St. Vincent – Actor || Music Review
In her second outing, St. Vincent’s Annie Clark says she’s making “a metaphor for the whole artistic mindset.” Through the telling of what she calls “little meta moments” Clark presents the image of an artist’s desperate endeavor. These “meta moments” are little more than an admirable attempt at this theme as the record never quite grasps the struggling artist message. Yet an alluring album gradually comes into full bloom as the quirky turns and oddball moods become more and more homey.
After one trip through Actor it is painfully obvious that this album was written in Apple’s GarageBand. The drum beats are generic, reeking of rotten Apple Loops. This gives many of the songs the effect of feeling small rather than spacious. It sounds like Clark is trapped inside a laptop. It would be easy to attribute this sound to her desire to convey the cage of artistic endeavor, or perhaps the anxiety of suburban life as imparted in “Black Rainbow.” However this feels like a manufactured causal relationship. There’s more evidence to support Clark’s use of strings pads and orchestra samples as the foundation to Actor, with the melodies and lyrics following behind. To ascribe a deeper meaning to the use of a laptop orchestra would be…
