Yesterday, oddball rocker St. Vincent (a.k.a. Annie Clark) joined popular music radio personality Annie Mac‘s show on BBC Radio 1 from Maida Vale Studios in London for a special acoustic performance. The radio spot in support of her new album, MASSEDUCTION, which was released to positive reviews this past Friday.
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After welcoming the idiosyncratic St. Vincent to the show and joking about their shared first name, Mac invited Clark to perform her first of three songs, a beautifully stripped-down guitar-and-voice rendition of haunting single “Los Ageless.” “This song was haunting me,” she explains about her first song, ‘Los Ageless,’ “The [melody] popped into my head a year ago and I thought ‘oh this is real good, I hope it’s not taken.’ And I rushed back to L.A. to get it recorded.”
From there, the two speak about Clark’s songwriting process for the new album, her touring schedule, which Mac remarks looks quite extensive, but Clark informs her is “me taking it easy.” She also spoke about taking inspiration from New York City (where she’s lived for a decade) and the greats like Lou Reed, Patti Smith, and David Bowie that walked the East Village streets before her before playing her second acoustic original, “New York.”
Finally, St. Vincent closes the radio spot with an acoustic rendition of The Clash‘s iconic anthem “London Calling,” to which she lends her striking and enthusiastically other personal flare. As she explains, “There’s a little band called The Clash, and they have a little song called ‘London Calling,’ and I’m going to play that one for you.”
You can listen to full audio of St. Vincent’s appearance on Annie Mac’s BBC Radio 1 show below:
Stream MASSEDUCTION in its entirety below via Spotify:
[h/t – Pitchfork]