The Province/Interview

===Interviewhttps://fyeahgrimes.tumblr.com/post/17663459420/going-in-a-dance-direction===
Local electronic artist’s Visions unlike previous releases
 
By Stuart Derdeyn, The Province February 15, 2012
Claire Boucher (a.k.a. Grimes) is in a rush to go meet her dad for a walk.
The 23-year-old Montreal-based electronic artist doesn’t get out to her hometown of Vancouver that often since her career began taking off with her third album Dark Bloom, a shared release with producer d'Eon. That CD spawned the song “Vanessa.” An engaging and very popular video for it introduced audiences to the happier and developed dance style she was mining following some more-ambient sounding albums. It reaches full fruition on her latest release, Visions.
Not only has the album been pegged by tastemaking websites such as Pitch-fork and Flavorpill as one of the hot releases of 2012, it led to her being signed to the influential label 4AD (home of Grammy Award-winner Bon Iver).
“I needed to make music that worked at the kind of shows I was playing, such as raves, where you just don’t get the ecstasy-fuelled crowd’s attention going on stage at 5 a.m. and playing a bunch of slow, weird ambient sounds,” says Grimes. “This time I took every-thing into this dance direction and filtered it into this incredibly gratifying pop music that had being enjoyable at its heart.”
Not that she’s going all Guetta or any-thing. The same “ghetto vibe” that she describes on her “mic-to-computer” debut Geidi Primes is still there in the off-kilter blip beat of “Circumambient” or gothic chorus of “Skin.” It’s just that the production is far more fetching and the booty shaking loaded into tunes such as “Oblivion” and “Be a Body” undeniable.
“I recorded it all using hardware with no midi and understood the recording process so much better this time. Also, I mixed it in studio with my manager, who is a producer and that was a first. It really came out fully fleshed with all the parts where I wanted them to be, which was cool.”
Her entire creation process is one of trial and error. Boucher doesn’t read or write music and came to her studio chops through practice and playing around with gear because all of her friends were making music. Her live show is usually solo with her singing, looping her vocals live, playing key-boards and trying to engage the crowd, too. The North American tour with Born Gold gives her a backing band in the process and it’s one she would love to be able to maintain.
“I haven’t gone and made an album that I can’t play live, but a lot of songs I’ve made just won’t translate into a performance setting. It’s a lot easier with more people and opens up the possibility of adding in some of those songs. But for now, I’m doing the European tour solo.”
Deeply in love with her previous label Arbutus, the realities of moving from a complete crew of two to a team of people involved in distribution, tour booking and so on is looking good.
“In the ‘90s, people might have said something about selling out. But the environment has changed so much and I feel like we’re in an age where every-one is so poor that it’s sort of under-stood why you sign with a label: 'I really like to eat.’ That’s why I moved to Montreal. The only reason I can live in Vancouver sometimes is because I’m in my parents’ basement and so many people I know are doing that. It’s a little bit depressing.”
For now it’s life on the road with, hopefully, an Asian tour to follow North America and Europe.Category:Interview
Category:2012