One Small Atomic Bomb

We’re working our way (I’m working my way?) up to newer music on this blog, but as we’re just getting started I feel compelled to point out all of the great music I’ve accumulated over the last few months/years. Also, we currently have zero audience so it’s all relative I suppose.

Regardless, I feel like just as the internet has opened me up to a multitude of new music, it’s also made it that much harder to focus on any one particular new artist. Often times I’ll find two or three new albums in one day and I don’t always give them the attention that I should. That said, this is one album that sucked me in from the first track and quickly distinguished itself from the masses of my iTunes playlist.

I picked up Marry Me by St. Vincent sometime in 2007, and even as I skip through any number of great albums, there is not a song on this album that I cannot listen to all the way through. I had the fortune of seeing them a few months ago at the Rock and Roll Hotel in DC, and the even greater fortune of being able to snag a place right up in front of the stage.

Now, to be fair, I cannot safely say how much of that performance was great because of the music and how much was simply the fact that I could not look away from Annie Clark’s super-intense eyes (even in pictures, it’s impossible to look away, and if you don’t believe me, check out the video below). Either way, this former (and current?) member of the Polyphonic Spree has a solo album that is packed with inventive instrumentation and even more inventive lyrics (”Your lips are red / My face is red from reading your red lips”).

What strikes me most about the music is Annie’s guitar. I can’t quite articulate what makes it so special, but there’s a certain controlled yet absolutely free sound that surprises me every time. You’d think at some point that the electric guitar couldn’t surprise you, but then you hear a song like “Jesus Saves, I Spend” and it’s like hearing the instrument again for the first time.

St. Vincent - Jesus Saves, I Spend

St. Vincent - Your Lips are Red: