From the Archive: St. Vincent’s Seduction

Summary

Detailed Summary of "From the Archive: St. Vincent’s Seduction" The New Yorker Radio Hour Release Date: December 18, 2024
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Annie Clark (St. Vincent)

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Introduction

In the December 18, 2024 episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour, host David Remnick engages in an in-depth conversation with Annie Clark, known professionally as St. Vincent. The episode, titled "From the Archive: St. Vincent’s Seduction," delves into Clark's latest album, Mass Seduction, exploring its themes, creative process, and her evolution as an artist.

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Exploring "Mass Seduction"

David Remnick begins the discussion by highlighting Clark's transition from indie rock collaborations with artists like Sufjan Stevens to her solo career, which has drawn comparisons to David Bowie for its complexity and allure.

Clark introduces Mass Seduction by discussing its title track. She explains the creative choice behind enlisting her live band member, Toko Yasuda, to perform the song in Japanese, portraying an alien character describing seduction:

“I wanted her to pretend like she was an alien describing how to seduce someone, but in Japanese.”
[02:42]

The use of Japanese serves dual purposes for Clark—both a personal affinity for the language and a strategic move to enhance her presence in the Japanese market:

“Because a couple reasons. One, a totally self-serving one which is that I love Japan and I want to be big in Japan so that I can go there all the time.”
[03:01]

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Themes of Power, Sex, Drugs, and Sadness

When asked to summarize the album's thesis, Clark describes Mass Seduction as an exploration of power's alluring and dark sides, intertwining themes of sex, drugs, and sadness:

“I would say it's an exploration of power and the rosy sides of power... and also the really grim sites.”
[04:08]

This triad of themes reflects Clark's personal struggles and creative journey over the past three years, a period marked by significant life changes and artistic development:

“It was a wild three years. It was a lot of life happened in those three years, for sure.”
[05:18]

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Creative Process and Personal Struggles

Clark opens up about her battle with anxiety and depression, emphasizing the necessity of radical personal reorganization to maintain her creative spirit:

“I hit a point where I just needed everything but the most vital things for creativity to just go away.”
[05:59]

She candidly discusses her reliance on medication during a particularly intense period of work:

“I was certainly relying on more pills than I should have been taking to deal with anxiety and depression.”
[08:11]

However, Clark clarifies her stance on antidepressants, acknowledging their role in her coping mechanism:

“I'm not anti antidepressant by any means or anything. You know, those kind of things have really helped me at certain times.”
[08:30]

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Musical Evolution: From Guitar to Electronics

A significant portion of the conversation centers on Clark's evolving sound. Once renowned for her exceptional guitar skills, she explains her deliberate shift towards electronic instrumentation:

“There's a certain amount of guitar playing that is about pride, that isn't about the song.”
[10:26]

Clark aspires to make the guitar a disruptive element in her music, stripping away the traditional showmanship to focus on emotional authenticity:

“I want it to be like a perverse tornado... really uncomfortable. I want it to be the one thing that comes in and disrupts the scene completely.”
[11:27]

This evolution reflects her desire to align her musical expression more closely with her emotional experiences rather than conventional performance expectations.

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Influences and Notable Experiences

Clark recounts her profound connection to Kurt Cobain and the impact of Nirvana's Nevermind during her formative years:

“Hearing the kind of purge of that fear through Kurt Cobain and Nevermind was liberating. It said to me, you're not alone.”
[17:23]

She also reflects on her emotional performance at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Brooklyn, where she portrayed Kurt Cobain:

“It feels very strange to be joyful about it... Something like Transcendence.”
[19:16]

This experience underscores the deep emotional resonance and sense of community that music fosters for Clark.

---

Vision Beyond Music: Directing and Storytelling

Expanding her artistic repertoire, Clark discusses her venture into film directing, specifically her upcoming adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. She draws parallels between her work in music and her passion for storytelling through different mediums:

“I believe that art, music, theater, film... change people's minds and make them more human.”
[16:10]

Clark's approach to directing emphasizes creating empathy and exploring human emotions, aligning with her overarching artistic philosophy.

---

Live Performances: Transcendence vs. Routine

When discussing live performances, Clark describes a duality between moments of transcendence and the disciplined routine of show business:

“Sometimes I'm so in it and I'm reliving every moment of the heartbreak of the song... And then sometimes I am totally disassociated.”
[20:11]

She emphasizes the importance of a solid structural foundation in her performances, allowing her to experiment emotionally while maintaining a consistent quality:

“There's something in the structure and building, a really solid structure and foundation architecture of a show that to me feels safe.”
[20:54]

This balance enables her to deliver emotionally powerful performances consistently.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Clark sharing her setlist for an upcoming event, highlighting her ability to blend covers with her original, emotionally charged repertoire:

“I'm going to play all youl Need Is Love, the Beatles classic... the absolute most bleak for this party tonight. Glamorously sad songs. Perfect.”
[25:49]

David Remnick wraps up the conversation by acknowledging the release of Mass Seduction and hinting at future episodes, maintaining an engaging and thoughtful tone throughout the discussion.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• “I wanted her to pretend like she was an alien describing how to seduce someone, but in Japanese.” — Annie Clark [02:42]
• “I would say it's an exploration of power and the rosy sides of power... and also the really grim sites.” — Annie Clark [04:08]
• “I was certainly relying on more pills than I should have been taking to deal with anxiety and depression.” — Annie Clark [08:11]
• “I want it to be like a perverse tornado... really uncomfortable. I want it to be the one thing that comes in and disrupts the scene completely.” — Annie Clark [11:27]
• “Hearing the kind of purge of that fear through Kurt Cobain and Nevermind was liberating. It said to me, you're not alone.” — Annie Clark [17:23]
• “I believe that art, music, theater, film... change people's minds and make them more human.” — Annie Clark [16:10]
• “Sometimes I'm so in it and I'm reliving every moment of the heartbreak of the song... And then sometimes I am totally disassociated.” — Annie Clark [20:11]

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Annie Clark's conversation on The New Yorker Radio Hour, providing listeners with an insightful overview of her artistic journey, personal struggles, and the creative forces driving her latest work, Mass Seduction. The inclusion of notable quotes with timestamps offers readers a glimpse into the depth and authenticity of the interview.

Transcript

[Annie Clark]

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[David Remnick]

Listener supported WNYC Studios.

[Unknown Speaker]

Floor 38 these.

[David Remnick]

Are just anecdotes, but it's building up into something more coherent.

[Annie Clark]

I think it would be interesting to.

[David Remnick]

Really try to unravel what his time.

[Annie Clark]

There'S this sort of country city divide where they're unconvenient ends and it's not.

[David Remnick]

Clear where it goes next.

[Unknown Speaker]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Not long ago I spent the afternoon at a concert hall on the west side of Manhattan where Annie Clark was getting ready for a show. Clark performs under the name Saint Vincent and she started out in indie rock. She played with artists like Sufjan Stevens, but St. Vincent was an old school shredder, a terrific guitar player and a rock star. As a solo artist, she's been compared to David Bowie and her music is heady and layered and not always easy, but it's catchy and somehow seductive.

[Unknown Speaker]

You traced the Andes with your index and Braga. When and when who you gonna bed? Always Sons of someone.

Always.

[David Remnick]

St. Vincent's new album just out is called Mass Seduction. I asked her about the title track.

[Annie Clark]

This is Toko Yasuda who plays in my live band. I wanted her to pretend like she was an alien describing how to seduce someone, but in Japanese.

[David Remnick]

Why Japanese?

[Annie Clark]

Because a couple reasons. One, a totally self serving one which is that I love Japan and I want to be big in Japan so that I can go there all the time. I mean I'm not above strategy.

[Unknown Speaker]

At once.

[David Remnick]

Why did you decide to make this track? The title track in the Woods? How does it shape the whole of the of the album? The conception of the album within themes of the album.

[Annie Clark]

It's more or less kind of like a thesis. It's more or less it. It contains all the characters that you meet on the album. It's. I thought of it. I thought of it like a graduate thesis or something.

[David Remnick]

A graduate thesis, yeah. Well, how would you summarize it? What is the thesis? Because the album is just. Just coming out. How would you describe it?

[Annie Clark]

I would say it's an exploration of power and the rosy sides of power, you know, and also the. Really the grim sites. I mean, the kinds of things that can have a total hold over you, be it, you know, drugs or sex or. Is it telling that those are the only two things I can think of? I know there's a third thing.

[David Remnick]

Sadness. I think he told Nick Pamgarten, who wrote a profile of you in the magazine. Sex, drugs and sadness.

[Annie Clark]

Sex, drugs and sadness.

[David Remnick]

Now, has it been that kind of period for you in the last few years? It's been three years since you've had an album come in.

[Annie Clark]

It was a wild three years. It was a. Yeah, a lot of life happened in those three years, for sure.

[David Remnick]

I also read a Nick's essay about you that you said that you've been living through while recording this album, which takes a lot longer than people would imagine. Yeah, A life of kind of monastic aloneness. That your life was a Pilates class.

[Annie Clark]

I love Pilates.

[David Remnick]

Maybe reading a book here and there. And then work. And then work.

[Annie Clark]

Yeah. I just. I hit a point where I just needed everything but the most vital things for creativity to just go away.

[David Remnick]

Were you in trouble? Did you feel off balance?

[Annie Clark]

Well, certainly off balance. Yeah. Certainly off balance. I just needed to do sort of a radical reorganizing of my life in order to fulfill. This sounds really like a Tolkien thing or something. But like in order to fulfill my destiny as a creative person, I needed to just clear a path.

[David Remnick]

Otherwise what would happen.

[Annie Clark]

You know, Otherwise just depression would take its jaws and just swallow me completely.

[David Remnick]

That's where you were.

[Annie Clark]

That's what would happen. Yeah.

[David Remnick]

And that's a long standing problem. Or that was a problem of the moment.

[Annie Clark]

I mean. Well, one. I mean, talking about anxiety and depression, it's, it's. It. It seems like I. It doesn't seem like anything that's stigmatized to me anymore because all of my friends have dealt with it over their entire life. So I've been a really anxious person since I was a kid. And more or less I think that's helped me because I Sought ways to cope with it creatively and felt safe in being able to make something.

[Unknown Speaker]

Pills to wake Pills to sleep Pills, pills, pills every day of the week Pills to walk Pills too thick Pills, pills, pills for the family I spent a year suspended in air My mind on the gap My head on the stairs From E letter D Listening back again from guru to voodoo and voodoo to zam.

[David Remnick]

And there's a song on the album where you, well, embrace and reject the pharmacological way of getting at it. Pills?

[Annie Clark]

Yeah.

[David Remnick]

Was that a struggle for you?

[Annie Clark]

You know what? I don't want to overstate it because. Because truly, as it pertains to, like, drugs, I'm kind of a Pollyanna. I never really, like. I still, like. I've only seen cocaine, like, three times in my life, which is so stupid. Like, you would think that it would, you know, be lying on people's naked bodies at parties, but that's just like, not the vibe, so. So I don't want to overstate it, but I was in a period of my life where I was working so much that I. And I didn't know how to get a hold of my life in any meaningful sort of centering kind of way. And, yeah, I was certainly relying on more pills than I should have been taking to deal with anxiety and depression. But I'm not anti depress. I'm not anti. Antidepressant by any means or anything. You know, those kind of things have really helped me at certain times.

[David Remnick]

Now I have to ask you a musical question. So I'm the kind of dork that watches. I'm making a big confession on national radio guitar instruction stuff on YouTube. And as you know, there's gazillions of them. If you want to learn how to play something, some Norwegian kid will teach you how to do it. And it's embarrassing, all that stuff that as a kid you didn't know how to do. Some kid teaches. I'm watching you with some guy whose name escapes me backstage at the Capitol Theatre in Portchester, and he's asking you all kinds of dorky questions about playing the guitar. And yet the guitar seems to be getting stripped away. Conventional instrumentation seems to be less and less a part of your music. Sometimes you'll have a straight piano, but more and more, it's electronic. Tell me about that. That conversion from being one of the great guitar players in Treaders to somebody that's changing her sound. And why.

[Annie Clark]

I will say there. There are definitely guitar moments on this album. It's not. It's not without guitar. But it's a funny. It's a funny thing, the guitar. I've been playing it so long, I've been playing it for over 20 years, which is weird because I'm 25, so. No, I've been playing it for over 20 years, so it's so much a part of my person, you know? But there's a certain amount of guitar playing that is about pride, that isn't about the song. And on this.

[David Remnick]

You mean macho speed and all that kind of thing?

[Annie Clark]

Yeah, yeah. It just didn't. That's not the way that I want it. That's not the way that I want to hear guitar, and it's not the way that I want to present it in my head.

[David Remnick]

How do you want to hear guitar? What do you mean?

[Annie Clark]

I want it to be like. Like a perverse tornado or like. I want it to be a lot of times really uncomfortable. I want it to be the one thing that comes in and disrupts the scene completely.

[David Remnick]

Well, you make these sounds on the guitar like nobody else. In other words, on that video I was watching, you're showing this guy who knows a fair amount, he said, I'm playing a minor second, which creates a sound that feels like the floor is coming out under your feet. And then at one point you say to him, and here's a Debussy voice singing. And I thought his face was going to fall.

[Annie Clark]

Yeah, my uncle taught me that.

[David Remnick]

Yeah, exactly. How much is that stuff that you learned in music school? You went to Berklee School of Music? And how much is just screwing around at home, man?

[Annie Clark]

Do you ever feel like you have been coasting on the books you read in high school? Because that's the time when you are just the most absorbent. In some ways, I feel like I've been coasting on the things I learned when I kind of first started playing guitar when I was watching my uncle play.

[David Remnick]

And your uncle, we should say, was a terrific guitar player.

[Annie Clark]

Oh, yeah. Tuck Andress. He's one of the great. One of the jazz. Jazz finger. Jazz finger style master. I mean, it's unbelievable. I forgot. Your question is, what happened?

[David Remnick]

In other words, what? The sounds that you want to make on guitar are to match your emotional life, not to impress anybody.

[Annie Clark]

Yeah, I think I'm not that interested in guitar being a means of poorly covered up pride.

[David Remnick]

You said something interesting about this song. New York, which we want to play.

[Unknown Speaker]

New York is in New York without you love so far in a few blocks to be so low.

[Annie Clark]

And if.

[Unknown Speaker]

I Call you from First Avenue we're the only motherfucker in the city who cannot handle me New love wasn't true love Back to you, love so much for a home run with some blue bloods if I last draw you on I the only in the who can stand me?

I have lost a hero I have lost friend but for you, darling I do it all again.

[David Remnick]

You said that it's the first song where you thought this might be someone's favorite song. What do you mean by that?

[Annie Clark]

Some songs are hard labor. And I mean every word, every note is just like deeply labored over until it finally gets to the right spot. And so these things take a long time sometimes. Sometimes, yeah, super hard. And then some songs feel like they're floating around in the ether. And they could have gone to your next door neighbor, but, like, you were the lucky recipient of them somehow. And New York was one of those songs, the melody and everything, it kind of came rather quickly. And it was one of those songs that I was. I felt like I just sort of pulled out of the ether more or less fully formed, and was like, thank you. Thanks for that.

[David Remnick]

In your own life, have you ever had records or books or any work of art that changed you in a. In an apparent way, politically, deeply?

[Annie Clark]

For example, black like me. I read that when I was 13.

[David Remnick]

Right. Which was a school. That was a book that was often assigned in school.

[Annie Clark]

This was not assigned in school.

[David Remnick]

Oh, you were on the outside. It was somebody who gets his skin darkened and tries to enter the experience of an African American man.

[Annie Clark]

Yes. And he does. And he's brutalized and that. Something like that. All of these things are empathy exercises. And at its best, that's what. That's what art is. And I really, really, really firmly believe. And I wouldn't be doing what I do if I didn't. That art, music, theater, film. I believe that those things change people's minds and make them more human and remind them of their humanity. And thus the humanity of others.

[David Remnick]

So I was really, really young, really young and heard I want you, Bob Dylan, long before I knew what it was to want you. But it took the top of my head off somehow. I mean, I was really young, 7 years old or something like that. And you were a similar age and were listening to Nevermind, the Nirvana album at home. What did it do to you that. That young. How does. How does art penetrate somebody 8, 9 years old?

[Annie Clark]

I mean, children have. They might not have the lexicon to describe the emotions that they feel and the things they're intuiting, but they have all of the same emotions just in this tiny body. And I had a lot of the anxiety emotion. I had a lot of fear. And so hearing the kind of purge of that fear through Kurt Cobain and Nevermind and was liberating. It said to me, you're not alone. It said to me, we're all in this. Like you have a tribe is what it said to me.

[David Remnick]

And you could hear that at 8 or 9 as you were feeling.

[Annie Clark]

Oh, fucking lutely.

[David Remnick]

I'm sorry.

[Annie Clark]

Sorry. Absolutely. You just. You, you, you go. Okay, okay. I'm not alone in this.

[David Remnick]

It must have been an incredible experience for you to stand up, you as Kurt Cobain for Nirvana and sing in front of that band. And this was at the induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in Brooklyn.

[Unknown Speaker]

I'm so happy. Cause today I found my friends they're in my head I'm so ugly that's okay. Cause so are you we broke our meals Sunday morning Every day for all I care and I'm not scared Light my candles in the days Cause I found God.

Yay. Yeah. Yay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Remnick]

Can you describe that experience?

[Annie Clark]

You know, David, I kind of can't. I don't know. That's one that I don't know. I don't know where to put that experience. Because everyone wishes that Kurt was there doing that, and I wish that too. So I don't know where to put that experience. It feels very strange to be joyful about it.

[David Remnick]

What were you feeling up on stage when you were singing?

[Annie Clark]

Something like Transcendence. Something like it.

[David Remnick]

How often does that happen on stage? You tour and you play night after night and set lists, or I assume they alter, but they're pretty much the same. You're playing a show, it's called show business. How often is it transcendent and how often does it feel like a night at work?

[Annie Clark]

There's something in the structure and building, a really solid structure and foundation architecture of a show that to me feels safe. And what I mean by safe is that.

[David Remnick]

What is safe?

[Annie Clark]

What I mean by safe is that it means that I know that the show is always going to be at a certain level of quality because I've beta tested it, you know, extensively. And then so that I have this platform on top of that, just like baseline level of quality to experiment with exactly how emotional it can be. And the thing about it is that performing night after night, it's a little bit like being an actor in that you need to be able to say your lights, you need to remember them. You need to stand in your light. You need to be, you know, have all the blocking down. Because at that point it's not about you and it's not about your experience. In a lot of ways, it's about the audience's experience. So sometimes, sometimes I'm so in it and I'm reliving every moment of the heartbreak of the song and singing that. And then sometimes I am totally disassociated.

[David Remnick]

But I don't think you're outside your own body.

[Annie Clark]

It's hard to explain. It's, you know, it's not unfortunately that like, you know, ghost floating above the bed looking down. It's not that, but sometimes it is just this sort of. I went from this dot to that dot to that. And we did the show.

[David Remnick]

I've just heard that you're going to direct a film version of the Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's great novel. How did that come about? And why did you decide to do this? And it's not what I expected, but I know to expect the unexpected.

[Annie Clark]

Well, a couple years ago I was asked to be a part of an all female horror anthology called the xx. And my ethos in life is to do things that are scary. And luckily for me, most things are scary. So I do a lot of things. So I did this horror short. Even though I don't like horror movies. Mine was more of a black comedy. It starred Melanie Lynskey, who was amazing.

[David Remnick]

And what was the plot?

[Annie Clark]

Oh boy. I keep describing it as Weekend at Bernie's. Two meets who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? It's like, oh, it's so stupid. A mother wakes up on the day that she is throwing her child a seventh birthday and she finds her husband dead of an overdose of some kind. And we don't know if it's suicide or an overdose. And she decides that hell or high water, she's going to throw her daughter. She's going to give her daughter a good birthday no matter what. So she's sort of frazzled. Elizabeth Taylor, hairstyled woman. And she hides the body and eventually hides the body in a big bear suit and puts it at the front of the table as all the kids are, you know, coming in and they're about to blow out the candles at the cake and he accidentally gets nudged by the nanny who's bringing in the cake. And then his face falls into the cake. And then the nanny takes the hood off and it reveals the dead, dead dad. And then the kids scream and it's over.

[David Remnick]

Yep. Now, with the Oscar Wilde thing, you're gonna keep it pretty much on the Oscar Wilde plot or you're gonna take it into.

[Annie Clark]

It's okay. So that was the entire plot of the Birthday Party. See it now it's on Netflix. And. But the Oscar Wilde thing. Yeah. I was approached by Lionsgate about being involved in an adaptation of Dorian Gray, but this time with a female protagonist and set in more or less modern times. And I said, yes, I'm very interested in doing that, but only if I can work with David Burke, who wrote Elle, which is the French film. Paul Verhoeven and Isabelle Pear. Elle is the best thing I've ever seen. I'm totally obsessed with Elle. And so I contacted David.

[David Remnick]

That's scary as hell.

[Annie Clark]

It's hilarious to me to be discussed after that movie.

[David Remnick]

Boy.

[Annie Clark]

Oh, my God.

[David Remnick]

Yeah. So we're at the Highline Studios, which is an events performance place. And you're. The evening that we're meeting. We're meeting during the afternoon. You're going to be singing for an event. What are you going to play?

[Annie Clark]

Well, I'm going to play all youl Need Is Love, the Beatles classic. I'm going to play New York and I'm going to. I basically picked the saddest songs in my repertoire, of which there are many, but I picked the absolute most bleak for this party tonight. Glamorously sad songs. Perfect.

[David Remnick]

Perfect. On another occasion, you're going to show me how to play I Dig a Pony.

[Annie Clark]

Yeah. If I can remember it.

[David Remnick]

That's an amazing. That's. You don't do covers that that often.

[Annie Clark]

No, because I don't know how to play anyone else's songs.

[David Remnick]

I don't believe you.

[Annie Clark]

No, it's true.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yes, we.

[David Remnick]

Annie Clark, Also known as St. Vincent, her album Mass Seduction is just out. That's it for today's show. I'm David Remnick and next week we'll hear an interview with Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst who served seven years in prison after sending a huge haul of military and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. I hope you'll join us for that. Until then, have a great week.

[Unknown Speaker]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Chorina Endowment Fund.

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[Vincent Cunningham]

This week on Critics at Large. We're talking about Gladiator 2 and the fantasy of ancient Rome that has such a strong hold over our entertainment and over the culture more broadly.

[Unknown Speaker]

What is very popular is this macho idea, and that's actually what I see in Gladiator 2 as well. Maybe that's the appeal of the classics to try to keep returning and re understanding even as we can't help holding them up as a mirror.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co hosts on Critics at Large for new episodes every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.