St. Vincent: Words + Music

Description

"A great song is a magic trick, it’s a slight of hand, it’s supposed to look effortless." On rare occasion, a fascinating artist will endeavor to peel back the curtain and truly reveal themselves: Their craft, their thoughts, their pain, their humanity. But it is even more rare that the artist actually possesses the range of gifts to pull it off. St. Vincent is such an artist. And St. Vincent: Words plus Music is such an experience. Armed to the teeth with words, wisdom, grit, and wit to spare, St. Vincent’s new addition to Audible’s Words plus Music is a deeply personal meditation on an artist’s discovery of their authentic self-tracked through the lyrics and influences of her Grammy-winning catalog of music. Heralding the first in a series of upcoming collaborations between Audible and entertainment company Gunpowder and Sky, St. Vincent: Words plus Music continues to raise the bar on its existing blueprint - blending storytelling, music, and performance to create a one-of-a-kind listening experience. In a relatively short span of time, Annie Clark, the sublime singer, songwriter, guitarist, and performer known professionally as St. Vincent, has established herself as a uniquely profound talent, an iconic new voice in today’s music landscape. And after just 90 minutes in total running time, listeners can arrive at only one of two inevitable positions: Either confirm what they already knew - St. Vincent is an exquisite artist and storyteller - or marvel, with some embarrassment, at how they’ve inadvertently managed to miss out on this sensational artist since at least 2007. Featuring nine newly-recorded versions of catalog hits curated from among her five albums including stunning versions of "New York", "Marry Me", "Strange Mercy", "Digital Witness", and "Mass Seduction", St. Vincent effectively creates a series of gorgeous musical "trail markers" through which she and listeners can understand (spiritually and otherwise) the course of her journey - as a woman and artist. In between these songs, in vivid detail, St. Vincent fills in the rest - offering unflinching honesty, delightfully dark humor, and more subtle Catholic imagery and metaphor than she knows what to do with. Whether she’s deconstructing the juxtaposing "grandeur and squalor" of being a working artist, singing about the manic seduction of today’s endless stimulation ("I can't turn off what turns me on"), or explaining the visceral jolt of no longer being on the road in one fell swoop ("Come down from tour is like a werewolf receding"), there are few artists today - young or old - with St. Vincent’s searing command of self and unique power to express it. Talent like this must be heard.