Show Preview: St. Vincent, Noveller

[QUEEN AYE] At this point, comparing St. Vincent to anyone else isn’t just besides the point—it’s downright unfair. Over the course of four increasingly weird and wonderful solo albums, Annie Clark has graduated from Sufjan Stevens’ touring guitarist to bona fide A-lister, making records with David Byrne and debuting songs at Diane von Furstenberg fashion shows. Her new self-titled record is more a refinement than a wholesale reinvention—Clark has trimmed all the fat off these lean, funky, primal jams, to the point where nothing lasts more than four and a half minutes and most of the quotable lyrics (“Oh what an ordinary day/ take out the garbage, masturbate” she sings on “Birth in Reverse”) are opening salvos. All traces of twee (remember when debut album Marry Me was named after an Arrested Development joke?) have completely vanished here—though there’s nothing quite as heavy as her 2012 Record Store Day single “Krokodil.” Many of these songs are engulfed by blasts of feedback, twitchy six-string solos and layers of molten fuzz. Where earlier material felt like Clark was trying to tie pretty moments with splashes of darkness, St. Vincent finds Clark just being, well, herself. Long live Queen Annie.


SEE IT: Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 8 pm Monday, March 24. Sold out. All ages.

WWeek 2015

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