St. Vincent performed her stripped-down rendition of “New York” during Jimmy Kimmel Live‘s Brooklyn residency Tuesday. The radical reworking of the track features on Annie Clark’s new album Masseducation, which reinterprets the songs off her 2017 LP Masseduction.
While the original take of “New York” boasted strings, multi-tracked vocals and a gentle beat, pianist Thomas Bartlett solely accompanied her for the elegant version she brought to Kimmel. Clark previously described Masseducation as “two dear friends playing songs together with the kind of secret understanding one can only get through endless nights in New York City.”
“Thomas and I faced each other – him, huddled over a grand piano, me, curled on a couch,” she said in a statement. “We neither rehearsed nor spoke about how to approach any song, but rather played two to three live takes, picked the best one and trusted in the feeling of the moment. It was fast, intuitive … raw.”
St. Vincent will hit the road this fall for a brief North American tour that begins Thursday in Guadalajara, Mexico.
