St. Vincent slays The EARL

June 16, 10:07 PMAtlanta Underground Music ExaminerNikita Gale

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St. Vincent is Annie Clark, a 26-year-old multi-instrumentalist from Brooklyn, NY who electrified The Earl with her virtuosic and impossibly brilliant performance on Sunday night.  Clark, who was born in Tulsa, OK and grew up in Dallas, TX is currently on tour to promote her latest album "Actor", and she is without a doubt one of the most effulgent artists in independent music today.  

Clark, who cites the hospital where Dylan Thomas died as the inspiration for her stage moniker, made a name for herself with her 2007 debut Marry Me (the title was taken from a line from Fox Television's short-lived cult hit series "Arrested Development").  Marry Me not only garnered gobs of praise from music fans and critics internationally but also earned Clark a Female Artist of the Year win at the Plug Awards.  If Marry Me was Clark's introduction to the world as a solo artist, then I can confidently say that Actor is her declaration that she's here to stay.

For the songs on Actor Clark took inspiration from Disney film scores; even more interesting was the process by which she wrote the songs.  In response to noise complaints from neighbors, Clark (she attended Berklee for three years but doesn't read music) was relegated to writing all of the songs, note by note, using Logic Pro software on her computer which she then translated into beautifully orchestrated pop melodies that effortlessly wedge themselves between the growling guitar licks and unapologetically dark, literate lyrics that you will find on the finished album.  Actor is an exercise in exploring the balance between the whimsical and the grotesque. Virtually every song on Actor incorporates an unassuming exposition which builds up to a climactic pocket of controlled, deliberate guitar driven chaos followed by an often unsettling lack of resolution or denouement, and this is precisely what makes the album so provocative. 

"Black Rainbow", which Clark performed flawlessly on Sunday night, is particularly fascinating.  It constantly builds upon itself, creating a landscape that becomes more and more ominous until all that's left is a brutal, pulsating wall of lo-fi drums and screeching strings that ultimately careen into oblivion.  When Clark performed this song at The Earl, the combination of frantic strobe lights paired with the sheer intensity with which she was hammering her guitar had me wondering if I'd be thrown into an epileptic seizure before or after her guitar burst into flames.  

The show opened with a jazzed up, big-band-esque, delightfully pop-ey version of "Marry Me", and Clark played guitar on all but one song in the 13-song set.  For the dreamy rendition of "The Bed", she switched over to keyboard. A definite highlight of Sunday's performance happened mid-show when the band (consisting of a woodwind player/keyboardist, a violinist, a bass player and a drummer) retired backstage for a few minutes.  Clark charmed the audience with a recollection of a late-night run-in with David Byrne at a gas station during Bonnaroo wherein she recounted a momentary moral dilemma over whether or not she should shake his hand immediately after having eaten beef jerky.  Right after telling this story and disarming the audience, Clark, who often performs entire shows without a band, unceremoniously dove into an impressive solo performance of "Paris is Burning" from her debut album Marry Me.  It was wonderful.

As a performer, Annie Clark has a great and unmistakable stage presence.  It's endearing and  feels contradictory at times -- another factor that makes her live performances so exciting.  Sunday's show was punctuated with wry awkward smirks that would elicit a comfortable wave of laughter from the audience, and yet at other times, we found ourselves transfixed by the raw physicality of her guitar playing.  To take a quote from a recent article on her performance technique from Pitchfork, "it's infectious to watch someone feeling music with her entire body".

I must add that Pattern is Movement (pictured above) was an excellent opening act.  Although I only caught their (spirited) performance of "Peach Tree", their ability to communicate with the audience was immediately apparent and undeniable.  I certainly hope to have an opportunity to see them again when they're in Atlanta.

Oh, and Annie shook David Byrne's hand anyway.  Beef jerky and all. 

Official video for St. Vincent's "Actor Out of Work"

St. Vincent performing "Marrow" at the 40 Watt in Athens, GA on 6/13/2009 (courtesy of Nathan Kerce)

All photos by Nikita Gale.  Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.