Strange Mercy’. Having worked together on 2009’s ‘Actor’, Clark reunited with producer John Congleton and recorded the album in her hometown of Dallas, TX at Elmwood Studios.

          The eleven new tracks showcase Clark’s gift for fusing the cerebral and the visceral, her melodically elegant arrangements packing hefty emotional punches.

          Clark’s virtuosity has been long recognised, and ‘Strange Mercy’ finds St. Vincent redefining the idea of the guitar hero, utilising the instrument as a pointillist artist might wield a brush. Countless judiciously placed riffs and instrumental flares, each distinct and unique, cohere into grand tableaus. On ‘Cruel’, she elicits punchy bursts like an R&B horn section. ‘Cheerleader’ froths and boils, with deep and fuzzy guitars bubbling up to the surface, while ‘Surgeon’ twirls about endlessly, Clark’s vocals dancing amid a blizzard of notes.

          ‘Strange Mercy’ isn’t an entirely solitary affair either, with Clark joined by a host of other musicians. Included among them are Grammy Award winning Bobby Sparks on mini Moog, clavinet, Arp and Wurlitzer, Midlake’s MacKenzie Smith on drums and Daniel Hart on violin. Also contributing were Beck keyboardist and musical director Brian LeBarton, Evan Smith on woodwinds and Phil Palazzolo.

          St Vincent

          Actor

            "Actor" takes the ambitious compositional and sonic underpinnings of St Vincent's debut as a starting point and never looks back. The arrangements are more masterful, the songwriting grander, the performances ever more confident and inspired. St Vincent aka Annie Clark developed an idiosyncratic writing process for "Actor", immersing herself in some of her favourite films – 'Badlands', 'Pierrot le Fou', 'The Wizard of Oz', 'Stardust Memories', 'Sleeping Beauty' - and beginning each song as a secret film score, then slowly giving it independence as its structure and lyrics came fully into focus. The resulting eleven tracks are as cinematic as pop songs can be, but the movie is a private one, revealing its storyline in hushed, cunning couplets and cascades of scathing guitar. Here is a record to listen to with your eyes closed. Melodies are transposed and inverted. The fantasy of Disney is juxtaposed with the sweep of Morricone, David Mamet's unsettling dramatic form and the alienation of Philip Roth. Igor Stravinsky scores Roger Corman's horror flicks. "The Strangers" starts off as a deceptively dulcet elegy for a lost love, then suddenly capsizes under a flood of distortion. "Actor Out Of Work" is a devastating sonic kiss-off, complete with slyly poisonous lyrics and steamrolling guitars. The strings and woodwinds at the opening of "Marrow" might be escorting Dorothy to the Emerald City, or straight into the flying monkeys' clutches. The crackerjack band, including supporting turns by McKenzie Smith and Paul Alexander of Midlake, has the crunch of a tank and the grace of a chamber ensemble.

            St. Vincent

            Marry Me

              St. Vincent is Annie Clark, born in Tulsa, OK, the middle child of nine brothers and sisters. She cut her musical teeth with the Polyphonic Spree, as well as supporting Sufjan Stevens, Television, Arcade Fire and Midlake amongst others. St. Vincent makes cinematic pop epics that feel at times like Paris in the 20s before all the fun ended. Or, conversely, an orchestra of pure modernity — a new American music, informed by jazz, gospel blues, Southern folk music, and classical composition but, in the end, an animal original unto itself. On "Marry Me", we see a smartly crafted deluge of guitar, bass, and beats pulsing forward with warmth and immediacy alongside Annie's classy soprano. Her lyrics can be weird or tongue-in-cheek or dead serious, capturing verily what it feels like to be 24 years old in America and caught up in the delirium of love blues and wartime blues and the various swashbuckling adventures of existence. Horns and strings cry out brassy and full-bodied over digital keyboards. Songs rock out vigorously, break down into squiggling post-noise-rock deconstructions, roll out mellow and slow-flowing as a river. Backing harmonies and kiddie choirs loom in the distance, rise, and lilt above the stately grandiosity.


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