On this evening, the musical prodigy and utterly bonkers performer ST VINCENT, aka Annie Clark, delivered a riveting, endearing and totally eccentric performance to the stunned audience.
St Vincent has already made quite a name for herself on the music circuit; she plays guitar for the Polyphonic Spree, she is a member of Sufjan Steven’s touring band, and has been involved with the avant-garde composer Glenn Branca. Her musical style is rooted in jazz, blues, heavy metal, punk, folk, and performance art, with the narrative of her songs inspired by the romanticism of Kate Bush and the cold, scientific precision of Laurie Anderson. Needless to say, the outcome is multifaceted, deeply unconventional, and a bit demented.
St Vincent opened with a peculiar number that combined Kate Bush-esque bird twittering with Mark Knopfler-inspired electric guitar licks, it was almost like a Dire Straits concert unfolding in a garden centre. She then departed from this curious arrangement, and somehow made her guitar sound like a deranged Wurlitzer, throwing in some 1960’s psychedelic prog-rock-psych-folk riffs to boot.
Her fragile and neurotic voice pierced the controlled chaos that she had conjured, giving the impression that she was a very nervous woman on the edge of a very nervous breakdown. This one-woman musical maelstrom continued to whip up a frenzied noise whilst yelling “I am NOT one human atomic bomb!”, something that onlookers may have found hard to believe.
But this insane, beautiful and glorious display was all a very convincing act. In between songs St Vincent relaxed into her funny, witty self, and managed to have the crowd in stitches.
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Stopping to take a swig of water before launching into her next attack, she looked at the audience, and pointing to the water bottle, said: “This is a performance art piece I like to call ‘Drinking Water’. It’s pretty deep. You probably wouldn’t get it.”
Five seconds later we were all taken on a mentalist journey she liked to call “Human Racing”, a number that veered dramatically between flippant jazz, hard punk, and twisted circus music. Without warning, St. Vincent’s schizophrenic Joker-faced vocals would go from dry cool blues, to Sinead O’Connor folk, to playful Doo-Wap. The presceeding track “Marry Me” was full of gentle lyrics and sweet melodies that were offset by passive-aggressive piano clunking.
The set continued, with nothing being remotely straightforward. St Vincent’s labyrinthine songs would twist and turn until she had the listener completely disorientated. It was beautiful and disturbing at the same time.
St Vincent is certainly one of the more interesting artists around at the moment, and certainly worthy of further investigation. And on that note we can finish by saying that her debut album “Marry Me” is released on July 10th. So go out get a copy.
www.myspace.com/stvincent
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