I wonder if Annie Clark would like being called a dame. As the creator of a musical project titled St. Vincent, Clark debuts with a rock-noir album so graceful, yet murky that she seems to be soundtracking eleven versions of a black and white Humphrey Bogart putting on a trench coat. Marry Me features Clark’s sultry sopranic voice over a cast of strings, horns, piano keys, ridged guitars and all sorts of intriguing synthetics built craftily by the hands of the unhinged dame.

Marry Me should be holding a cigarette while crossing its stockinged legs before a private detective in a musty office in East Hollywood. It comes from a land of black velvet and bright red lipstick. It is dreary, unintimidated and willing to kick anyone who steps in its way in the balls, then with a snap of a watch clasp it is bright and inspiring and you find yourself curled up in a ball held within its confident arms.

Like many records in which a young firecracker sings to the proletariat in a voice that inspires creation, Marry Me very well could change the earth we walk on. “Not so! …How so?” you may say. Well, this St. Vincent record is not entirely dissimilar to Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Not because it is a socially shaking piece of revolutionary political propaganda, but more because it makes people sit up straight and listen a bit more intently to what is being said. “Oh, this is intriguing,” “Hmmm… that sounds quite nice.” “Me oh my, let me hear that again.” — all statements heard at the Echo the other week when I saw St. Vincent perform to a crowd of under-dressed, seemingly non-political, bright-eyed youngsters. I imagine similar statements being made by similar crowds in 19th century Germany. St. Vincent has undoubtedly inspired a young lady in Omaha to start painting watercolors, or a young man in the south of France to climb back on his bicycle, or an absent minded socialist in Queens to preach the teachings of Marx again. The music turns that way.

Who knows if Annie Clark writes with such intentions. That’s how dames are — darkly-piebald, mysterious, cloaked behind a seductive mask built of hard knocks and whisky-breath. Clark is no different, at least that would be my guess.

St. Vincent Official Site