MUSIC PREMIERES
There’s usually plenty of theatrics to St. Vincent gigs. The ‘Masseduction’ tour explored power, control and lust via PVC suits, a never-ending supply of guitars while the run of shows to celebrate the sugary; ‘70’s-inspired ‘Daddy’s Home’ were driven by a warm spontaneity as St Vincent and her extensive band worked through past trauma amidst (somewhat unfair) social media backlash.
She wanted something more direct and confrontational for seventh album ‘All Born Screaming’ though. “I’m gonna fuck ‘em up,” Annie Clark promised NME earlier this year. True to her word, tonight’s gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall is vicious, destructive, and pure electric.
Throughout the pulverising 90-minute set, Clark wields her guitar like a weapon and attacks the microphone with a restless urgency. Big, cathartic breakdowns teeter on the edge of chaos, but Clark and her four-piece band never let things fall apart completely. It’s gorgeous to watch, but it demands participation as well. With music this charged, there’s simply no standing on the sidelines.
In the years since St. Vincent last played London, co-writes with Taylor Swift (‘Cruel Summer’) and Olivia Rodrigo (‘Obsessed’) have taken over the airwaves, but instead of chasing an arena-sized glamour, ‘All Born Screaming’ is a visceral exploration of death, flecked with hope. That’s very much the mood of tonight’s gig as well.
From the crushing purge of opener ‘Reckless’ through the unsettling horror-infused ‘Big Time Nothing’ to the snotty ‘Flea’, St Vincent indulges in bleakness. It gives the glitching dystopia of ‘Los Ageless’, the soaring anxiety of ‘Fear The Future’ and the pleading ‘Marrow’ an added sense of despair, but there’s more to this show than rage in the dying light.
“Show of hands, who has a Prince Albert,” Clark asks with a smirk, immediately after praising the beauty of the grandiose venue while there’s a playful, choreographed turn from her and her guitarists during ‘Flea’.
“This song is for all the people who have loved immensely, stared at the moon, and taken that leap,” Clark says before a gorgeous ‘Sweetest Fruit’, a stripped back ‘Candy Darling’ is lush and delicate while even the unruly attack of ‘Broken Man’ is sprinkled with tenderness. As St. Vincent describes it, it’s “deep epic beauty and chaotic violence, all at the same time”.
After she dives into the crowd once more and embraces them for the soaring romance of ‘New York’, the night ends with ‘All Born Screaming’. On record, the twisting, furious track feels lethal but performed in front of a crowd, the song encourages a shared experience through collective pain and fear.
“We’re all here for one reason, and that reason is love,” Clark explains. “As far as I can tell, there’s no other fucking reason to do anything,” she adds, offering a vital protest against a world that feels increasingly dark.
‘Reckless’
‘Fear the Future’
‘Los Ageless’
‘Big Time Nothing’
‘Marrow’
‘Dilettante’
‘Pay Your Way in Pain’
‘Digital Witness’
‘Sweetest Fruit’
‘Flea’
‘Cheerleader’
‘Broken Man’
‘Krokodil’
‘Surgeon’
‘Hell Is Near’
‘Candy Darling’
‘New York’
‘Sugarboy’
‘All Born Screaming’
MUSIC PREMIERES
Four years on from the ‘Actual Life’ series lifting him into the mainstream spotlight, Fred Again.. continues to feel unavoidable. The London producer and DJ born Fred Gibson has moved at a relentless pace, bouncing between sold out stadium dates in New York and surprise appearances at Sheffield’s 1,000 capacity Forge, while also making history as the first electronic artist to top the bill at Reading and Leeds in 2024.
Where the ‘Actual Life’ releases and his fourth album, 2024’s ‘Ten Days’, leaned into warmth and joy pulled from ordinary moments, Gibson has also sharpened his instinct for high impact club weapons rooted in garage, dubstep and jungle. That side of his output lives on ‘USB’, an “infinite album” first imagined in 2022 as a home for tracks that exist outside any fixed universe, including defining moments like ‘Rumble’ and ‘Jungle’.
‘USB002’, the second vinyl only chapter of the ‘USB’ project, brings together 16 recent tracks, many of which surfaced gradually on streaming services over a ten week stretch. The music was shaped live, in step with ten unannounced DJ appearances across the world from Dublin to Mexico City. Even with a Glastonbury style registration system in place, The Times reported that 100,000 people tried to secure tickets for the opening night in Glasgow.
Appropriately, ‘USB002’ feels alive and constantly in motion, helped along by contributions from close collaborators such as Floating Points and Sammy Virji. The rigid, techno driven pressure of ‘Ambery’ echoes elements of Floating Points’ 2019 album ‘Crush’, while Gibson’s take on ‘The Floor’ builds like the slow climb of a rollercoaster before dropping back to earth without warning.
The guest list stretches beyond the usual dance circles, with two Australian guitar bands popping up in unexpected ways. ‘You’re A Star’ reworks Amyl and The Sniffers’ ‘Big Dreams’ into a breakbeat driven rush, while ‘Hardstyle 2’ pulls the experimental post punk edge of Shady Nasty into an Underworld adjacent space alongside Kettama. Gibson’s real trick is his ability to connect with anyone. These tracks are not reinterpretations but full takeovers.
The visual world wrapped around the ‘USB002’ rollout reinforces the instinct behind the music. Phones were prohibited at shows staged in vast warehouse spaces under sweeping light rigs, while Gibson’s team shared striking black and white footage and created artwork for each single on site. Bottling that sense of urgency, the project is rooted in the thrill of the present moment, something Gibson seems able to summon simply by turning up.
If the ‘Actual Life’ series and ‘Ten Days’ captured passing snapshots of experience, ‘USB’ is defined by constant movement, a space where boundaries are removed entirely. Sitting somewhere between an album and a playlist, ‘USB002’ underlines why Fred Again.. feels so dominant right now, and suggests that his current run may only be the beginning of something much bigger.
