From the new Strange Mercy. 9/10 Pitchfork review here .
At 28, Clark seems to be sorting through her own existential artistic dilemmas. A champagne year is supposed to be celebrated when you turn the same age as the day you were born, but "Champagne Year" finds the singer-- born September 28, 1982-- in a decidedly non-bottle-popping mood. Her voice takes on a gorgeous creak on the nebulous ballad, as she sings, "I make a living telling people what they wanna hear/ It's not a killing but it's enough to keep the cobwebs clear." An almost-30 indie musician's lament? Perhaps. Meanwhile, the galloping "Hysterical Strength" employs some magical thinking while dealing with death. When Clark isn't bulldozing through time and space with her fretwork, she's contemplating her place with care. The balance is something to behold.
While Strange Mercy's more propulsive workouts-- including the single "Cruel", Clark's purest pop song to date-- are quick to snag attention, the slow burners hit just as heavily. The playful "Dilettante" combines the mutant funk of David Bowie's "Fashion" with the understated genius of D'Angelo's Voodoo, and has Clark possibly propositioning a prophet: "Oh, Elijah, don't make me wait/ What is so pressing that you can't undress me, anyway?" Closer "Year of the Tiger" is a stark summation of end-times capitalism in a recession-stuck United States. Sounding like a Wall Street swindler, she slithers, "Italian shoes like these rubes know the difference/ Suitcase of cash in the back of my stick-shift... Oh America, can I owe you one?" And the delicate title track involves a child, a father stuck behind prison glass, and a breaking point in the form of a refrain: "If I ever meet the dirty policeman who roughed you up, no I don't know what." Her threat here is not a gimmick or a subversion; it's irrational, confused, and real.
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