In the wake of 2017’s <i>MASSEDUCTION</i>, St. Vincent mastermind Annie Clark was in search of change. “That record was very much about structure and stricture—everything I wore was very tight, very controlled, very angular,” she tells Apple Music. “But there's only so far you can go with that before you're like, ‘Oh, what's over here?’” What Clark found was a looseness that came from exploring sounds she’d grown up with, “this kind of early-’70s, groove-ish, soul-ish, jazz-ish style in my head since I was a little kid,” she says. “I was raised on Steely Dan records and Stevie Wonder records like [1973’s] <i>Innervisions</i> and [1972’s] <i>Talking Book</i> and [1974’s] <i>Fulfillingness’ First Finale</i>. That was the wheelhouse that I wanted to play in. I wanted to make new stories with older sounds.”<br />
Recorded with <i>MASSEDUCTION</i> producer Jack Antonoff, <i>Daddy’s Home</i> draws heavily from the 1970s, but its title was inspired, in part, by recent events in Clark’s personal life: her father’s 2019 release from prison, where he’d served nearly a decade for his role in a stock manipulation scheme. It’s as much about our capacity to evolve as it is embracing the humanity in our flaws. “I wanted to make sure that even if anybody didn't know my personal autobiography that it would be open to interpretation as to whether Daddy is a father or Daddy is a boyfriend or Daddy is a pimp—I wanted that to be ambiguous,” she says. “Part of the title is literal: ‘Yeah, here he is, he's home!’ And then another part of it is ‘It’s 10 years later. I’ve done a lot in those 10 years. I have responsibility. I have shit I'm seriously doing. It’s playing with it: Am I daddy's girl? I don't know. Maybe. But I'm also Daddy, too, now.” Here, Clark guides us through a few of the album’s key tracks.<br />
<b>“Pay Your Way in Pain”</b>
“This character is like the fixture in a 2021 psychedelic blues. And this is basically the sentiment of the blues: truly just kind of being down and out in a country, in a society, that oftentimes asks you to choose between dignity and survival. So it's just this story of one really bad fuckin’ day. And just owning the fact that truly what everybody wants in the world, with rare exception, is just to have a roof over their head, to be loved, and to get by. The line about the heels always makes me laugh. I've been her, I know her. I've been the one who people kind of go, ‘Oh, oh, dear. Hide the children's eyes.’ I know her, and I know her well.”<br />
<b>“Down and Out Downtown”</b>
“This is actually maybe my favorite song on the record. I don't know how other people will feel about it. We've all been that person who is wearing last night's heels at eight in the morning on the train, processing: ‘Oh, where have we been? What did I just do?’ You're groggy, you're sort of trying to avoid the knowing looks from other people—and the way that in New York, especially, you can just really ride that balance between like abandon and destruction. That's her; I've been her too.”<br />
<b>“Daddy's Home”</b>
“The story is really about one of the last times I went to go visit my dad in prison. If I was in national press or something, they put the press clippings on his bed. And if I was on TV, they'd gather around in the common area and watch me be on Letterman or whatever. So some of the inmates knew who I was and presumably, I don't know, mentioned it to their family members. I ended up signing an autograph on a receipt because you can't bring phones and you couldn't do a selfie. It’s about watching the tables turn a little bit, from father and daughter. It's a complicated story and there's every kind of emotion about it. My family definitely chose to look at a lot of things with some gallows humor, because what else are you going to do? It's absolutely absurd and heartbreaking and funny all at the same time. So: Worth putting into a song.”<br />
<b>“Live in the Dream”</b>
“If there are other touchpoints on the record that hint at psychedelia, on this one we've gone completely psychedelic. I was having a conversation with Jack and he was telling me about a conversation he had with Bruce Springsteen. Bruce was just, I think anecdotally, talking about the game of fame and talking about the fact that we lose a lot of people to it. They can kind of float off into the atmosphere, and the secret is, you can't let the dream take over you. The dream has to live inside of you. And I thought that was wonderful, so I wrote this song as if you're waking up from a dream and you almost have these sirens talking to you. In life, there's still useful delusions. And then there's delusions that—if left unchecked—lead to kind of a misuse of power.”<br />
<b>“Down”</b>
“The song is a revenge fantasy. If you're nice, people think they can take advantage of you. And being nice is not the same thing as being a pushover. If we don't want to be culpable to something, we could say, 'Well, it's definitely just this thing in my past,' but at the end of the day, there's human culpability. Life is complicated, but I don't care why you are hurt. It's not an excuse to be cruel. Whatever your excuse is, you've played it out.”<br />
<b>“…At the Holiday Party”</b>
“Everybody's been this person at one time. I've certainly been this person, where you are masking your sadness with all kinds of things. Whether it's dressing up real fancy or talking about that next thing you're going to do, whatever it is. And we kind of reveal ourselves by the things we try to hide and to kind of say we've all been there. Drunk a little too early, at a party, there's a moment where you can see somebody's face break, and it's just for a split second, but you see it. That was the little window into what's going on with you, and what you're using to obfuscate is actually revealing you.”

In the wake of 2017’s <i>MASSEDUCTION</i>, St. Vincent mastermind Annie Clark was in search of change. “That record was very much about structure and stricture—everything I wore was very tight, very controlled, very angular,” she tells Apple Music. “But there's only so far you can go with that before you're like, ‘Oh, what's over here?’” What Clark found was a looseness that came from exploring sounds she’d grown up with, “this kind of early-’70s, groove-ish, soul-ish, jazz-ish style in my head since I was a little kid,” she says. “I was raised on Steely Dan records and Stevie Wonder records like [1973’s] <i>Innervisions</i> and [1972’s] <i>Talking Book</i> and [1974’s] <i>Fulfillingness’ First Finale</i>. That was the wheelhouse that I wanted to play in. I wanted to make new stories with older sounds.”<br />
Recorded with <i>MASSEDUCTION</i> producer Jack Antonoff, <i>Daddy’s Home</i> draws heavily from the 1970s, but its title was inspired, in part, by recent events in Clark’s personal life: her father’s 2019 release from prison, where he’d served nearly a decade for his role in a stock manipulation scheme. It’s as much about our capacity to evolve as it is embracing the humanity in our flaws. “I wanted to make sure that even if anybody didn't know my personal autobiography that it would be open to interpretation as to whether Daddy is a father or Daddy is a boyfriend or Daddy is a pimp—I wanted that to be ambiguous,” she says. “Part of the title is literal: ‘Yeah, here he is, he's home!’ And then another part of it is ‘It’s 10 years later. I’ve done a lot in those 10 years. I have responsibility. I have shit I'm seriously doing. It’s playing with it: Am I daddy's girl? I don't know. Maybe. But I'm also Daddy, too, now.” Here, Clark guides us through a few of the album’s key tracks.<br />
<b>“Pay Your Way in Pain”</b>
“This character is like the fixture in a 2021 psychedelic blues. And this is basically the sentiment of the blues: truly just kind of being down and out in a country, in a society, that oftentimes asks you to choose between dignity and survival. So it's just this story of one really bad fuckin’ day. And just owning the fact that truly what everybody wants in the world, with rare exception, is just to have a roof over their head, to be loved, and to get by. The line about the heels always makes me laugh. I've been her, I know her. I've been the one who people kind of go, ‘Oh, oh, dear. Hide the children's eyes.’ I know her, and I know her well.”<br />
<b>“Down and Out Downtown”</b>
“This is actually maybe my favorite song on the record. I don't know how other people will feel about it. We've all been that person who is wearing last night's heels at eight in the morning on the train, processing: ‘Oh, where have we been? What did I just do?’ You're groggy, you're sort of trying to avoid the knowing looks from other people—and the way that in New York, especially, you can just really ride that balance between like abandon and destruction. That's her; I've been her too.”<br />
<b>“Daddy's Home”</b>
“The story is really about one of the last times I went to go visit my dad in prison. If I was in national press or something, they put the press clippings on his bed. And if I was on TV, they'd gather around in the common area and watch me be on Letterman or whatever. So some of the inmates knew who I was and presumably, I don't know, mentioned it to their family members. I ended up signing an autograph on a receipt because you can't bring phones and you couldn't do a selfie. It’s about watching the tables turn a little bit, from father and daughter. It's a complicated story and there's every kind of emotion about it. My family definitely chose to look at a lot of things with some gallows humor, because what else are you going to do? It's absolutely absurd and heartbreaking and funny all at the same time. So: Worth putting into a song.”<br />
<b>“Live in the Dream”</b>
“If there are other touchpoints on the record that hint at psychedelia, on this one we've gone completely psychedelic. I was having a conversation with Jack and he was telling me about a conversation he had with Bruce Springsteen. Bruce was just, I think anecdotally, talking about the game of fame and talking about the fact that we lose a lot of people to it. They can kind of float off into the atmosphere, and the secret is, you can't let the dream take over you. The dream has to live inside of you. And I thought that was wonderful, so I wrote this song as if you're waking up from a dream and you almost have these sirens talking to you. In life, there's still useful delusions. And then there's delusions that—if left unchecked—lead to kind of a misuse of power.”<br />
<b>“Down”</b>
“The song is a revenge fantasy. If you're nice, people think they can take advantage of you. And being nice is not the same thing as being a pushover. If we don't want to be culpable to something, we could say, 'Well, it's definitely just this thing in my past,' but at the end of the day, there's human culpability. Life is complicated, but I don't care why you are hurt. It's not an excuse to be cruel. Whatever your excuse is, you've played it out.”<br />
<b>“…At the Holiday Party”</b>
“Everybody's been this person at one time. I've certainly been this person, where you are masking your sadness with all kinds of things. Whether it's dressing up real fancy or talking about that next thing you're going to do, whatever it is. And we kind of reveal ourselves by the things we try to hide and to kind of say we've all been there. Drunk a little too early, at a party, there's a moment where you can see somebody's face break, and it's just for a split second, but you see it. That was the little window into what's going on with you, and what you're using to obfuscate is actually revealing you.”

UK seven inch vinyl pressing of the first single taken from the 2009 album Actor. 'Actor Out Of Work' is a devastating sonic kiss-off, complete with slyly poisonous lyrics and steamrolling guitars. It is as deliciously succinct in delivery, and comes backed with an exclusive track 'Bicycle'. 4AD.

Reconfiguring St. Vincent’s self-produced <i>All Born Screaming</i> for a Spanish-speaking audience may not have been an obvious choice. Then again, when has the modern-day guitar god Annie Clark done what’s expected of her or taken a conventional route? Converting the lyrics and rerecording her vocals account for the overt changes present on <i>Todos Nacen Gritando</i>, which otherwise maintains the track order and runtime of the English-language original. Much like a faithful literary translation for a Latin American audience, the integrity of the material remains intact, the robust riffage on “Hombre Roto” and sonic swells of “La Fruta Mas Dulce” hitting reliably hard. Dave Grohl’s drums still shatter on the “Pulga” chorus, Clark’s earnestly possessive chorus just as evocative as before. If nothing else, these versions simply make the songs more accessible to those who might have missed some of the meanings and sentiments behind them.

Few artists have done more for carrying the banner of guitar rock proudly into the 21st century than St. Vincent. A notorious shredder, she cut her teeth as a member of Sufjan Stevens’ touring band before releasing her debut album <i>Marry Me</i> in 2007. Since then, her reputation as a six-string samurai has been cemented in the wake of a run of critically acclaimed albums and collaborations (she co-wrote Taylor Swift’s No 1. single “Cruel Summer”).

A shape-shifter of the highest order, St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark, has always put visual language on equal footing with her sonic output. Most recently, she released 2021’s <i>Daddy’s Home</i>, a conceptual period piece that pulled inspiration from ’70s soul and glam set in New York City. That project marked the end of an era visually—gone are the bleach-blonde wigs and oversized Times Square-ready trench coats—as well as creatively. With <i>All Born Screaming</i>, she bids adieu to frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, who produced <i>Daddy’s Home</i>, and instead steps behind the boards for the first time to produce the project herself.

“For me, this record was spending a lot of time alone in my studio, trying to find a new language for myself,” Clark tells Apple Music’s Hanuman Welch. “I co-produced all my other records, but this one was very much my fingerprints on every single thing. And a lot of the impetus of the record was like, ‘Okay: I'm in the studio and everything has to start with chaos.’”

For Clark, harnessing that chaos began by distilling the elemental components of what makes her sound like, well, her. Guitar players, in many respects, are some of the last musicians defined by the analog. Pedal boards, guitar strings, and pass-throughs are all manipulated to create a specific tone. It’s tactile, specialized, and at times, yes, chaotic.

“What I mean by chaos,” Clark says, “is electricity actually moving through circuitry. Whether it's modular synths or drum machines, just playing with sound in a way that was harnessing chaos. I've got six seconds of this three-hour jam, but that six seconds is lightning in a bottle and so exciting, and truly something that could only have happened once and only happened in a very tactile way. And then I wrote entire songs around that.”

Those songs cover the spectrum from sludgy, teeth-vibrating offerings like “Flea” all the way to the lush album cut (and ode to late electronic producer SOPHIE) “Sweetest Fruit.” Clark relished in balancing these light and dark sounds and sentiments—and she didn’t do so alone. “I got to explore and play and paint,” she says. “And I also luckily had just great friends who came in to play on the record and brought their amazing energy to it.” <i>All Born Screaming</i> features appearances from Dave Grohl, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, and Welsh artist Cate Le Bon, among others.

Le Bon pulled double duty on the album by performing on the title track as well as offering clarity for some of the murkier production moments. “I was finding myself a little bit in the weeds, as everyone who self-produces does,” Clark says. “And so I just called Cate and was like, ‘I need you to just come hold my hand for a second.’ She came in and was a very stabilizing force, I think, at a time in the making of the record when I needed someone to sort of hold my hand and pat my head and give me a beer, like, ‘It's going to be okay.’”

With <i>All Born Screaming</i>, Clark manages to capture the bloody nature of the human experience—including the uncertainty and every lightning-in-a-bottle moment—but still manages to make it hum along like a Saturday morning cartoon. “The album, to me, is a bit of a season in hell,” she says. “You are a little bit walking on your knees through some broken glass—but in a fun way, kids. We end with this sort of, ‘Yes, life is difficult, but it's so worth living and we've got to live it. Can't go over it, can't go under it, might as well go through it.’ It's black and white and the colors of a fire. That, to me, is sonically what the record is.”

Recording these songs live for the first time, St Vincent has performed four tracks from Strange Mercy for the tenth visual installment in the 4AD Session series. Shot at Shangri-La Studios in the heart of the Brooklyn film and photography district in Greenpoint, the session was recorded with Annie's new band, Daniel Mintseris (keys), Toko Yasuda (moog) and Matthew Johnson (drums). Given St Vincent's transgression from the underground to the pop spotlight over the course of three studio albums, it's somewhat fitting that Shangri-La host the session having initially earned its name as a secret spot known only through word of mouth.
As with all of the sessions in the series, directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard filmed the four tracks with a clear artistic vision. In this instance, the inspiration came from an unlikely source – the memory of seeing a 1968 Shirley Bassey performance of 'This is My Life' on Rai Uno for Italian TV. With that reference point in mind, Annie takes centre stage against the backdrop of a projected live-feed, resplendent in glamorous eye make-up and with her always-impressive guitar work brought clearly to the fore. More interestingly still, the classic showbusiness styling of the session is held in stark contrast to the affecting and darkly-tinged emotional undertones of 'Chloe In The Afternoon' and 'Surgeon', representing perfectly the themes that run throughout Strange Mercy.
Taking Strange Mercy on the road, St Vincent finishes her current US tour this month before embarking on a European tour in November, starting on the 10th at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.

Yesterday, for Record Store Day, St. Vincent released a 7" featuring two brand new songs: "Krokodil" (which she performed at Coachella) and "Grot".

Employing her acclaimed curatorial skills to an immense tracklist, Nina Kraviz invites a diverse roster of artists - luminaries in their respective genres - for an eclectic remix package of St. Vincent's Grammy award winning album MASSEDUCTION. From frantic IDM and manic footwork to glistening house and meditative dubstep (via just about everything in between) her selections build an inspired portfolio from an abundance of talent.
Genre-bending interpretations feature strongly throughout. Jlin’s mutated footwork subverts ‘Smoking Section’ from melancholic balladry to a jittery exuberant march, whilst Mala’s take, although similarly sinister, submerges Annie Clark’s vocals in a drowsy pool of synthetic bass and fragmented percussion. Nina Kraviz’s own ‘Gabber Me Gently remix’ of ‘Fast Slow Disco’ sweeps the radiant texture of the original from underneath, replacing it with a hypnotic run of high-speed kick drums, whilst her remix of ‘New York’ is part minimal techno, part ghostly ASMR, but quintessentially hers.
Further disorientation comes from a number of трип affiliates; PTU offer two remixes - a woozy minimal take on ‘Pills’ and a relentless spin of ‘Fear The Future’ - whilst Roma Zuckerman and Buttechno provide direct-to-dancefloor cuts of ‘Young Lover’ and ‘Saviour’ respectively. Elsewhere, Laurel Halo makes a spiralling techno animation of the former, as UK evergreens Pearson Sound and Batu offer curiously stripped back takes on ‘Dancing With A Ghost’ and ‘Hang On Me’.
Much like the tapestry of moods on MASSEDUCTION, the remixes mould varying sentiments into a sea of different atmospheres. Bjarki and Population One (aka Terrence Dixon) each work up carefully restrained tension on ‘Pills’ - a stark contrast to Hieroglyphic Being and Emika’s maximal, glowing takes on ‘Sugarboy’. Warmer still are Midland’s powerful, low-slung take on the title track, Fred P’s breakbeat reshape of ‘Happy Birthday Jonny’, a heartfelt disco repurposing of ‘Fast Slow Disco’ from Steffi and two joyful, melodic cuts from EOD.
Released as a full digitial package, vinyl album and 3 EPs, Nina Kraviz Presents MASSEDUCTION Rewired is a comprehensive document of the electronic subversion of the mainstream, offering an inspired dissemination of ideas from the rich source material. At times fragmented, at others familiar, it takes the spirit of MASSEDUCTION and runs with it in every way possible.

The latest episode of HBO's Girls featured the debut of a previously unheard song by St. Vincent called “Teenage Talk”. Reportedly, the song is a demo left over from Annie Clark’s self-titled fourth studio album.
Girls music supervisor Manish Raval discussed the song with Billboard: “I said to St. Vincent’s people, ‘We love Annie and she and Lena are friends. Is there anything laying around?’ They sent us a demo of a song called ‘Teenage Talk’ that she hadn’t released yet and it was amazing. Lena flipped for it.”

Darkside — the project comprised of Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington — has a fairly solid back catalog of remixes. Not only have they reworked Nick Drake, The Knife, Brian Eno, Bear in Heaven, and one another, but they achieved quite a feat last summer when they tackled the entirety of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.
Today, they unveil their latest with a remix of St. Vincent’s “Digital Witness”, from the singer’s recent self-titled album. Whereas they’ve applied a light to moderate touch with past efforts, the duo totally revamp the track, slowing down the groove and pacing, shifting Annie Clark’s artful croon into a monstrous slur, and moving the emphasis from the trademark sax to swirling studio effects and dub bass. Though jarring and abrasive, it somehow remains decidedly funky and danceable, although I don’t think the Cabbage Patch would quite fit.
The remix will be available on 12-inch vinyl along with the original single, a capella, and instrumental versons.

Annie Clark brings the glammy sounds of the ’70s to an album about mothers and daughters, fathers and prison. It’s an audacious and deeply personal record occasionally beset by clunky choices.