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  st. vincent
  "voi"

  (GROSCD001)
  

  

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  This is the re-print of the 7 track cd entitled "Voi" from 1996 by ST VINCENT. It's not new and improved, just available yet again after being gone for very long. It is available for download at the "BC"-link above or the CD from this site. This is a limited CD edition of 300 copies. It has been called illbient, dark ambient, dark industrial, and so forth, but it is fairly obvious that it is experimental. It reveals steady beats based on machines, sampled voices, distorted sounds, low rumbles and no vocals per se.
• St. Vincent is the brain child of Welch poet/performance artist Sainte, The Preachers Of Neverland vocalist N. Vincent and Preachers Cath Records office employee Wen "Wendy" Choe. The combination of artists was as bizarre as it was explosive.
• The band had a lot of fun, but weren't very productive, so the first album took a year to complete. In 2009 it was settled; the group had enough material to complete a second album. Legal reasons forced them to consider a new name. This new name is SAINTE VINCENT. Pronounced the same as before, but is now considered a hommage to Sainte himself: Sainte was found dead in a hotel room in Germany in 2013. While it has been confirmed there are still no details as to what happened.
• Below is a statement about Sainte and his impact on this world.
• Sainte (1972-2013)
  "John Michael -_-_-_- (?) aka Sainte was born in 1972 in Ireland in the worst possible of situations for a child and the family immediately relocated to London, England. In 1974, however, something happened and they were forced to give up the child to relatives in Wales, never to see him again. The boy had a somewhat happy life in the small town, but became restless during puberty. As a teenager with the potential trauma of losing his parents in mysterious circumstances early on the calm little village proved nothing but a great bore. It was then when he started to travel."
  Everybody has a wiki this or a wiki that. I found this on some wiki thingy for writers, poets, artists, sculptors and performance artists. I was asked to do this and I don't have a clue as to how to proceed, even though I am obliged to do it. So let's play 20 questions!
  Who wrote the wiki? When was it written? When was the last update? Is it true?
  I have no idea when, why, how or who wrote it. It could be Sainte himself for all I know, but I don't think he'd do that. He wanted fame but he didn't want to be famous or something. The article had something to do with him being a performance artist, but I can't seem to remember what he did. It was something about wrapping a house in plastic? Tin foil? His poetry I had read, but nothing I remember even though I seem to remember that it wasn't at all bad. He did have some really crazy ideas about how to do things and look at music from a completely different angle that I did. He claimed to be a performance artist and at the time I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I soon realized how one could benefit from it. He would suggest various ways to set up an interesting stage and very innovative ways to perform concerts. He’d talk about turning your back on the audience or putting dolls instead of musicians on the stage. Since he wasn’t a musician, he of course wanted to understand it and the easiest way, he told me, was to combine it with what he knew.
  How well did I know him?
  Not very well, actually. Well enough to record 3 albums with him, obviously, but not well enough to call him a close friend. This is probably a bit sad, because he was pretty funny to be with. He was an interesting person and had some really interesting ideas. If you worked with him, he'd talk to you about them. If you needed to talk over a pint or two or three (let's make it an even four!), he'd be there and if you wanted to talk creative things, he was your man. But he would only analyze and suggest, never use input of his own ideas or compare with himself. He'd be very helpful helping you with your problems, but never ever talk about his own. He'd only sit there snugly when it was obvious that he had managed to help you.
  How did I meet him?
  I met him through Wendy. I worked with her on and off at Preachers Cath Records because she used to travel a lot. We'd let her, because she'd promise to spread the word about our records. Obviously she did. She met Sainte on one of these little journeys, Germany I think. They were never officially a couple, but I always had my doubts. The more they hung out the less they stayed in touch with me. They started travelling together, but both had a restless streak and a creative side, so they began meddling with music. None of them had any clue what they were doing and that was a pretty okay recipe. Sainte found some very interesting sounds and Wendy fooled around with them until she found some sort of beat in them. You'd never hear the beat unless you knew they were there, though! They only had one problem, which was putting all the sounds together. Wendy said that she'd remember me talking about how I was better arranging songs than composing them, so she called me up. When we finally met she introduced him as "the saint" and I said "So this is an actual saint?" and he replied "Mr Vincent, I presume?" The chemistry was there right away and the band name too, I'd say. By the way, I welcome the name change to SAINTE VINCENT, because I think SAINTE VINCENT honors him more than it saves us from a law suit. So the deal was, they'd come up with sounds, noises and loops and I'd put them together along with any ideas I might have. We'd send e-mails, tapes and cd’s back and forth and we hardly ever met in the process. It was very time consuming and I started to doubt the whole thing, but they'd be very serious indeed! The next album took even longer.
  While Sainte and Wendy travelled the globe and had a generally good time, I stayed at home working with this and that and since we met so very briefly, although intense when we did, I never really felt I knew him that well.
  Did I like him?
  Yes, I did actually. Very much, in fact! Had he only decided to stay in the same place for more than a week at a time I think we could have become really good friends. At the same time I liked his zany madcap ideas about art and music.
  Do I miss him? Do I really want to answer that?
  Yes, I miss him in my own peculiar way. By that I mean that I missed him before he passed away. What I do think is a great tragedy, is that he didn’t get to show the world what he was capable of. He had so many cool ideas that will now go nowhere. My suspicions that he and Wendy may have put on some shows down in Europe means nothing. Had they done that, I know that I would’ve heard about it one way or another.
  Do I know what happened?
  I tried to get a hold of his relatives, but I don’t know where to look. I tried to talk to Wendy, but she's gone. Someone said she went back to China. I tried to get a hold of some of his mates that I also played with in Teeth, but I don’t even know which country they live in.
  No, I don't know what happened, but I think I know what didn't happen; Drugs and/or alcohol. I will not believe that he overdosed anything consciously or by accident. He was not that hard a drinker and he didn't seem to like meds or illegal drugs.
  All I know is that something is missing and the world doesn't know it.
  Nick.

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