alternative

St. Vincent

1 upcoming festival

Annie Clark's project, guitar playing that lurches and stutters through art-rock built on tightly drilled arrangements. Every record arrives with a new persona attached.

St. Vincent is Annie Clark, born in Tulsa and raised in Dallas from the age of seven. She picked up her first real guitar at twelve and spent part of her teenage years as a roadie for her aunt and uncle, the jazz duo Tuck & Patti. She later studied at Berklee under Lauren Passarelli before leaving after three years, unconvinced that art school taught her much beyond technique.

She played in the Polyphonic Spree and toured in Sufjan Stevens' band before releasing her own debut, Marry Me, in 2007. Actor and Strange Mercy followed, sharpening the same restless, tightly arranged sound. In 2012 she made Love This Giant, a full album written and toured jointly with David Byrne of Talking Heads.

Her guitar playing draws praise for its melodic turns and rough distortion in the same phrase, a style Rolling Stone recognised in 2023 by ranking her among the 26 greatest guitarists of all time. Ernie Ball Music Man later built her a signature model, a lightweight body designed around her own posture and playing angles rather than a standard template.

The self-titled St. Vincent was named album of the year by several outlets on release and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, one of six Grammys she has collected, three of them in that category. Masseduction and Daddy's Home followed with producer Jack Antonoff, and All Born Screaming arrived as her own, self-produced work.

Beyond her own records, Clark has produced Sleater-Kinney's The Center Won't Hold and co-wrote Taylor Swift's number-one single 'Cruel Summer'. She has also worked in film, directing a segment of the horror anthology XX and co-writing and starring in the psychological thriller The Nowhere Inn.

Read more

alternative