“I’m trying to live at the intersection of accessible and lunatic,” pronounced Annie Clark prior to the release of St Vincent’s critically acclaimed eponymous album and on the evidence of tonight’s sold out Glasgow show she is doing exactly that. Over 90 minutes, Clark reimagines the entire St Vincent mythology by executing a brilliant, at times mesmerising, symbiosis of coolly precise robotic choreography and virtuoso guitar craft.
Clark likes to see how far she can get to the edge without falling
off - “controlled chaos” the guiding principal behind her latest song
writing process. Opening with the album’s title track, “Rattlesnake”, a sparse,
Kraftwerky riff germinates into a rip-roaring Pollockian guitar shred which sounds
like Kevin Shields channelling Max/MSP era Jonny Greenwood. Prior to the show
the crowd are asked not to use their phones and in keeping with the
technophobic theme, “Digital Witness”, sees Clark lament the nature of social
media hyperculture, pondering “what’s the point of even sleeping? If I can’t
show it you can’t see it” to a soundscape of horns and chicken grease funk.
Visually, the Strange Mercy era (2011) seems far removed
from the current production (she has since hired a creative director in WilloPerron, the brains behind Kanye West’s “Yeezus” tour), but musically it still more
than holds its own. “Surgeon”, a track inspired by a line found in one of
Marilyn Monroe’s journals (“best, finest surgeon, Lee Strasberg, come cut me open”)
sees Clark illustrate her mystifying dexterity to play and sing at the same
time, while she assumes a numinous quality as she scales the stage steps to
deliver the thunderous stomp of “Cheerleader”. Such stage rig can sometimes appear
showy and redundant, but the mantis-framed Clark cuts a haunting figure as she
stands tall delivering the plaintive yodel of “Prince Jonny” - her note perfect
falsetto completely enveloping the room. The show ends with her lying prostrate
on the steps having died a stage death.
Kate Bush, the Queen of art-pop, played her first gig in 35
years this week and wowed fans with her gesamtkunstwerk.
Among current artists, there is a reticence to foray into such pop drama territory,
yet St Vincent cannot stand accused of that. The show is a syncopation of
visual and sonic artistry which teeters on the brink but never loses itself in
its own ambition. It was Friedrich Nietzsche who said that, “one must still
have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star”, and never
has anyone embodied the phrase quite as literally as Annie Clark. St Vincent is
chaos, but the chaos is all so beautiful.
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