All Born Screaming (Album)

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    St. Vincent’s 10 (or, Actually 11) Essential Songs

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    Sample her seven daring and eclectic albums as her latest, “All Born Screaming,” arrives.OK McCausland for The New York TimesDear listeners,One afternoon in late February, my editor Caryn asked if I might be interested in profiling St. Vincent ahead of her new album “All Born Screaming.” I said that I probably wasn’t — though I have long been a fan, my early spring schedule was quite full and the reporting would require a short-notice trip to Los Angeles — but that I would give the album a spin on the way home from work, just to see if it would change my mind. By the fourth track, I was searching flights to L.A.I’m so glad I took that assignment. Annie Clark (St. Vincent’s real name) was generous with her time and her explanations of her creative process, and I came away with a new appreciation of her work ethic. An accomplished songwriter, guitarist and producer, Clark is palpably fascinated by sound and how it is created, and it was revealing to see the way her eyes lit up when she was in the studio, surrounded by various mics and vintage consoles. At one point, when we were discussing some aspect of engineering, she stopped herself, remembering that this was an interview, and said, “That stuff’s kind of boring to a reader.” But I encouraged her to go on, because I could tell it was incredibly interesting to her, and I hoped that it would be illuminating for listeners to learn exactly what made Clark geek out. Even if those things are mic shootouts, modular synthesizers and the mechanics of signal flow.We also discussed the long, improbable arc of her career, during which she’s gone from a coy indie darling to a mainstream-adjacent provocateur. “I’m curious, so I’ll say yes to things that are like, ‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ or, ‘I don’t know what this kind of music is like, let me find out,’” Clark told me. “So all those things have led me to crazy places that I’ve never expected.”Today’s playlist is a map of some of those unexpected places: a collection of my 11 favorite St. Vincent songs, spread across her seven daring and eclectic albums, and featuring a few quotes from my interviews with Clark that did not make it into the profile. You’ll find tracks from her incomparable 2011 release “Strange Mercy,” her boldly slick 2017 LP “Masseduction” and more. I almost settled for 10 songs, but in classic Amplifier fashion, I added one more at the last minute. To make me choose between “Prince Johnny” and “Happy Birthday, Johnny” would have been cru-u-uellll.Seeing double beats not seeing one of you,LindsayListen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      St. Vincent Dives Headfirst Into the Darkness

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      On a recent Tuesday night in a dressing room of the Brooklyn Paramount Theater, Annie Clark, the 41-year-old musician who records as St. Vincent, thumbed through a shelf of secondhand records and sipped a glass of pink champagne. Clark, invited to D.J. the venue’s grand reopening party, was the room’s first inhabitant since a major renovation restored the former movie palace; a pristine, new-car smell lingered.Holding court among a few members of her team and her 23-year-old sister, Clark was an attentive host in this antiseptic space, ready with a witty remark (the carefully curated LPs were probably “someone’s deceased grandma’s record collection”) or a topped-off beverage. She wore a cream-colored silk blouse, black kitten-heeled shoes and a gauzy black bow tied artfully around her neck.Even in a moment of relative repose, Clark possessed a feline hyper-awareness of her surroundings. Dave Grohl, who plays drums on two tracks off St. Vincent’s blistering new album “All Born Screaming,” later told me in a phone interview, “When you’re talking to her and you’re looking in those eyes, you can only wonder what reels are whirring in her brain, every second.” He added, amused, “I’ve never seen her with her eyelids half closed.”Clark is a gifted and nimble guitarist with a dexterously spiky playing style that contrasts with the moony smoothness of her voice. She is also known for the absolute commitment of her live performances. “What she does is so transformative,” said the musician Cate Le Bon, Clark’s close friend of over a decade, in a video interview. “When I see her play, it freaks me out sometimes. I can be even helping her get ready for a show, and it’s like I know nothing of the woman who’s onstage.”“All Born Screaming” began with a sonic puzzle: “How do I render the sound inside my head?”Raphael Dias/Getty ImagesSeven albums and 17 years into an acclaimed solo career, Clark has eked out a singular space in music, occasionally intersecting with the mainstream but for the most part staying uncompromisingly countercultural. She has collaborated with both David Byrne and Dua Lipa; the riot grrrl pioneers Sleater-Kinney and the post-post-riot-grrrl pop star Olivia Rodrigo. She was one of four female musicians asked to front Nirvana for a night in 2014 when the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “She’s obviously outrageously talented,” Grohl said. “For her to play a Nirvana song was, maybe, a lot less complicated than her own music.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More