St Vincent - s/t (25 February 2014)

Aaaanyway, I think that each of her albums apart from the Byrne collab has been better than the last and it's thrilling to hear her go more pop without sacrificing any of her energy and unpredictability.

Strange Mercy is the one that, like, random phrases pop into my head at inappropriate times, though.

(I cannot wait to get earwormed by "take out the garbage, masturbate" to be honest.)

'Cruel' was so good. My other favourite by her is the one that goes 'Paint the hole blacker, paint the hole blacker' and 'Ice Age' off of Byrne/Vincent is gorge too.

"Ohhh, Elisha... don't make me wait..." DUR-DURR-DUR-DUR DURRRR DURRR DURRRRRRRRRR

i thought she was a shredder now, when is she just gonna shred

I got four songs in and there was massive shreddage! The guitar solo on that Huey song!

'Cruel' was so good.

Many are the times when the little chorus guitar riff from that gets stuck in my head.

The thing is, it's pretty much exactly this instinct that's driving me mad; I feel like it's very limiting in terms of how people express their enthusiasm, because it's such an overwhelming presence as a metric to express that enthusiasm. What gets in an end-of-year list? Is that the only way we understand quality? It just seems spreadsheety and data-y and horrible to me. I literally know people who keep a spreadsheet of all the records they listen to every year and mark them all individually, and that just seems absolutely horrible to me. I appreciate it might be a useful 'tool', but uergh. How do you even know how to rank things? Put them in order? Assign a score? What if you change your mind? What if affections fade or grow? At the end of the year do you just stop listening to that year's records and start again? What does that say about music?

― the drummer is a monster (Scik Mouthy)

I don't keep a spreadsheet exactly but I do rate all the albums I listen to and keep a list throughout the year (Okay I do on Rate Yor Music if that wasn't obvious) My main reason for doing this are I love lists and have that High Fidelity like addiction to them. It's also a really good way of keeping track of everything I listen to and when it comes to the end of year I can easily compile my favourites when I need to. Yeah I assign a score but if I change my mind I change the score (I also change the order of my lists regularly too, it's not that hard to do) Another thing I get out of it is when I look further down my lists I see things I initially dismissed or thought had promise but never gave a second chance to, I'm reminded to give them another go. This happened with the Charli XCX album last year. I listened to a stream and thought it was just okay. Saw it low down on my list in December and gave it another a go and ended up falling in love with it. If I hadn't seen it on my list I might have forgotten it and not ended up voting for it on the ILM poll. I love discovering albums late on like that, not everything I listen to is that instant (it took me years to love some of my favourite albums) I usually listen to over a hundred new albums a year and plenty of old ones too. I usually can't remember what I've listened to throughout the year without keeping track.

One last thing is my brother does this too and now we live in different countries I can see what he's been listening to daily and email him about it. It's a a really nice way of keeping in touch as we are both a couple of music obsessed nerds who've always liked to keep up to date with each others listening habits.

Obviously I'm able to listen to more albums these days due to Spotify, downloading and streaming. Up until 2008/9 I used to buy everything I wanted to hear. Since then I've thrown out/sold so many albums I wasted money on just to hear them. Back when I bought CD's it was easier to keep track of what I listened to but not any more (I could have made piles of CD's back then like you do) I do buy physical copies if I like an album as I still value my collection.

Sorry this is a bit of a ramble. Just trying to explain why ranking/listing things is a fun thing for me.

Wait, has the Nut Sniffers album leaked!?

new Nut Sniffers isn't even the best Nut Sniffers album. gtfo with aoty claims.

I dismissed St. Vincent for the longest time because of her associations with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, thinking that if it was anything like those two acts, no thanks. I heard a few songs from Strange Mercy and liked those, but with this album, I'm fully on board. I'm glad I came around on time.

hm. she sounds nothing like either of those other acts.

Yeah, that was my point and my previous assumption (and hence, mistake).

I'm sure there are other artists who I've probably wrongly dismissed due to "OMG, they worked with *them*?" but I think at this point everyone in the known universe has been in Polyphonic Spree at one point or another, so it's hard to hold that against anyone.

And hey, I completely understand the appeal of keeping lists or "AOTY spreadsheets" (though I usually did it with Last.fm rather than actual spreadsheets). It's most useful to me as a kind of musical snapshot of "me during this period" - not just the things I was into and what I rated, but also the way that keeping a list focuses... well, when you listen to an album lots during a specific period, it picks up a lot of the emotional resonances of that time. If I look at a list of my "AOTY" from 2009, I can see Actor on it, and listen to it and think BOOM! that's who and where I was in 2009. Where otherwise I might have forgotten. I love that of the EOY process, it's like writing memories to an archive, using music.

But yeah, I think we can all agree that deciding "OMG, AOTY!" in February, based on one stream on SoundCloud is a little silly. This feels a lot like one of those albums that is going to reveal more and more with each repeated listen. Because as immediate a visceral "WOW!" reaction I get from her material, the detailing really knocks me out with each repetition.

Assigning scores is not really something I get, at all. It's such a Grade Point Average approach approach to music. I think I'd rather read the old OKC style "three words to describe yourself" attached to a record, rather than a score, but I know I'm in the minority on this. *BB says, getting per own P4k score tattooed on per arm*

I love that of the EOY process, it's like writing memories to an archive, using music.

Exactly. I've also kept a playlist (used to be one side of a C90) of my favourite songs for every month since October 1992 because I'm too lazy to write a diary.

on today's 3rd listen, i still wanna go back after every song & listen again. is it telling that "digital" witness (w the long-lost heads line) brings the horns from love this giant with verse rhythms and a chorus that would have fit right in on little creatures. not talking smack. it's a better version of talking heads than byrne himself has managed in 20-some years.

and yeah, i did go back for a second dip on that one

second quote mark got a little confused there

"Digital Witness" gets done, lyrically, in 3.5 mins what Arcade Fire spent 90 mins on last year.

Can't quote because iPhone but wow, that's a brilliant idea, DL (wow, I miss Spotify)

Is that the only way we understand quality? It just seems spreadsheety and data-y and horrible to me.

This.

Haven't heard this record yet, probably will at some point, and though I appreciate St Vincent's music, wouldn't call myself a real "fan". However, this action, to "rate" and encapsulate a musical experience as a number, used to compare to other numbers/experiences -- it's one of the reasons I stopped writing about music. This is not the Academy Awards, and publicity campaigns notwithstanding, it doesn't have to result in music "contending" for anything at all. Fuck the way money corrupts people, and fuck the way marketing/publicity frames a piece of music. And I sincerely hope that when I do hear this record, some of it will ring true or beautifully to me, because that's the only thing that will overcome all the bs that I know goes into making and popularizing a record. /soapbox

I make myself mixes in Acid Pro as a kind of guide to what I'm listening. Quite handy.

i don't know that rationing of "like" has to be some soulless, art-killing, number-driven exercise. i'm speaking foolishly because i only heard this record for the first time a few hours ago, but it's way out in front as my favorite album of the year, so far. and fuck that "year" if necessary. it's the best album i've heard in a while, a minute, some significant but indeterminate piece of time. it get up on top of my heart and has its way. i wish to announce my love to the world. if the words i've chosen up your hackles, then i've done st. vincent a disservice. you should listen to this. it's good.

edits:

that the rationing of like
it gets up on top

it's a shorthand way of expressing enthusiasm for something

fuck the way marketing/publicity frames a piece of music. /soapbox

― Dominique, Wednesday, February 19, 2014

fair point. i try to listen to music without undue focus on hype. but sometimes i don't trust my ears (i wonder if i'm discriminating enough). sometimes there's value to music sites who pre-screen the wave of titles i have no time to examine (even though that pre-screening process results in a lot of gems remaining undiscovered). and there's something to a communal experience with other fans, who are equally excited about a new record's release, but that tends to happen only with discs that have a sufficiently sizable audience.

i should be too old to worry about hype. as of today, i'm nine short years away from enjoying meal-discounts at denny's.

The first paragraph of this Rick Moody interview is a peach.

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/16/st_vincent_i_have_this_sound_in_my_head_how_do_i_get_it_here_in_my_fingers/

Why was I so uncomfortable around Annie Clark, better known by her musical moniker, St. Vincent?

um, cuz you gotta crush?

OMG OMG OMG, I actually had to stop reading because I was hyperventilating when I went from reading about her guitar pedals to reading about her set design and the ~semiotics of dying her hair grey~ and OMG I just love this woman too too much. I'm going to bookmark this interview and come back and read it again when I have rediscovered my ability to can...

I mean, SELDA!!!! She was going on about how much she loves Selda!!! *dies of cool*

is that the lady from Enon in her backing band?

no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfUa-0jc2U

Oh, so that's what “I prefer your love to Jesus” is about.

Also, note to self: look up Turkish musician Selda

Selda is *amazing*! I think there's a reissue of her s/t on the Anatolian Invasion imprint of Finders Keepers and also she's done a ton of collaborations with Mogollar as well as other great Turkish musicians. "Ince Ince" is probably her best known jam if someone can find it on YouTube & link up.

really like 'bring me your loves', the digital guitar sound and cell phone interference percussion and ersatz second line groove. her albums are always amazing sonically (drum sounds especially). they sound expensive.

oh, so that's where that mos def beat comes from (selda).

tylerw was talking about Toko Yasuda iirc. she's in Enon, Blonde Redhead and St. Vincent.

I like this album a lot. Despite being a fan I've always found St. Vincent's albums a bit patchy, although now I'm wondering if I underrated Strange Mercy.

Having listened to it again this afternoon, I've come to the conclusion that Strange Mercy is oddly back-loaded. The last four songs are sucker punches all in a row. It's Dilettante that's the one I really really love at the moment. But mostly because I'm such a sucker for fuzz bass & that song has a monster fuzz bass. (There's some kind of modulation like a wah or lo-pass filter going on, too, which just hits my complete guitar pedal sweet spot, it's such a massive, monstrous, almost ugly sound, it's so dirty I love it)

I always thought it was quite a front loaded album. Cruel, Cheerleader, Surgeon and Northern Lights are my favourite songs on there. Year of the Tiger is an excellent closer but I always kind of forget about Hysterical Strength and Champagne Year.

I think it's a good sign when two people can have such different ideas of what its strengths are!

i don't think i like her rhythm section

it's got this radio-ready pop-friendly indie-rock feel to it that just seems dead to me, like the 00s codification of backbeats and drum fill ideas for music that's required for traditional and economic reasons to have drums in it

Man, I love that St. Vincent is a thing that people listen to, but my own love for her music is usually confined to an idea here, a sound there. She's my favourite guitarist going, basically, and every moment that she's not shredding is a moment I wish she was shredding. For every David Toopy loop like on "Rattlesnake" there's a (as j says) "radio-ready pop-friendly backbeat" like on the following track. Also, all her songs follow this barrel-organ kind of harmonic sensibility that remind me of carousel-music, but that's my problem, not hers, I think. Love her to bits but my favourite songs of hers are the Rapeman and Pop Group covers (prob the best covers of anything I've ever heard ever)

Sorry, Big Black covers, duh

haha yeah i was going to say her big black one also slays

idk i was hoping initially for this album to sound like "krokodil" but i am very satisfied with the way this album has turned out, kind of obsessed w/ it atm

You know, if you want to listen to someone who SHREDS every second of every track, go and listen to In Advance Of The Broken Arm. Shredding is boring if shredding is the only thing an artist ever does. It's both far more beautiful, but also more unsettling when someone builds up a pretty or elegant or carefully organised and constrained mood, and then blasts this eruption of shredding right through it. Which is what she excels at.

Because what hooked me from Actor on, was the way that she would construct these lovely things, which maybe occasionally swayed a bit too far into the hokey - there was occasionally a bit of the Disney Soundtrack, with all these swooping sentimental strings (the same kind of mood, though not necessarily *sound* that would make a lot of people say "fuck no!" to late period Mercury Rev and Flaming Lips during their Musicals on Mars phase) - though that said, there is a *weirdness* to some actual classic era Disney soundtracks, Dumbo and the Jungle Book and stuff (where is Melissa W?) where even as a child - *especially* as a child - you realise there is something very, very odd going underneath all the sweetness. That kind of mellotron orchestral "aaaaaahhhh" noise she uses all over the back of e.g. Prince Johnny.

So I get lulled into this state of both false security, and tension, and then the SHREDDING GUITAR BIT comes in and the whole song disintegrates around it like melting celluloid film. Which is somehow so much *better* than if she just shredded all the way through.

Anyway, I appear to have got up early enough to get a working stream today, so I am halfway listening to it now.

^ great post

Agree on this, there's something slightly sugary about a lot of her music, but sugary can also mean edgy, unsettling, hypertensive and that's why I like a lot of her stuff. There's a great light/dark juxtaposition in her work.

Yeah, anyone who dismisses music as "sugary" with the assumption that it's some... meaningless confectionary. Like... have you ever seriously indulged in a *lot* of sugar for its warping, druglike effects? That's the kind of brittle, tense, sugary thing she excels at.

i think the only disappointing thing about this album for me is that there isn't a key change at the end of "severed crossed fingers". the build up kind of demands it and the result isn't as climactic as it should be, imo.

but otherwise, this is so good, omg @ the basslines in prince johnny.