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Are you ready for the next era of Annie Clark? A new Mojo feature details the “urgent and psychotic” new St. Vincent album.
She recorded at her own Compound Fracture studio in LA, Electric Lady in New York, and Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio in Chicago. Both Dave Grohl and new Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese feature on the album, as does Welsh art-pop genius Cate Le Bon. “I needed to go deeper in finding my own sonic vocabulary,” Clark says in the story. “I like to think of [the record] as post-plague pop, it’s a lot about heaven and hell – the metaphorical kinds. Which is appropriate, because sitting alone in a studio for that many hours I would say is a version of hell.”
Clark says one song is “written from the point of view of a deep narcissistic injury, of being slighted… just walking down the street and feeling like an absolute powder keg, like if somebody looks at you the wrong way you could explode.” She agrees with the suggestion that COVID lockdowns might have something to do with that attitude: “That kind of isolation breeds paranoia and loneliness, and loneliness can breed violence. It’s been a time of loss collectively and personally. [But] loss and death are very clarifying things, they make everything that doesn’t fucking matter go away.”
The album reportedly features ’70s and ’80s analog synths and “lots of guitars.” Per Clark, “It sounds urgent and psychotic, in equal parts the most caustic sound and also, I think, the most sonically blooming.” It’s billed as a departure from the vibe of 2021’s divisive Daddy’s Home. “The last record, I was approaching tough subjects with a lot of biting humor and wit,” Clark says. “I put on a wig, I was prancing around, it was so fun. This record is darker and harder and more close to the bone. I’d say it’s my least funny record yet! There’s nothing cute about it.”