Since the release of her 2007 debut album, Marry Me, the Texan-born, guitar-shredding St. Vincent has continued to reinvent herself, dabbling in synth-pop, hard rock and everything in between. Like Bowie before her, she’s played with, and prodded at, the idea of persona. For the release of 2017’s Masseduction – a time she calls her ‘dominatrix at the mental institution’ era – she dressed only in latex, insisting journalists interview her (decidedly prickly) alter-ego inside a neon pink box. During 2021’s Daddy’s Home, she was a louche, 1970s gangster, in a flared two-piece and blonde bob wig. And for mockumentary The Nowhere Inn, directed by Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, she portrayed a heightened (and hideous) self-obsessed version of herself. ‘It wasn’t great for my career,’ she notes, dryly.
Wondering who St. Vincent would become next – and who she really is – has all been part of the game. But in 2024, that changed. Her eighth album, All Born Screaming, is a ferocious exploration of what it is to be alive; the sound heavier, the visuals dark and uncanny. She has ditched the costume and character and is, perhaps for the first time, just Annie Clark. Seventeen years into her career, we invite a truly shapeshifting artist to take the reins of Wallpaper* as guest editor to understand her multidisciplinary creative process, what fuels her fire, and where this bizarre road might take St. Vincent next.
