Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
St. Vincent
St. Vincent is the nom de rock of one Annie Clark, a young singer-songwriter shredder who has done time backing Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree. When I first heard Marry Me, St. Vincent’s debut album, I was impressed by Clark’s musicianship and creativity, but somewhat put off by her neo prog-rock arrangements. The songs ranged from quasi-jazz balladry to fuzzed-out guitar rock and would often radically switch styles before the listener got too comfortable. I mentally filed Clark away with Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell — female eccentrics who may be geniuses but don’t get a lot of play on my stereo.
With the release of St. Vincent’s second album, Actor, Clark has been everywhere in the press, and she’s a lot harder to brush away. Clark has been telling interviewers that Actor was inspired by her love of Disney cartoons and horror films, and when you hear Clark’s multitracked vocals serving as her otherworldly backup choir on the vaguely unsettling “The Strangers,” you believe her. But overall, the album comes across as less conceptual and more down-to-earth than its predecessor.
Where the lyrics on Marry Me tackled heavy themes like religion’s suppression of sexuality (“The Apocalypse Song”), Actor sticks to more personal themes: siblings, lovers, blackened eyes. The arrangements are still unusual, but they are more accessible. Or, at least like the song “Black Rainbow,” they start out pleasant before scary strings turn them into a nightmare. One song sounds almost like something you might hear over the P.A. at a trendy clothing store — but when you catch the title, “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood,” you probably won’t feel much like buying anything.
ST. VINCENT: The Casbah, Saturday, May 30, 5:30 p.m. 619-232-4355. $12 advance; $14 day of show.
Here's something you might be interested in.
St. Vincent
St. Vincent
St. Vincent is the nom de rock of one Annie Clark, a young singer-songwriter shredder who has done time backing Sufjan Stevens and the Polyphonic Spree. When I first heard Marry Me, St. Vincent’s debut album, I was impressed by Clark’s musicianship and creativity, but somewhat put off by her neo prog-rock arrangements. The songs ranged from quasi-jazz balladry to fuzzed-out guitar rock and would often radically switch styles before the listener got too comfortable. I mentally filed Clark away with Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell — female eccentrics who may be geniuses but don’t get a lot of play on my stereo.
With the release of St. Vincent’s second album, Actor, Clark has been everywhere in the press, and she’s a lot harder to brush away. Clark has been telling interviewers that Actor was inspired by her love of Disney cartoons and horror films, and when you hear Clark’s multitracked vocals serving as her otherworldly backup choir on the vaguely unsettling “The Strangers,” you believe her. But overall, the album comes across as less conceptual and more down-to-earth than its predecessor.
Where the lyrics on Marry Me tackled heavy themes like religion’s suppression of sexuality (“The Apocalypse Song”), Actor sticks to more personal themes: siblings, lovers, blackened eyes. The arrangements are still unusual, but they are more accessible. Or, at least like the song “Black Rainbow,” they start out pleasant before scary strings turn them into a nightmare. One song sounds almost like something you might hear over the P.A. at a trendy clothing store — but when you catch the title, “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood,” you probably won’t feel much like buying anything.
ST. VINCENT: The Casbah, Saturday, May 30, 5:30 p.m. 619-232-4355. $12 advance; $14 day of show.
Comments