TheBrooklyn-based songwriter has some seriously refined guitar chops, thanks to athree-year stay at Berklee College of Music and time in Sufjan Stevens backingband and the mega-group Polyphonic Spree. Her latest record, 2009’s Actor, combines her shared love forDisney soundtracks and audacious solos. Elegance and swagger are the main drawshere, and Clark plays the role perfectly.Album opener “The Strangers” highlights what she does best: classicalintroduction mixed with tranquil submissiveness that transforms into a raging,heavily distorted guitar riff. It fittingly opened the night.
Although herfour-piece band, which interchanged violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute andsynths, clustered some songs with a cacophonous wall of sound, they provided anextra punch to the night’s sole unrelenting rock anthem, “Actor Out of Work.”But an endearing rendition of the Jackson Browne-written “These Days,” whichshe called a folky cousin to Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day,” and a starktake on her desolate track, “Paris Is Burning” from 2007’s Marry Meboth performed soloproved that Clark can play both cuteand irascible even without a supporting cast.
“The Bed,” whichpits a valiant hero armed with a Smith and Wesson against nocturnal monsters,sounded like a children’s nighttime lullaby lifted from a Tim Burton film.“Black Rainbow” played on the same frightful aspect, with an abrasive closingcrescendo similar to something you’d hear at the climax of a creepy horrorflick. The night closed with Clark at her mostdevilish on “Your Lips Are Red,” as she was lit with red stage lights. It’s hermost rollicking tune, but even so it doesn’t end on a predictable note. Insteadof ending it abruptly, she diverges into a soothing denouement, merging theabrasiveness with calm.
Photo by Cj Foeckler
