Quick Before it Melts

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Infinite ♡ without fulfillment

I had a chance to become familiar with Montreal-based artist Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, last year when her album Halfaxa was being considered for Polaris nomination, and she struck me as someone of great potential and mystery.  She comes from a scene where the only rules are ones you allow yourself to set, so it’s no surprise that her every movement seems unencumbered by fashion, fad, or fame.  She’s attracted a lot of attention that way, and deservedly so, for her music can be approached from a number of different angles: pop, punk, performance, post-everything.

As Grimes prepares for the release of Visions, Boucher’s fourth release in less than two years, and the first for her new global label, 4AD (at home in Canada, Grimes records will continue to come out on Arbutus Records, the Montreal label/collective she’s been a part of for some time now), it seems her performance world is colliding with yet another: popular culture.  Currently the blogosphere it girl, the first offerings from Visions are showing up everywhere, making it hard to ignore her.  And who would want to?  That ethereal voice of hers, her instinctive pop sensibilities, the cathartic and passionate work she pours into each piece, like they were objects being prepared for presentation in a museum rather than CD pressings, all hard to forget once you’ve heard them.  And so here I am, wading into the fray and picking up the Grimes banner and waving it in my little corner of the world (wide web).  Visions will be available on February 21, via the channels noted above.  Check out “Oblivion” and “Genesis” below.  I had intended, but never got around to writing about Halfaxa, so if you like these new tracks, please go and check out Halfaxa, too, because there are some amazing moments on there that are too good to miss.  Arbutus offers the album as a donate-what-you-want download (along with a a number of their other releases) here.

MP3: Grimes “Genesis”
MP3: Grimes “Oblivion”
Facebook: Grimes
Twitter: Grimes

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by J. Di Gioia | No Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 7:00 am and is filed under LiSTEN, MP3. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.