• The Passion of the Weiss
  • Gorilla vs. Bear
  • Greencine Daily
  • Music Is Art
  • Shake Your Fist
  • Big Stereo
  • The New Yorker
  • The Torture Garden
  • Ear Farm
  • J'ai la cassette à la maison
  • The Hater
  • The Yellow Stereo
  • Movie City Indie
  • Fader
  • Covert Curiosity
  • Chromewaves
  • Sucka Pants
  • AV Club
  • Tinyways
  • Palms Out
  • Girish Shambu
  • So Much Silence
  • Heart On A Stick
  • Untitled
  • Sixeyes
  • The Documentary Blog
  • Contrast Podcast
  • Fecal Face
  • Quick, Before It Melts
  • Muzzle of Bees
  • La Blogothèque
  • The Rawking Refuses To Stop
  • Music For Kids Who Can't Read Good
  • indieWIRE
  • Gimme Tinnitus
  • Conscientious
  • Toothpaste For Dinner
  • Cable & Tweed
  • Culture Bully
  • Oceans Never Listen
  • Juxtapoz
  • I Am Fuel, You Are Friends
  • Subinev
  • Bookslut
  • Filles Sourires
  • Berkeley Place
  • Get Underground
  • Nah Right
  • Motel de Moka
  • Raven Sings The Blues
  • Fact
  • Missing Toof
  • Badical Beats
  • Clap Cowards
  • Chuckmore
  • Anthem
  • It's the right thing to do
  • Something is wrong here, something is terribly wrong
  • There ain't no life for me on land
  • The greatest #8: The Dreaming
  • Still I walk in darkness
  • Home of the cheesesteak, the beef piled sky high
  • Blogiversary #2
  • Blood rain
  • The best 15 films of 2007
  • The best 30 albums of 2007
  • The best 30 singles of 2007
  • The best 30 songs of 2007
  • The Greatest #6: Veedon Fleece
  • Behind the blog: Blogs Are For Dogs
  • It's winter again and New York's been broken
  • Blogiversary
  • Up high and ugly: Xiu Xiu MP3s
  • The Greatest #2: New Skin For The Old Ceremony
  • Behind the blog: The Passion of the Weiss
  • The best 15 films of 2006
  • Good clean fun: Clean Guns MP3s
  • Behind the blog: Music Is Art
  • United 93
  • The best 30 albums of 2006
  • The best 30 songs of 2006
  • The best 30 singles of 2006
  • The chapter in my life entitled San Francisco
  • The Up Series
  • Review #4: Ys by Joanna Newsom
  • Happy Yom Kippur
  • Rock bottom riser: Smog MP3s
  • Justin Ringle
  • Dan McGee
  • Sebastian Krueger, pt. 2
  • Sebastian Krueger, pt. 1
  • Bry Webb
  • Greg Goldberg, pt. 2
  • Greg Goldberg, pt. 1
  • Benoît Pioulard, pt. 2
  • Benoît Pioulard, pt. 1
  • Kevin O'Connor
  • Conrad Standish
  • Chris Bear
  • Owen Ashworth
  • Andrew Bujalski
  • My Photo
    Name:
    Location: Brooklyn, NY

    The MP3s available here are for sampling purposes. Please support the artists by buying their albums and going to their shows. If you are the artist or label rep and don't want an MP3 featured, let me know. Links will otherwise stay live for about two weeks before they vanish into the ether.

    If you'd like to send music, art, writing or promo material for consideration, email me at nerdlitter[at]yahoo[dot]com. This site is designed in Firefox and may not look optimal in other browsers. You can get Firefox here.

    Powered by Blogger

    Monday, July 23, 2007

    Build a nest for us to sleep in

    Photo by Tod Seelie

    Annie Clark has style. Recording as St. Vincent, the Texan native and Sufjan alum has charm to the max, a voice that can scoop into the lower registers, and a confidence that wins me over every time. But just as importantly, she has styles, with songs that draw on a gamut of genres and moods. There's the electric guitar squeal on opener "Now Now," wailing through the outro and suggesting more rockiness to come. Instead, we're then treated to romantic love songs, percussion-led snapalongs, cabaret-pop and piano interludes. The songs synthesize lots of influences into a cohesive set, where everything flows lovelily for the forty-three-minutes plus of Marry Me.

    The centerpiece of the album though is still "Paris is Burning," even so long since its first appearance. A manic waltz, it starts out slowly and spills into a nimble melody for whirling dervishes. It's something Kate Bush could've done circa Hounds of Love, which, coupled with the obvious Feist comparison and maybe some Cat Power, starts to give you a sense of its abundant style.

    Even more than those women though, Clark has a special playfulness with lyrics that must be noted. She takes on subjects as weighty as war, religion, faith, love and desire, but finds fresh ways to elucidate them. On the title track, she's flirting her way down the aisle, imploring, "Let's do what Mary and Joseph did/ Without the kid." On "Your Lips Are Red," she says (semi-autobiographically, it'd seem), "Your skin's so fair, it's not fair." She might even get meta on us, opening a midpoint song with "Wait! I'll be swifter than the speed of light," as if afraid our attention is waning, and closing the album with a sinuous "I'm outta here." By that point though, I'm too enchanted to stop listening. Right away, I start back up at the top, swifter than the speed of light being my style of choice.

    * MP3: "Paris Is Burning" - St. Vincent from Marry Me
    * MP3: "Your Lips Are Red" - St. Vincent from Marry Me [Buy it]
    * Artist MySpace: St. Vincent

    Comments on "Build a nest for us to sleep in"

     

    Anonymous Anonymous said ... (10:28 PM) : 

    These are some amazing tracks. Marry Mr is on my short list for album of the year so far.
    St. Vincent @ Bowery in NYC here:
    http://mybigmouthstrikesagain.blogspot.com/2007/07/st-vincent-bowery-ballroom-71707.html

     

    post a comment