St Vincent - s/t (25 February 2014)

drums sound great on the neneh record, drums sound terrible on the st. vincent record

Drums sound real on the Neneh record, and very machine-y on the Vincent record; I prefer the former, certainly, but the latter isn't 'terrible', to my ears; it's an aesthetic choice for a very artificial-sounding record.

i am listening to "prince johnny" and i take nothing back about "rough" or "lo-fi"! the guitars and the horrible drums, how does anyone not think those are demo-sounding.

― lex pretend

The drums on the St. Vincent album sound fine to me. No idea why you're picking them out as a weakness on this album. Compare the drums on Prince Johnny to some of the songs on that Amel Larrieux album you love (Afraid and I Do Take in particular) How come she can get away with that sound? Some of those songs have much more of demo feel to them too, more than the St. Vincent album. I'm not saying it's a bad thing on Amel's album, I love that record. I just don't see the difference really. St. Vincent's album sounds so great and unique to me because she mixes styles very successfully. Her songs wouldn't be improved by live drums.

I do not not not understand why people continue to insist that "St Vincent" mayn't be described as lo-fi. "Prince Johnny" is trashy, over-compressed, filtered drum machines, the vocals are distorted, and this loud-as-shit Mellotron which is by definition a lo-fi instrument (and one that sinks records imo); unfortunately unable to really make comments about the frequency spectrum because I only have streaming but it sounds like the frequencies top out at 2kHz, there's definitely no sibilance on the vocals or splash (or presence) on the drums. Sorry to get all audio engineer in here but people are making things personal re: a very real and normal aural response

That makes me wonder is the streaming is on a different master, although I've not sat with this at the hi-fi properly all the way through yet.

I guess I'm stuck thinking "this is low-pass filtered because it was recorded on a boombox" = lo-fi, while "this is low-pass filtered because they low-pass filtered it in their fancy studio" = something else.

but goon tie clearly has the knowledge from the synth thread, so I will accept this as lo-fi. I just thought lo-fi was supposed to invoke bootleg cassette nostalgia.

No for real! Obv this is not a record made in the genre of "lo-fi". I'm defending the right of others to say something sounds lo-fi, when clearly there have been decisions made to make it sound "dirty" in a way that has been destructive to many instrument's higher frequencies. This isn't just a streaming thing-- though I don't trust the audio quality of streams-- I am listening to Tristan Murail Youtubes this morning and despite Youtube's highly restrictive lowpass filter there is tonnes of harmonic information here that is non-existent on Youtubes of "Prince Johnny".

If anybody hears the drums on "Prince Johnny" and thinks "wow what gloriously recorded drums, and in such high fidelity!" then there is nothing I can say to help you

Well no, of course not, but gloriously recorded, high fidelity, live-sounding drums would be totally alien to her aesthetic.

that's exactly why i was saying i should have known beforehand i wouldn't like it. idk, i saw good writing and interesting interviews and lots of talk about her and i was suckered in but this aesthetic is just...i can't even hear where the good bits are, it's alien to me

"Prince Johnny" is trashy, over-compressed, filtered drum machines

it's trashy, over-compressed, filtered live drums! which are way harder to record and make sound this full. they might have cut the live drums into samples and sequenced them, but her albums have lots of live drums that have been mixed to sound like samples & drum machines.

listen to the drums on 'bring me your loves', live but very meticulously recorded in a nice studio (live snare mixed into two tracks with different sounds and panned hard left & right, over what sounds like a programmed kick sample).

Haven't heard this record yet, enjoying all the talk. I just wanted to butt in to say that I absolutely love ilm for posts like this:

listen to the drums on 'bring me your loves', live but very meticulously recorded in a nice studio (live snare mixed into two tracks with different sounds and panned hard left & right, over what sounds like a programmed kick sample).

Like I love seeing someone that can nail this down so nicely for a non-drummer to get a handle on it.

"Bring Me Your Loves" is my favourite track FYI, \m/ and yeah the snare sounds awesome on it, cymbals too, (though sampled, I reckon)-- as does the granulatey fuzz solo on that guitar.

Yeah yeah not a drum machine on "Prince Johnny" but quantized and looped and run through an H919 emulator. There is a sliding scale of quality for that super straight and filtered drum "loop" sound with "The First Taste" as heaven and the remix of "Hey Jupiter" as hell.

Never heard of St. Vincent until I saw her on Colbert the other night.
I liked it and she seemed pretty interesting.

Psychopath is my favourite at the moment. The way she enunciates 'Cos I'm on the edge of a heart attack' in the first verse makes my ears melt. Then the main refrain comes in and it's such an familiar chord sequence and it sounds a bit like Blondie, but she pulls it off in this very particular affecting way.

I get why lex doesn't like this but also i kind of don't. There's loads of stuff with this kind of production aesthetic that I've seen you really enjoy in the past (I mean, the Knife are much more ragged than this), but if it's not for you it's not for you.

The Knife? Wtf

lol, thread reaches peak Lex challopsy

The Knife are many things but ragged is not one of them.

That's my point. But if you can enjoy the production choices on STH this is a walk in the park.

I kind of get what you mean, but STH and this sound VERY different, and Lex's problem, I suspect, is with particular artifacts, let's say, or manifestations, within the sonic palette that SV uses here. So it's not about busyness or unpredictability or juxtaposition or things jarring, or whatever, it's with timbres of certain instruments, deliberate choices in use of distortion, etcetera.

Listening to this album and discussing it here has made me think how post-Soft Bulletin Annie Clark seems in some ways; she's obviously doing something very different to the Flaming Lips, but there's a definite aesthetic line there, I think, that hadn't really occurred to me before.

Hmmmm. I do kinda see where that comparison is coming from, in that the two artists sound nothing alike, but the production choices are quite deliberately potentially off-putting.

I've been listening to St Vincent a lot these past 24 hours, and I'm starting to see where the haterz are coming from on the sound of it. It *is* weirdly produced. Especially coming from this 3-week binge of listening to The Band That Shall Not Be Named. Because listening to the later material of TBTSNBN, I am listening a *lot* to the slickness of the production values, and how everything has been shined up with this glossy commercial sheen and everything is just lubricated up to just slide into your ears like seduction. There's a place for that, but I do also feel very manipulated by it.

And the production on St Vincent is the complete opposite, it's all very "nope, I'm not going to make this easy for you." Which is intriguing, because they are such bouncy pop songs, with these earwormy melodies, but the sounds are deliberately trashed and messed about and chopped up and mangled. Not in a random, indiscriminate way, but in a very deliberate "sometimes this sounds like an AM radio playing in another room" way and sometimes in a "you want this shredding riff? you're going to have to tease it out" kind of way. Which, oddly, makes me actually want to listen to it more, in that it's cool and aloof while it susses *your* intentions out, rather than just being inaccessible.

The only complain I have is the lack of bass. Like, yeah, I get it, I get why you're using these weird keyboard squiggle fart sounds, because it goes with that cut-up live drum aesthetic. But there's really only one song where there's actual proper, full-on bass tone and it's like "OH HEY BABY you are what I've been missing."

BB 100% otm. I've come back to listening to bjork of late and I think it might because they have me a similar feeling.

Yes that's a great assessment BB

Who's TBTSNBN?

I'm not saying; it's too embarrassing.

you should be arrested by the international police for even asking that question

jaymc and his spreadsheets probably already work for that international crime-fighting organisation, sssshhhhh

God I am so into this album!! This is the first time I've rly listened to/enjoyed her and oh man "Rattlesnake" might make it to my year end top 20 list idk

something very 70s-rock about this album, and not just because prince johnny sounds like it could've played over a scene as things fell apart in boogie nights.

i wish she stretched-out like this with her guitar solos in the album version (at least of this song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ4mIVOrBMo

a short solo, but really well-done.

The album's sound quality took a little getting used to, but the second half won me over on first spin, more on the second. Her live SXSW stream on NPR got me right away, with a fuller sound, letting guitar and synth have much more room, though not too much. Then again, she ranged through the catalogue. Her set isn't posted on NPR, or anywhere else that I've checked, but it's worth checking titles on this set list, for a few YouTube excerpts of this show and others---from What Are You Listening To, my attempt at live coverage and another guy's better description of an earlier Texas show:

St. Vincent begins with the one about taking off her clothes and walking around in the desert at night, then running from a snake (true story). Twisting her guitar quite a bit.

― dow, Thursday, 13 March 2014 04:15 (6 days ago) Permalink

Yowee. St Vincent w Toko Yasuda, keyboards, vocals, bass; also a drummer and another keyboard player way back there, at least when Yasuda stepped out with her bass, especially for some prog-metal toward the end. Rocking art rock, at times close to warp-toned Zep (with some early King Crimson,also late, no middle). Concise, though. New songs, supposedly more straight-forward, fit with old, as lyrics came off like marginalia, flying notes to self, bits of her self-cited "Joan Didion-esque" persona's elliptical clarity; ditto Marilyn Monroe's writing ("Surgeon" inspired by the latter). Stage show hyper-focused,floaty(rockin').
Albarn can't follow; don't think I'll stay awake for that (maybe they'll post his and hers).
Set List for St. Vincent:

Rattlesnake
Digital Witness
Cruel
Birth In Reverse
Regret
I Prefer Your Love
Surgeon
Cheerleader
Prince Johnny
Year Of The Tiger
Marrow
Huey Newton
Bring Me Your Loves
Krokodil

― dow, Thursday, 13 March 2014 05:36 (6 days ago) Permalink

Think the persona she described is or was meant to be "Joan Didion-esque middle-aged woman on the verge," but on this occasion she also seemed to enjoy being young, eerie (buzzword of our age, after all), hot and dead(pan).

― dow, Thursday, 13 March 2014 05:41 (6 days ago) Permalink

Also, as Houston Press blogger Chris Grey described her show better and earlier this week:
the mechanistic robo-funk of the rhythm section versus the overwhelming omnichords of the synthesizers or the shards of post-punk guitar versus that delicate little dance she yeah, yeah.

― dow, Thursday, 13 March 2014 05:54 (6 days ago) Permalink

re the late King Crimson bit: I was thinking of the radio/video edit of "Sleepless," with long-ass solos excised.

going to see her next month in cincy. my brother gave me shit because i'm not going to see springsteen, who's playing cincy the same night. he takes the whole "i'm from new jersey" thing way too seriously, though.

at this point, a st. vincent concert >>>>>>>>>>>>>> a springsteen concert.

well it's certainly less expensive!

Jesus Regret is good

I've listened to this about four times through in the last days and it's really sinking in nicely now. Prince Johnny is especially good.

that said, she still does this thing where some of her melody lines remind me so much of other songs it kind of annoys me. the last song bears an uncanny resemblance to 'you stole the sun from my heart' by MSP and I'm sure there was a track which ripped off the chorus from a well known Supergrass song. St Vincent - secret Britpop fan.

Why is this album so expensive to buy on vinyl? Does it come with a bag of gold dust?

Good question. The few vinyl copies in the shops disappeared almost immediately when the album was first released, and it took a week or two for more to appear because they had to be imported, according to the guy who runs my local record shop. I assumed the price reflected the need to import this stuff, though I know nothing about this business. Nevertheless, my copy (which I think cost £22.99 in the end) sounds pretty good, a nice pressing.

quite reasonable in the US

that's fair enough, but i'm quite surprised and a bit sad that first of all there are so few copies around and that these are so expensive. it'll definitely affect sales for SV, and she deserves them.

Truck Records in Oxford didn't have it, but Head in Leamington Spa did. The guy at Truck mentioned that the embossed gold bits on the front cover was why it was limited edition and a bit pricier than other new releases. It was the gold dust after all!

Apparently the US early pressings were a bit shoddy, but yeah, the UK ones sound great and the gatefold looks lovely.

i bought it on vinyl a couple of weeks ago and it's beautifully packaged. seeing her on saturday, so stoked

lucky, i got ticks for the Cambridge show in Aug.

When it was first available to order here in the US you get the regular vinyl edition or pay $20 more and get a version that came with a single that was shaped like a triangle on gold vinyl. That sold out pretty quickly. I was considering getting that limited edition but shipping was another $15. Didn't want to end up paying $60 for the whole thing, as great as it is. Looking on Amazon.co.uk now there are copies now available for £12 but they're all from US sellers.

I think I'd managed not to hear any St. Vincent before (maybe the 1st album way back?) but I went to see her tonight and she puts on a hell of a show. Best use of a guitar I've heard in ages. Listening to the album now and it doesn't have the same energy so far.

i was looking out for you seandalai, shame we missed each other. also thought the live show was astounding. along with the s/t one you should also check out the 'actor' album.