MUSIC REVIEW: GRIMES - 'VISIONS'

Claire Boucher Brings Unique Perspective to Electronica on Her New Album

By: Andrew Shaw

February 21, 2012

(4AD) Visions is the fourth release in just two years from Canadian DJ, producer, and vocal talent Claire Boucher, aka Grimes. As eclectic as she is prolific, there is a very definite sense of modernism about this album, not only in the instrumental approach and the swathes of dark beats that lace the whole thing together, but also in the range of influences and the way they’ve been curated to invent something entirely new.

With influences from a diverse selection of artists, there is something of the tumblr effect in composition. Points of reference come from all over; the airy vocal presence and melodic meter of Enya is tempered by some dark Aphex Twin-type beats that gnarl, glitch, and trip out all over the place. There is no brake-system, in terms of what is suitable content, but there is ultimate control in the way contrasting elements sit with one another. Grimes has eagerly curated this collection of pop culture symbols and, with the greatest of care, assembled an almost entirely new vocabulary. 

Beats are heavy yet still beg more bass. At times it’s as if the low end of these mixes was designed to shake nocturnal drinks from hands and powders from tables. Vibrations are deep, heavy, and certain. And good. Lyrical content is deliberately hard to get a handle on. Grimes treats her voice box as an instrument, not in an abstract sense, where self-conscious strains of sound are made. Instead, she explores choral tones, patches them together, loops, trips, and slides phrases over one another. At times, when lyrics become distinct, they suggest genuine openness and a kind of refreshing but not gushing vulnerability.

In “Skin,” weighing in at over six minutes long and the longest track on the album, Boucher doesn’t just explore soft tissues -- she expresses the sense of uncertainty of progress. “You act like nothing happened / But it meant the world to me” is a line that betrays any kind of external toughness which had been projected until the point of confession.

There’s a lot to do with fantasy here -- not in an explicit, sexy way, more in the manner of “this is how we imagine.” Issues of young adult life are handled, and with that, the projections and aspirations of nocturnal corridors and secret corners. This is where the stuff of life is acted out, acted upon, and alluded to. “Colour of Moonlight (Antiochus)” sounds like a track to be played when covering up the conversations and activities that the uninitiated just aren’t ready to hear. This is the soundtrack to the best version of any imagined night, when everything appears indestructible, but also somehow fleeting.

For all the darkness -- and there is a lot of darkness -- Visions is also an album that offers light in great shafts. “Vowels = Space and Time” washes in like something from the discos of 1984. Not the real 1984 or the state-oppressed fiction of 1984, but the 1984 of imagined memory. These are echoes from inside a room in which Madonna was always a virgin, and uncommon ideas are snuck in with smooth sounds and synthed handclaps. Maybe not quite dream-pop. Maybe narcotic-memory pop.

With each release, Grimes proves herself in new terms, and Visions is no different. It’s an album that, in one sense, offers contrast to previous releases. It sounds sort of different and feels unique within the larger frame. However, what it does accomplish is an underlining thread of why Grimes is especially worth paying attention to, not just in the here and the now, but also in the future.

Standout Tracks:  “Skin,” “Colour of Moonlight (Antiochus),” “Vowels = Space and Time”

For Fans Of: Glasser, Zola Jesus, Bjork, Destroyer