SONG OF MYSELF

"MILES DAVIS ONCE SAID, 'SOMETIMES IT TAKES A WHILE TO SOUND LIKE YOURSELF""

- JOE BOSSO 

ANNIE CLARK-AKA ST. VINCENT

DISCUSSES HER SINGLE-MINDED PURSUIT OF RAW EMOTIONS AND SONIC PERFECTION, AND HOW SHE SERVED AS "JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONER" ON HER NEW, SELF-PRODUCED ALBUM 

STARTING WITH HER 2007 DEBUT album, Marry Me, and on through 2021’s Daddy’s Home, Annie Clark (better known by her professional moniker, St. Vincent) has crafted albums that are adventurous and provocative both sonically and lyrically. A restless shapeshifter in a way that recalls David Bowie (one minute she’s an enigmatic indie rock icon in muted-colored baggy dresses, the next she’s a goth superstar in red patent leather and latex bodysuits), her music is an extension of her fearless creativity and an unwavering devotion to her muse.

Clark’s songs don’t behave like other artists’ compositions. Combining multiple genres (and subgenres) that don’t always play well together, she revels in dissonant sounds, agitated beats and arrangements that make up their own rules. But perhaps Clark’s greatest achievement is that, for as complex and daring as her music is — much of it flavored with her idiosyncratic guitar playing, which can vary from blitzing wildcat solos to unorthodox chord voicings to bonkers, effects-driven atmospherics — she has a bewitching way of drawing you in. Like its predecessors, Clark’s new album, All Born Screaming, is a thrilling immersion in sound and spectacle, but it’s wildly entertaining in a way that feels transcendent.