musica es musica: Strange Mercy

Album Cover

          It’s like nightlife meets Space Invaders?  It’s poppy, rocky—definitely alternative, with some electronica, maybe glitchy, maybe hip-hoppy type of sounds, and sometimes kind of soft, yet sad and soulful, but somehow being energetic and heavy. Duffy-esque, Bjork-y? Sometimes. Unique—Always. Experimental—Yes. Fun—Oh yeah. Soooo, what the hell is it that I’m listening too and who’s responsible for this audible bewilderment? St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy—(with a little help from my friend…) a smorgasbord of sounds, genres, and textures all meshed together into a delightful buffet of musical wonderment.

The extraordinary woman herself.

          This is the third album (recently released) from Annie Erin Clark (who goes by the handle St. Vincent), an American born multi-instrumentalist. The album is a pleasure to listen to, though it is a pain to try and describe what exactly the album is as a whole because of St. Vincent’s skill at combining genres and use of many different instruments, vocal styles and effects. Though, there are some things I can say hold true for the entire album: It has a very cool feel to it—a sort of night time atmosphere, the music is solid with pretty much every beat sounding like it was placed purposefully, it is very unique, and while it may at first not seem too approachable, upon hearing it once, you are almost compelled to listen again. This is a great album in my opinion and you should give it a listen.

          Sidenote: I listen to a lot, A LOT of music and am really good at picking out good stuff but I’m probably one of the worst at describing why I like or dislike some music or even just describing it, which is why this musica es musica (and future) took so long and was so short.

          Anyway, I’ve provided some of my favorite tracks from the album after the jump. Have a listen.

Screenshot from her music video for Cruel off of her album Strange Mercy.

~The Videos~
(Sorry the volume is a little low and some of the video cut off short. My computer is messing up and I couldn't use the mp3 files for sound directly.)

Cruel

Cheerleader

Northern Lights

Strange Mercy

Neutered Fruit

          You can find this album on Amazon for $7.99 and use the code INDIE150 before the 28th of the month and get $1.50 off. For more instructions on how to use that code and to hear the opening song from the album click here.

Strange Mercy's Amazon link