The Underground of Happiness

As an adjunct to last week's mention of the new My Brightest Diamond album , some great new Take Away Shows of her ( Shara Worden ) with some friends have just been released by the wonderful La Blogotheque . This first film features her solo with guitar sitting at the bar of the Hotel MichelBerger in Berlin (sounds good so far, says you) singing a song she wrote for her son (if my French isn't mistaken). Apart from being achingly beautiful, it also shows the meaning of "inhabiting" a song, as opposed to simply singing it. Those tears aren't crocodile, girls. My Brightest Diamond | I Have Never Loved Someone | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo . This next one switches to New York (in the park, near water) and features Shara Worden and the yMusic Ensemble , who play extensively on the new album. There are actually two pieces of music here - first a song (she plays an autoharp and suppresses a smile, as if the director was trying to make her laug...

The great St Vincent will be playing in Dublin on November 13th, at The Workman's Club , as part of a 12-date European jaunt. In the meantime, her new album Strange mercy comes out on 4AD on Sept 9th. Her band for the tour will be Toko Yasuda (Blonde Redhead, Enon) on mini moog, Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainwright) on drums and Daniel Mintseris (Marianne Faithful) on keyboards. Exciting eh? Any excuse (none needed really) for some St Vincent video action. Here are three Take-Away Shows shot by Vincent Moon in Paris for La Blogotheque in 2007. Perched sideways on a railing on the street and still pulling off an intricate guitar pattern - what a woman she is. I love the way she eschews the French kissing-on-the-cheek etiquette there, entering the apartment (you ain't kissing me...). But as for St Vincent reclining on a bed purring " Marry me ", the less I say about that, the better, I think. And apart from the woman's musical (let's agree t...