St. Vincent at the ICA
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| Photo from St. Vincent's MySpace |
St. Vincent
Blue Roses
ICA, 8 July 2009
Recently just about every new British female singer-songwriter that comes along sounds like they grew up listening to Kate Bush. It's a weird phenomenon considering that most of these young women are in their early 20s and Ms Bush hasn't exactly had the largest output over the last 20 years. But maybe these things need time to gestate and it's certainly a worthy testament to Kate's unique talent that her influence is finally so easy to see and that the acts she has inspired all happen to be excellent - think Bat For Lashes, Florence + The Machine, Marina & The Diamonds. The latest you can add to that list is Laura Groves aka Blue Roses, a cute-as-a-button Shipley singer whose self-titled debut is full of haunting acoustic laments that equally recall the stark beauty of Joni Mitchell's early albums, the more ethereal side of Stevie Nicks and, of course, the eerie yearnings of Kate Bush.
Live, I was expecting just a girl and a guitar, a la Laura Marling (who she has inevitably been compared) but Groves not only moves from piano to guitar with ease she also is skillfully backed by a violinist/backing singer and a drummer, who also fills in on guitar on a few tunes. This neatly fills in the sound and helps make her more distinctive that your usual folky with a guitar, and while her voice at times becomes shrill, most of the time the trio effectively create a shimmering yet wistful atmosphere, most effectively on the slow-building Coast and the engaging, delicate euphoria of I Am Leaving. Magical and certainly a girl worth watching.
Last time I saw Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, she was also just a girl with a guitar yet somehow managed to make her instrument sound like a whole band. This time, however, she really does have a whole band, with drums, clarinets, keyboards, a saxophone and guitars backing up the tiny doll-faced Texan. Dressed in a red mini-skirt and blue sleeveless blouse, and looking as strikingly beautiful as ever, she began the set with the title track from her debut album Marry Me but it was a set heavy on material from her new record Actor. The good news is that it was every bit as electrifying, if not more so, than the Hoxton Bar & Grill show, the fuller band allowing her to not only re-create the eclectic sounds on the new record but often make it even more weird and wonderful.
Armed with a floor full of effects pedals and two microphones that allowed her to sound in turns like Annie and Electro-Alien Annie, this show certainly proved that despite her delicate appearance the girl loves to rock out, with songs like Just The Same But Brand New and My Lips Are Red ending in swathes of feedback. Surprisingly, although they in turn sounded crisp and raw, and sweet and warm, my highlight of the show was neither of my favourite tracks from Actor, Marrow or The Party but a solo rendition of Paris Is Burning, where her bandmates momentarily disappeared from the stage. Although I had heard her play this song by herself at the show a couple of months back, this version seemed more intense, smouldering, operatic and haunting, like it had had time to work itself into something far more mysterious and magical in the intervening months. Before the song she also told an amusing anecdote (she was far less talkative overall this time though, preferring instead not to interfere with the atmosphere and flow she and her band were building through the music) about seeing David Byrne and his "shock of white hair" wandering down the highway after the Bonnaroo music festival in the States, and getting to shake his hand at the nearby gas station!
One of the best things about seeing Annie live though is getting to see what a fantastic guitarist she is and during this show the band allowed her to shred on her guitar and turn songs that were girly and twee on the record into cathartic, fuzz-filled rock-outs.
Very rarely do you get to see such different shows within weeks of each other from the same artist, but this show was proof there is more to Annie Clark than meets the eye and I can't wait to see what she surprises us with next.
Here's a clip of Paris Is Burning from the ICA show I found on YouTube.
ICA, 8 July 2009
Recently just about every new British female singer-songwriter that comes along sounds like they grew up listening to Kate Bush. It's a weird phenomenon considering that most of these young women are in their early 20s and Ms Bush hasn't exactly had the largest output over the last 20 years. But maybe these things need time to gestate and it's certainly a worthy testament to Kate's unique talent that her influence is finally so easy to see and that the acts she has inspired all happen to be excellent - think Bat For Lashes, Florence + The Machine, Marina & The Diamonds. The latest you can add to that list is Laura Groves aka Blue Roses, a cute-as-a-button Shipley singer whose self-titled debut is full of haunting acoustic laments that equally recall the stark beauty of Joni Mitchell's early albums, the more ethereal side of Stevie Nicks and, of course, the eerie yearnings of Kate Bush.
Live, I was expecting just a girl and a guitar, a la Laura Marling (who she has inevitably been compared) but Groves not only moves from piano to guitar with ease she also is skillfully backed by a violinist/backing singer and a drummer, who also fills in on guitar on a few tunes. This neatly fills in the sound and helps make her more distinctive that your usual folky with a guitar, and while her voice at times becomes shrill, most of the time the trio effectively create a shimmering yet wistful atmosphere, most effectively on the slow-building Coast and the engaging, delicate euphoria of I Am Leaving. Magical and certainly a girl worth watching.
Last time I saw Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, she was also just a girl with a guitar yet somehow managed to make her instrument sound like a whole band. This time, however, she really does have a whole band, with drums, clarinets, keyboards, a saxophone and guitars backing up the tiny doll-faced Texan. Dressed in a red mini-skirt and blue sleeveless blouse, and looking as strikingly beautiful as ever, she began the set with the title track from her debut album Marry Me but it was a set heavy on material from her new record Actor. The good news is that it was every bit as electrifying, if not more so, than the Hoxton Bar & Grill show, the fuller band allowing her to not only re-create the eclectic sounds on the new record but often make it even more weird and wonderful.
Armed with a floor full of effects pedals and two microphones that allowed her to sound in turns like Annie and Electro-Alien Annie, this show certainly proved that despite her delicate appearance the girl loves to rock out, with songs like Just The Same But Brand New and My Lips Are Red ending in swathes of feedback. Surprisingly, although they in turn sounded crisp and raw, and sweet and warm, my highlight of the show was neither of my favourite tracks from Actor, Marrow or The Party but a solo rendition of Paris Is Burning, where her bandmates momentarily disappeared from the stage. Although I had heard her play this song by herself at the show a couple of months back, this version seemed more intense, smouldering, operatic and haunting, like it had had time to work itself into something far more mysterious and magical in the intervening months. Before the song she also told an amusing anecdote (she was far less talkative overall this time though, preferring instead not to interfere with the atmosphere and flow she and her band were building through the music) about seeing David Byrne and his "shock of white hair" wandering down the highway after the Bonnaroo music festival in the States, and getting to shake his hand at the nearby gas station!
One of the best things about seeing Annie live though is getting to see what a fantastic guitarist she is and during this show the band allowed her to shred on her guitar and turn songs that were girly and twee on the record into cathartic, fuzz-filled rock-outs.
Very rarely do you get to see such different shows within weeks of each other from the same artist, but this show was proof there is more to Annie Clark than meets the eye and I can't wait to see what she surprises us with next.
Here's a clip of Paris Is Burning from the ICA show I found on YouTube.
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