AnOther

* 2012
* 2016

**Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, is a 23-year-old Montreal based musician and an encyclopedia for all things pop culture, from K Pop to Madonna, internet art to the songs of the Disney Princesses...**

MARCH 05, 2012

TEXT AnOther

“The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley is the re-telling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the female characters. When I first read it I was ten or 11-years-old and it shocked me because it was so graphically sexual and violent. At the time I was attending a Catholic elementary school, and it was my introduction to paganism (in other words, the gate-way to my pre-teen ‘witch’ phase and subsequent years of unpopularity). The best part is when Arthur kills a stag, rubs the blood all over himself, and has sex with his sister, Morgan Le Fey (I’m sure it’s a horrible misrepresentation of the Beltane rites). I was disturbed but obsessed because it was so inappropriate and we didn’t have sex-education in my school and I’d never encountered it before. It’s got the same page-turning quality as Harry Potter and it’s the second-best fantasy book of all time."

**Claire Boucher**, better known as Grimes, is a 23-year-old Montreal based musician and an encyclopedia for all things pop culture, from K Pop to Madonna, internet art to the songs of the Disney Princesses. She reads feminist literature, knows her fantasy novels, directs her own videos, is fascinated by fashion, holds (part of) a science-art degree, has a brother who’s a rapper and makes her own genre-spanning music. Proudly describing herself as “post internet” due to the number of influences she has, Boucher started working under the name Claire-slash-Alex and since becoming Grimes has produced two albums for Montreal label Arbutus (2010’s Geidi Primes and 2010’s Halfaxa), plus a split EP with her friend d'Eon for Hippos in Tanks (2011’s Darkbloom). This month she will release Visions, an amphetamine-heavy recording full of unexpected sounds. Apparently produced on Garage Band, it’s as dark as it is fun, as tough as it is beautiful.

*Visions by Grimes will be available nationwide March 12.*

Text by Sian Rowe

### Interview

**Mercurial musician Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, has a taste in literature that's as far-reaching as her own sonic universe. Here, she selects five of her most influential reads**

FEBRUARY 19, 2016

TEXT Claire Boucher

**1) The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky**

“I really relate to the particular type of mental instability that Dostoyevsky describes in pretty much all of his work. A character starts talking, and things start getting out of control and become increasingly animated, intense and disturbing. It reads like an extreme version of how I feel whenever I have to interact with humans. The Idiot is probably my favourite of his works, because I love Nastasya Filipovna, Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin, Rogozhin... I think a lot of my friends think I’m a bit like Nastasya! Anyway, it’s the most cartoonish and absurd of everything I’ve read by Dostoyevsky, and the best distillation of insanity as a virtue. A Baz Luhrmann-esque treatment of this book would make an incredible film.”

**2) The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck**

“For some reason I became enraptured by this book as a teenager. It smelled really amazing and dusty. I think our copy was from the 1940s and the pages would crumble as I turned them. I’ve never been so careful while reading a book, and I think that really endeared it to me. I’m very calmed by methodical descriptions of farming. The images of opium addiction amongst the wealthy Chinese aristocracy, who ‘smoked the flesh off their bones’, always come back to my mind; it’s so decadent and horrifying.”

**3) Solaris by Stanislaw Lem**

“This book scared the shit out of me. I picked it up after watching the film adaptation by Tarkovsky, which is one of my favourite movies. Sometimes I feel like the only explanation for human life is that our planet is a terrible god. I like thinking that planets are living, sentient behemoths that we completely misunderstand. I’m horrified to think what it would be like if such an abstract sentience had no regard for us, or enjoying toying with us. The act of repeatedly killing a doppelganger or a loved one seems so horrific; how could anyone think of something so awful? Whenever people pour cream into coffee in a clear glass, it reminds me of this book, because that’s what I imagine the surface of Solaris to look like.”

**4) My Fight/Your Fight by Ronda Rousey**

“I was so touched by this book. I relate to Ronda in such an intense way, like I’ve almost never related to anybody my age – at least in the media. As a female producer who won’t work with co-producers, sometimes I feel like I don’t have any peers. When I first discovered Ronda, I was so moved that she was literally responsible for women entering the Ultimate Fighting Championship; that she walked into a man’s world and made it her own, even though everybody acted like she was crazy and didn’t think she could do it, or claimed that she only got there because of her looks. Everything, from being constantly exhausted because of eating issues, to the shame at being considered too masculine, to having no coach or mentor willing to train you, is something I have dealt with being a woman in a man’s industry. I also completely understand the commitment to being an entertainer whilst simultaneously perfecting your craft, and the kind of vitriol that this inspires from people on either end of the spectrum. Her dedication to being an autodidact, and the degree to which she has to train mentally to deal with the long hours and exhausting work, really struck me as both instructive and deeply relatable. This book changed my life, and made me feel so much less alone. I think all girls should read it.”

**5) The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire**

“I’m not typically interested in poetry, but I discovered The Flowers of Evil in high school as I was just becoming a goth and getting into Trent Reznor – and everyone else was getting into the Beat poets, who I find comparably boring if we’re going to discuss druggy, surrealist poetry. This work is so visceral, filthy and gorgeously written. It feels like a distillation of the opium scenes from Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth, but more abstract and extensively documented. This one poem is just a disgusting, sexual description of a corpse that is permanently burned into my mind.”

*This feature is extracted from the Document section of AnOther Magazine S/S16, guest-edited and illustrated by Grimes, edited by Hannah Lack.*

### Photoshoot

UntextedUntexted[1]
 BTS

### Credits

Photography: Craig McDean

Photography Assistance: Nick Brinley, Maru, Teppei Maruoka, Kris Shacochis

Digital Tech: Nicholas Ong

Styling: Alex White

Stylist Assistance: Julia Virkler, Jayme Miller, Victor Cordero, Felicia Logozzo

Hair: Orlando Pita for Orlo Salon

Hair Assistance: Quenton Barnette

Make-Up: Diane Kendal

Make-up Assistance: Caoilfhionn Gifford

Set Design: Stefan Beckman at Exposure NY

Set Design Assistance: Yoni Zonszein, Michael O'Connor

Manicure: Megumi Yamamoto at Susan Price NYC

Post Production: Gloss Studio

Clothing and Footwear: VETEMENTS

Studded Belt: VETEMENTS

Swarovski Crystal and Vintage Bottle-Cap Vermeil Fringe Cuff: Erickson Beamon

Brass and Gold Chain Bracelet: LOEWE

**[1]** Photography: Alex White

## References

1. ↑ https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/1814/musician-grimes-on-fantasy-fiction
2. ↑ https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/8394/grimes-the-books-that-made-me