Listen: St. Vincent - Birth in Reverse

St. Vincent has spent the last week teasing the artwork and sound of her forthcoming, major label debut St. Vincent, mainly via both a teaser video and by sharing abstract pieces of the album cover artwork across her Facebook and Twitter pages. The record is due out on February 25th, 2014 via Republic/Loma Vista (a Universal subsidiary) and Annie Clark has just shared the first single-proper from the release.

Called 'Birth in Reverse' the song reinforces the dedication St. Vincent has paid to driving, orchestral melodies on Actor and Strange Mercy, and marries it to the gut-wrenching distortion from recent single 'Krokodil'. If this single is exemplary of the whole album, St. Vincent continues her thematic exploration of traditional social paradigms and being isolated from them, and she noted in the press release that she wanted to "make a party record you could play at a funeral", which reinforces the aforementioned dichotomy.

St. Vincent recently won Smithsonian magazine's 2013 Ingenuity Award in Performing Arts, and in an interview with the magazine noted she recorded this album in the same way she has approached previous work; by treating it like a day job. You can read our interview in which she describes the recording process for Strange Mercy over here, listen to 'Birth in Reverse' below and download it over at her website.