St Vincent is continuing to build the hype ahead of her forthcoming album, ‘Daddy’s Home’.
Posting to social media earlier today (2nd March), Annie Clark shared a video clip showing her chasing after a ringing telephone. On answering it, she hears a voice reply “Hello, Annie”.
There’s then a phone number – ending in DADDY – with the instruction “CALL NOW!”.
Dear Reader, if someone tells you they’re Daddy and asks you to ring a strange number, we’d not usually recommend we follow that instruction. However, if you do, you’ll get told about a new single ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’. Oooo, etc.
That’s not the only teasing St. Vincent has been up to. She’s also sent out a ‘Daddy’s Home’ care package to a fan. Containing a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions (From the library of St. Vincent – with a contact email address), a rose and a comic strip. Seemingly describing the inspiration for the album, the latter reads:
“I saw my pops taken away by the US Government in May of 2010. What followed were weeks and months of heartbreak, reckoning, drinking, punctuated, thankfully, by music. I wrote the pain and ambivalence into “Strange Mercy” and released it in the fall of the following year, 2011.
“Throughout the years, as i continued to make music, I would be featured in glossy magazines, and perform on late night TV. My dad’s fellow inmates would put press clippings on his bed and gather around the old TV in the communal room to watch me play.
“When I would visit, if I wasn’t being sent away to a nearby Walmart to buy baggier trousers(there’s a strict dress code for women, you see), I would sign autographs on wadded up target receipts for inmates’ family members (there’s a strict policy on what you can and can’t bring in, hence no selfies). I jokingly bragged to my sisters that I had become that ‘Belle of the Ball’ at this federal prison.
“Over the years, I sent him books regularly. Madge Nelson, Evely Waugh, Malcolm X, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, Rachel Cusk, Meg Wolitzer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Claire Tomalin, Irene Nemirovski, Edwin St Aubyn, Ian McEwan. The camp had amassed a pretty respectable library. One day, one of the guards caught wind and removed it leaving only Tom Clancy and various versions of the bible. Apparently, a few days after the purge, two inmates were caught having sex in the bible study corner (we’re tight as a bible with the pages stuck with glue).
“My pops was released from prison in the winter of 2019, and I began writing ”Daddy’s Home”. He once told me the best way to lead your life was with ironic detachment, and I think that attitude saved him quite a lot of sorrow in the 10 years he was in prison. It has been hit and miss for me. So the journey that began at “Strange Mercy” would come full circle as I would return to the records my dad introduced to me as a kid. The records I have listened to probably more than any other music in my entire life. Music made in sepia-toned downtown New York from 1971-1975. Gritty, Grimy, Sleazy. The Italian shoe is on the other foot, so to speak.”
There also appears to be a snippet of lyrics, reading:
“Last night’s heels on the morning train… Bodega roses in my hand, down and out downtown… Bowery John, forgotten but not gone
Am I daddy’s girl? Am I daddy now? I guess we’ll see… but the fact remains…”
This all follows fly posters for ‘Daddy’s Gone’ found by fans last week, detailing a release date of 14th May via Loma Vista Records.
“Warm Wurlitzers and wit, glistening guitars and grit, with sleaze and style for days. Taking you from uptown to downtown with the artist who makes you expect the unexpected,” the poster reads.
“So sit back, light up and by all means have that bourbon waiting, because Daddy’s Home,” it concludes.
The posters also hint at a radical change in aesthetic direction for St. Vincent, following the bright neons of her previous album ‘MASSEDUCTION’. With a strong retro style, there’s even a suggestion – perhaps jokingly – that ‘Daddy’s Home’ will be made available via 8-track.
There’s no suggestion yet as to when we’ll get an official announcement, or hear music from the record, but rumours suggest we might have ‘Pay Your Way In Pain’ imminently.
