Melena Ryzik on St. Vincent

"In the video for her new single, 'Actor Out of Work,' the singer and multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent sits in a cavernous room and holds auditions, trying out a steady stream of rubber-faced performers, all of whom eventually break down under her unyielding, if lovely, gaze. 'A lot of people got confused and thought I was so mean that I made people cry, which was not what I intended,' she said, explaining to the crowd at a recent show in TriBeCa that the action had been staged. 'But I sort of like it.' She picked up her guitar and played the song, a fuzzed-out rocker with a humming melody from her sophomore album, 'Actor,' released this week by Beggars/ 4AD. Alone onstage in a black party dress and red-red lipstick, St. Vincent — offstage she goes by Annie Clark — was all concentrated thrash. She padded over to the piano for the next song. … A few days later, over breakfast at Marlow & Sons … Ms. Clark explained her aesthetic. 'I like things that are unsettling or a little bit creepy,' she said. Her stage name was inspired by the hospital where Dylan Thomas spent his last hours. 'It’s the place where poetry comes to die,' she said, joking. 'That’s me'" ("Friendly, and Just a Bit Creepy," New York Times, 5/7/09).