St Vincent: Spellbound - Annie Clark, a new sorceress.

Here’s a chance, a rare opportunity, to catch someone who is truly exceptional performing live before they get famous. If you are among those of us who consider Kate Bush, Bjork and Polly Jean Harvey to be three of the more outstanding female artists of the last three decades, then get ready for an heir apparent, Annie Clark, who’s touring now.

St. Vincent is the band of Annie Clark. A 25-year-old is also guitarist for two The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Steven's touring band.  ‘Marry Me’, St. Vincent's debut record, is now available on Beggars Banquet.
The touring line-up includes ‘billy’, ‘daniel’, and ‘walker’ who are drums, violin and clarinet+bass+keyboards, each quality musicians who sail through the complexity of Clark's songs breezily.

Clark, who wrote and performed all the music on her first release ‘Marry Me’, calls herself St. Vincent… after the small Caribbean island of St. Vincent? But she’s a Texan, so perhaps it’s where Mom comes from? Anyhow, it’s where her music comes from that’s more of a wonder - look at the comparisons:

- Yes she plays lead guitar, as PJ Harvey does, but not LIKE PJ Harvey does, more like Hendrix - but in raging bursts amid some enchanting kaleidoscope of mostly delicate sounds. Or, on the only ordinary song in the live show, nailing blues-rock like The Groundhogs’ Tony McPhee incarnate!

- And yes, that complexity of weaving sounds is Bjorkish (you heard that here first), but it’s less ‘weird effects’ - more consummate timing: using space and surprising combinations to literally stun the crowd.

- And her voice, as clear as Kate Bush but without that screech. The songs? Clark's first offering is already better than most of Bush’s, Kate relied on occasional inspirational songs: If Annie Cook finds one soon she’ll rocket to fame.

St. Vincent has been nominated
for best female artist at
www.plugawards.com
- she has my vote

Even John Zorn or Xeena Parkins might perk their ears up at St. Vincent’s bursts of noise, but the key difference is that Clark isn’t discordant and she resolves her songs. Whether it’s bells or sudden outbursts, the brief excursions complement the songs like peircings; and you hold on, in suspense, knowing she’ll bring you back to the charmed space, to be spellbound again.

* * *

Less unusual, but also a bit special are the opening band ‘Foreign Born’.

Foreign Born
Apparently four scruffily bearded lads from the some California redwood forest, but probably LA and wherever they were I think they were holed up with a stash of old Iggy Pop LPs. 

 
Their latest album ‘On The Wing Now’ is well worth buying – Matt Popieluch has a Shastaesque vocal scale, the band is tight, the bass and drums are punchy and the guitar lifts and echoes emotionally without any of that dodgy rock posing. Like Iggy there is simple, good writing: matter of fact songs like ‘Don’t Take Back Your Time’ and others that extract stark filmic scenes and incident from these men’s lives with economy. The album closes on ‘Never Wrong’ (an ‘anthem-in-waiting’ given air-play) and I was drifting back again – but it wasn’t Manchester, it was down the road to Echo and The Bunnymen. ‘Never Wrong’ gets better on each listen, and although it is not the kind of song to suit Annie Cook, everyone needs a big song to be running up that hill…