In the cover story for the February 2017 issue of Guitar World, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) teased an the follow-up to her “mundane futurism”-y (per Flavorwire’s own Tom Hawking) self-titled 2014 album. The article reveals will be released in Spring, 2017 — though no date’s been announced yet, nor has a title. However, what is revealed is that Clark really likes this thing. Which, well, any artist beginning to promote their next work should at least pretend to; but the way she talks about her writing process here makes it seem like for her, it stands out from the rest.
Describing it as a “real sea change” to her sound — which, it should be noted, certainly changed from the string-heavy floridness of Actor to the dead-eyed electricity of St. Vincent — she said she’s been able to “step back and reflect and not just be in the tour, record, tour, record cycle that I’ve been in for about 10 years.” She continues:
I think it’ll be the deepest, boldest work I’ve ever done. I feel the playing field is really open for creative people to do whatever you want, and that risk will be rewarded—especially now that we have such high stakes from a political and geo-political standpoint. The personal is political and therefore the political can’t help but influence the art. And only music that has something pretty real to say is gonna cut the mustard.
Guitar World has posted further bits of the interview online, but the full feature appears in the print version.
