Mood swing

The new St Vincent album jumps from tranquility to mania in the strum of a distorted chord. "I'm a pretty nervy person," Annie Clarke tells SINÉAD GLEESON

THE START of a much-interrupted interview with Annie Clarke aka St Vincent involves a fiddly conference call with hold music that wouldn't sound out of place on her new album. Listening to funked-up muzak synths not unlike an inferior Prince B-side, she announces herself breathlessly. "Thanks for staying up so late," begins the singer, who is crossing a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a cab and, despite signal dropouts and a lost driver, is gamely fielding questions. This week, she's busy rehearsing for an upcoming tour to promote Strange Mercy.

It's her third album, and while many tropes of her previous work still linger – the melancholic romanticism of Marry Meand the sinister soundtracks of Actor– this is definitely a new departure.

"I think this record is more accessible than the last two. There are more points of entry. I really wanted to come at things from a new perspective. For Actor, I wrote a lot of things on the computer, but for this album, I went to Seattle and was alone for a month, so I sat with my guitar or piano and just wrote songs. It sounds counter-intuitive, but I haven't written songs in such a traditional style for a long time. You have to find where the emotional narrative is and once you have that, a song will tell you what the arrangement should be. I was also trying to leave more room for the listener."

There is a definite sense of space, but that pendulum swing Clarke is so fond of is still present. Songs Cheerleaderand Neuteredstart off straightforwardly reflective and then hairpin around themselves. Everything changes, the music gets queasily discordant and the tone and mood shifts suddenly. In musical terms, she can go from tranquility to mania in the strum of a distorted chord. Never one to shy away from newness, there's a lot of risk-taking on this record.

“There is?” she laughs. “Great! Although, I know what you mean. One way I explain that switch is that I’m a pretty nervy person. I started having panic attacks when I was quite young.

“Things could be going along swimmingly and then something comes out of nowhere and shakes things up.

“That’s how I lived for years”. She laughs nervously. “I wasn’t a social misfit, I was able to keep my crazy hidden enough to be normal.” Immediately she realises what she’s saying and how it could be misconstrued, and laughs even more.

"Wait, I'm not crazy. I know 'crazy-crazy' and I'm decidedly not that. I have obsessive thoughts and can be anxious, or nervous. When I enter a room, I like to know where the exit signs are," she says, echoing a a line from her song The Party). These feelings are more under control now, Clarke says – music and performing have helped.

At this point, she detours into a music shop to get her 67 Harmony Bobkat guitar “a very proletariat guitar, but my favourite” set-up. While her albums are populated with woodwind, strings, brass and laptop flourishes, it always comes back to the guitar.

But Clarke has never played it in a conventional way (often beating it with her fist), and whether its a ‘79 Hagstrum or a Silvertone Esplanade she plays in an almost contradictory way to everything else going on in a song.

“I was interested in making catchy hooks, and my idea of catchy is probably different from everyone else. I wanted big riffs and more linear guitar. I’ve never been a fan of guitar being a secondary afterthought to a voice. Nile Rodgers’ guitar-playing and production have also been a big influence. It’s so compelling how he puts these interlocking parts together.”

Would she have considered asking Rodgers to produce Strange Mercy? "He's so great. If I didn't have such a great rapport with John [Congleton, who produced Actor], I might have. I adore John personally and musically. We're kind of freaks in a similar way, we finish each other's sentences. It's probably how people describe a good romantic relationship, I guess."

As well as Congleton, also returning on this album is Midlake's McKenzie Smith on drums. Clarke also drafted in Brian LeBarton, Beck's musical director and Bobby Sparks, a renowned gospel musician, who has worked with Prince and played mini Moog, clavinet, Arp and Wurlitzer. "Oh, he's a serious player," says the singer, "on Chloe in the Afternoonhe really went for it with all this crazy riffing. John and I joked that he put that song in the key of Q because it's sexy and disorientating".

If the music evokes a disorienting mania, there is simplicity to the lyrics. Marry Mewas full of open-book declarations, while Actor, was suitably named because many of the sentiments were fictionalised. "The key to this one was way more emotional honesty than before. 2010 was a very tough year personally, so I approached making the record by reminding myself that making music is way easier than, say, losing a family member... God, I'm giving you the most morbid interview ever. . . 2010 was very high highs and very low lows in my personal life".

Clarke is 28 and was born into a large Catholic family (she has Irish connections). Recently, online talk surfaced about the fact that she was spotted wearing what looked like a wedding ring during a live version of Tom Waits' Big Black Mariah.

"Wait, I thought wedding rings went on the right hand! See? There are bits of intrinsic feminine knowledge that I managed to miss out on. Some people want to be married and have kids by the time they're 30, but that's not me. I'm more of a vagabond in spirit. I'd rather do this thing that I've always wanted to do rather than the settling down/having a family thing." (Anyone watching her new video for Cruelwill get her drift).

Commitments like that would lean heavily on an already hectic life and schedule. Clarke has had some time off, but cites David Mamet’s quote about not liking vacations (“because there’s nothing to do”).

In 2009, we met in her dressing room after a Grizzly Bear gig and despite the hour, she was working on a new song on her Mac. “I remember that. Oh jeez, when you put it like that, I sound like a workaholic. But, I do think it’s about putting in the hours. There is magic to be had, but it’s intermittent, so when it happens it’s the best thing. ”

Clarke would love to work on a film soundtrack and waxes lyrical about Terence Mallick's recent Tree of Life, and Errol Fog of WarMorris. In the last year, she has taken to covering Big Black's Kerosene live, and may play it at her upcoming Dublin show. "I was a big fan of Steve Albini's work as an engineer, especially on Breeders', Pixies and PJ Harvey albums. I only actually discovered Big Black quite recently and I was like 'how did I not know about this stuff?' I thought the best way to honour that song was just to unleash on it. There's no merit in doing a clever deconstruction of it, it should be an assault and be as bloody as possible. I had the best time doing that and I got to unleash a lot."

* Strange Mercyis out now on 4AD. St Vincent plays The Workman's Club on November 13