Exclaim!

* 2010
* 2012
* 2015

# Grimes Talks the "Medieval Times" of Halfaxa

*By Josiah Hughes*

*Published Sep 22, 2010*

Performing under the name Grimes, experimental Montreal-based songstress Claire Boucher released her first album, a collection of abstract, enchanted outsider pop, in January. Called *Geidi Primes*, the record brought Grimes a lot of acclaim as it spread across the blogosphere. Now, Boucher is preparing to release its follow-up with *Halfaxa*.

With *Halfaxa* marking Grimes second album to come out this year, Boucher credits this productivity to her uniquely intuitive writing process. "I'm not super proficient at playing any instruments, so generally when I write a song, I'll record it first and then I'll figure out how to play it," she explains in a recent Exclaim! interview. "The recording process is how I write it. I'll try a vocal line, it won't work so I'll delete it, and then I'll try another one. The recording will be done the day I write the song. In that regard, it's a really quick process for me."

Since writing and recording are a direct part of Boucher learning her way around musical instruments, she feels a little strange about *Geidi Primes*. "At this point I feel a bit embarrassed by my first album because I listen to it and it sounds really amateur," she confesses. "Since then, I figured out a lot of things about recording, like not to peak the microphone. I learned a lot about MIDI, and I learned a lot about time signatures than I knew on the first album. A lot of basic stuff that I should have known... On the first album I recorded everything on the white piano keys, but I figured out how to write on the black and white keys together, so it's more diverse."

In addition to the recording quality, *Halfaxa* also shows Grimes exploring new thematic territory. "This album is more like medieval times," she explains. "I feel like there's this vague aesthetic idea that pervades the album. It's not totally gimmicky, it's just sort of this weird abstract idea of what is medieval and what the dark ages would sound like if they could be interpreted in an electronic means... I want to combine the feeling of sitting in a beautiful church with a reverb-y choir, but I want to combine that with the feeling of dancing to really good music. They're both really animalistic interpretations of beauty but I wanted them to happen at the same time for the listener."

Grimes' *Halfaxa* will be released by Arbutus Records on September 30. The album's release will coincide with Grimes' performance at Pop Montreal for the Arbutus Records showcase on the same night (which also features Silly Kissers, Pop Winds and Blue Hawaii). Fans outside of Montreal can pre-order Halfaxa here and receive a free poster.

### Interview

**Grimes**

The Accidental Pop Star

*By Cam Lindsay*

*Published Feb 27, 2012*

No matter how tech-savvy she appears when producing music, conducting live performances or directing music videos, Claire Boucher refuses to join the 21st century and own a cell phone. "If I had a phone I would literally be answering the phone and text messages all the time," she explains from her father's Vancouver home over Google phone on her laptop. "That's one of the reasons why I got rid of my phone in the first place. I was having a nervous breakdown because I didn't have a life. Everyone I work with hates me because I don't have one."

For Boucher, relinquishing a phone is one of the few ways she's been able to keep some control of her life. "Everything I do is the exact opposite of what I want to do," she says. "I feel like I'm getting deeper and deeper into this insane thing I accidentally ended up doing. But it's pretty fun. It sounds like a complaint, but I just feel like I'm simultaneously Phil Spector cracking the whip and some poor girl being forced to do what he says. They both exist in my brain."

In the last few months, Claire Boucher's audio-visual project Grimes has received considerable attention in advance of her new album, *Visions*. She topped both *NME* 's "20 Most Exciting New Bands of 2012" and *Gorilla Vs. Bear'*s "Cool 2k11" list, was included as one of Stereogum's "50 Most Anticipated Albums Of 2012" and received the much-sought-after "Best New Music" rating from Pitchfork.

And then there was the announcement that arrived on New Year's Day that she had signed a worldwide deal with the esteemed 4AD Records, arguably the perfect fit for her surreal style of pop. (In Canada she will remain on Montreal's Arbutus Records, the label she has helped grow.)

No matter the accolades, the Montreal-based producer knows not to let the hype get the best of her. So, when she's called the coolest person in music by a taste-making MP3 blog, Boucher reacts with a self-deprecating tone. "I laughed and then thought I definitely wasn't as cool as Azealia Banks," she admits. "It's really nice of them. Gorilla Vs. Bear are my biggest supporters and I owe them a lot. But there are people on that list that are way cooler than I am. No one should ever get too comfortable with an idea of who they are. Press decides that you are this kind of meme, and that's how bands get fucked over." (Words one Lana Del Rey is currently living by.)

Grimes has described her multifarious music as "post-internet," but has recently abandoned the term, likely because it's followed her around like a bad stink. She told the *Guardian* that by "post-internet" she meant "the neurobiological difference between people who were born after the internet became a common, household thing and people who had their adolescence without exposure to the internet." Luckily for her, the term didn't turn into the next trip-hop or (gulp) witch house, the ill-fated subgenre that even Grimes has been mislabelled as.

Her third album, *Visions*, deserves its own genre, if not to celebrate her uniqueness, then to help people understand her ― for lack of a better word ― vision. The way Boucher sees it, the album incorporates influences "as wide as Enya, TLC and Aphex Twin, drawing from genres like New Jack Swing, IDM, new age, K-pop, industrial and glitch." That's definitely a tall order to fill, but her unique patchwork calls to mind the shapeshifting work of innovators like Animal Collective, Björk, Black Dice, the Knife and Kate Bush, whose influence seems obvious to everyone but Boucher herself. Last year she tweeted: "I don't listen to Kate bush, nor have I ever."

Truth be told, there's little to her music that is comparable to the work of others. Her trademark is her voice, which fluctuates between angelic falsetto and infantile cries, while her production is haunting, melodic, theatrical, danceable and spellbinding. It is a widescreen glimpse of what the future holds for pop music. And pop is where Boucher feels she belongs.

"I think what pop is lacking is experimentation and meaning," she explains. "Pop shouldn't be lowbrow and contained. A lot of music tends to be really accessible but emotionally limited, or pretty experimental. When I make music the number one priority is to feel good and then challenge listeners secondarily. I want it to be interesting and experimental because otherwise what's the point in doing it if you do the same shit every time?"

*Visions* finds that middle ground by introducing an array of unusual ideas and tethering them with the coherency and hooks that were missing from her previous releases.

"This is the first album that had a lot of intention behind it," she declares. "And it was the first album where I was able to think of something I wanted to do and do it. The other albums were more accidental. I would screw around and just keep the first vocal take on the record. This was also produced on a deadline, unlike before. I think the structural stuff just comes out of me obtaining an understanding of music, which is why it seems more accessible, but I really just think it's more coherent. Instead of just ambient, aimless mush, it's 'I'm going to bring back the chorus because I understand what a chorus is now.'

"*Visions* is the first album I've made that I felt okay about," she adds. "When I finished it I thought, 'this is a sick album.' Whereas, when I finished the other albums I didn't want to play them to other people, I was too nervous about them. It marks the point about me feeling competent about being a musician."

Becoming a musician was an unattainable idea during Claire Boucher's teenage years growing up in Vancouver. But when she began studying at McGill in Montreal, Boucher found herself assimilating into the city's vibrant music scene. She became part of a DIY arts community that gathered in the fertile Lab Synthèse, an illegal loft space used for gigs and recording, among other things. Though police shut the space down in November 2009, the seeds had been sown. (As for her studies, Boucher says, "I got kicked out and then tried to sign up for school in January of 2011 and it was not possible unless I paid a fine and reapplied. At that point I just saw it as an interference in my life.")

"All of my friends are musicians and slowly I became one because it seemed like the thing to do at the time," she explains. "This gave me the access to someone showing me how to record something. And all of the gear I used was just what my friends had. I'd say, 'How do I do this?' and then someone would show me. Like Raph [Standell-Preston] from Braids, I used the same pedal and keyboard as her. I really have to credit a lot of other people for how I learned to make music."

Boucher found that one of the only things she could offer friends in return for their assistance was grub. "With [labelmate] Flow Child, I traded him some food to come over to my house and show me how to use his sampler," she says. "I think I gave him a bunch of canned chickpeas. It wasn't a bad deal."

Like many amateur musicians, Grimes cut her teeth recording with Apple's GarageBand software. (She admits that she used it to record *Visions*, which is "really embarrassing," but has since moved on.) It was Animal Collective that inspired her to begin making loop-based music, which she was able to master in no time.

"I had this light bulb moment where I was listening to Panda Bear," she explains. "I realized what a loop was and how simple making music was if you based it off loops and just started doing that right away."

The first Grimes release was *Geidi Primes*, a hand-packaged cassette limited to 30 copies but offered as a free download in January 2010 by Arbutus Records (it was reissued on CD and vinyl in Europe via No Pain In Pop in 2011). Boucher describes it as "just a record I made that only 20 people knew about," however, blogs like Gorilla Vs. Bear were quick to pick up on it as "an essential go-to late night jam." A second full-length, *Halfaxa*, quickly followed in October, and again, garnered praise from around the globe.

"The first real attention I got was definitely through the internet versus playing live. A touring band might be way more popular in Canada first, because people are seeing them and they're building an audience that way. For me, I built an audience through the internet."

Because her internet profile was growing like a weed, Boucher felt compelled to tour. Credit a trip to Austin, Texas to play South By Southwest for not only introducing her live show to crowds outside of Quebec, but for also encouraging Grimes to put a real performance together.

"Those were my first real shows," she confirms. "Before that it was an extremely secondary thing I did when I had time. I considered myself at the very bottom rung of my abilities, like I could barely play a show or even put one together. There is a difference between a recording artist and a touring musician. I couldn't play an instrument. I don't know shit about music, but I know about production. Performing has been a huge trial between my manager and me. It's something that I just had to learn how to do, both physically and emotionally, because I am super introverted."

A split 12-inch with labelmate d'Eon titled *Darkbloom* in April 2011 marked her third release in just over a year. Featuring the single "Vanessa," the video for which she directed, the EP arrived at a key moment for her: the opening spot on Lykke Li's North American tour, which she describes "a pretty big wake up call." Though she was still trying to find her footing as a performer, Boucher says she couldn't miss an opportunity to play in front of a few thousand faces each night. "The average attendance was about 20 people on the tour I did before that, so it was definitely a whole new ball game and a shock to the system at first," she says. "I was absolutely not prepared, but I do feel like that tour turned me into a musician."

Having played shows worldwide, Boucher says getting on stage still isn't something she's comfortable with. She would rather be in the studio instead of facing crowds and managing keyboards, pedals and vocals all at once.

"I consider myself a producer," she says. "I just sing because I can't pay anyone else to do it. Most of the time I'm singing on stage I can't even hear myself. It can be a nightmare. If I could play live where I'm just DJing I would love it. But the singing makes performing difficult for me. I'd love to be a producer for someone like Rihanna, just write songs and then let her go."

With *Visions*, Grimes is definitely being thrust to the next level. And while performing (and possibly even getting a cell phone) might be sacrifices she has to make, she's ready for just about anything.

"There is definitely an awareness that people will hear *Visions*," she says, "whereas the first couple records I wasn't even thinking people would be listening to them. It was me saying, 'I made this record Seb [Cowan, Arbutus Records owner and Grimes's manager], do you want to put it out?' I always feel the need to intellectualize my music to justify it. Like, I dropped out of university, so I need a good reason to do this. I think about that a lot."

### Interview

**Grimes Sheds Light on Mysterious New Album**

*By Cam Lindsay*
Published Oct 19, 2015

The last time Claire Boucher released a Grimes album, she was still considered a rising artist coming up in the ranks of Montreal's fertile DIY scene. That was almost four years ago, and a lot has happened to the BC native since then outside of releasing music. But finally, we will be getting new music soon, as well as a tour. While Grimes says the album will drop imminently, she doesn't consider it a "surprise release" in the same manner as Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus. But there was a reason for holding off on rolling out promotion for the yet-to-be-named album.

"The main reason I wanted to not give an exact release date is because when you announce an album then there's three months before you put it out," Boucher tells Exclaim! "And then when you put it out you don't care anymore. We actually just finished mastering the album. I just want the flexibility to be working on it until the last minute because that's my vibe."

Boucher understands it's been a long wait for her fourth official album, which she has been calling her first "proper" full-length. As reported last year, she already had enough material to release an album in 2014; however, it didn't live up to the high standards or the musical direction she has now set for herself.

"I could've put out an album a year ago, but it wouldn't have been the one I wanted to make," she admits. "I felt I could've done better. And then there was all of this pressure. Everyone was reminding me of the hype and saying, 'Don't fall for it!' So I just took my time and tried not to worry about it. I tried to make it really, really good."

With this album, Boucher finally feels she has proven herself as a producer. While *Visions* transformed her into a magazine cover star, gave her nearly 300,000 Twitter followers and caught the attention of Jay Z, who signed her to the management arm of Roc Nation, she feels that album represents the early stages of her career, when she was still learning how to become a musician and producer.

"Honestly, my first three albums were normally, for musicians, something most people wouldn't hear," Boucher says. "Like [2010's] *Geidi Primes* was the first music I ever made. So with those three albums, I think there is some beauty to the naïveté, but they are an example of someone trying to become a professional. I don't want to put too much cachet into professionalism. I'm definitely not about that. But *Visions* wasn't very finished. I made it in about two or three weeks. A lot of the songs I just made a beat for and then improvised some vocals over top.

"With this album I felt it was more important to actually write lyrics. I was hoping to take it to the next level with regards to skill and creativity. With each record I try and do something different, and with this one I wanted people to listen to it and say, 'Whoa, she totally improved her craft.' I think that was really important. It's like [Nine Inch Nails'] *The Downward Spiral* compared to *Pretty Hate Machine*. It's so incredible to be a fan of an artist that can take these huge creative leaps."

One thing the new album offers that we haven't heard before is the blatant sound of guitars. Grimes' music has always been confused for "synth-pop" or considered electronic (*Visions* took home a Juno for Electronic Album of the Year in 2013), but Boucher says time allowed her to learn how to play the instrument and even open new doors for her music. As a professed fan of acts like Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson, who have all integrated guitars and synthesizers, this shouldn't really come as a surprise. And the result, when you hear them, won't be as jarring as you might imagine.

"I think after *Visions*, I was trying to make new stuff using the same tools, and after a while, I wanted to shake it up a bit," she explains. "I didn't want to make another synth-pop record. But it was more about hanging out at my stepdad's house where he has all of these guitars and I was trying to learn how to play watching YouTube tutorials. It was pretty fun, and musically and melodically, it gave me a whole new realm of possibilities. There are lots of songs without guitar, but I was more excited by the songs with them. It felt more like a new world, which is why a lot of those made the new record. For me the guitar has always been kind of a mystery. I guess it's a pretty normal instrument, but for me it's a very foreign thing."

**Grimes**

Free to Fly

*By Cam Lindsay*

*Published Nov 04, 2015*

For the last three years, a new album by Vancouver born-and-bred producer/artist Grimes (aka Claire Boucher) has been included in every "most anticipated albums of the year" list published. Finally, with the release of *Art Angels*, that tradition should end in 2015. Following up her career-making breakthrough album, 2012's *Visions*, Grimes could have ended all of that anticipation last year, but she just wasn't satisfied with the results.

"I could've put out an album a year ago, but it wouldn't have been the one I wanted to make," says Boucher. "I felt I could've done better. And then there was all of this pressure. Everyone was reminding me of the hype and saying, 'Don't fall for it!' So I just took my time and tried not to worry about it. I tried to make it really, really good."

Boucher had every reason to try harder. This time around, she has the whole world watching her. Back in February 2012, Grimes was a little known underground artist living in Montreal, newly signed to legendary indie label 4AD. With two albums and a split EP released via Arbutus Records (which released *Visions* in Canada), Boucher curbed any expectations she had for the album. "With *Visions*, I signed with 4AD after it was done. I made the record sure that not even 200 people would hear it."

Once released, however, *Visions* needed very little time to establish Grimes as one of independent music's brightest new stars. Amongst all of the glowing reviews and year-end list dominance, the album was also shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize and won Electronic Album of the Year at the 2013 Juno Awards. Over the next three years, Grimes would become ubiquitous in popular culture, appearing on countless magazine covers, co-hosting the MTV VMA red carpet, attending the Met Gala, modeling for Alexander Wang and touring with both Lana Del Rey and Skrillex. Boucher knows the expectations for *Art Angels* have intensified.

"This is definitely the first record where I knew that a lot of people might hear it," she says. "At this point, there is the weird pressure knowing that you employ people. We have a record that is properly mixed and mastered, so there is a lot more on the line in a way because we're investing more in it. It's one of those things that makes me want to do a better job. If people are going to pay ten bucks for this, it has to be really fucking good."

Feel free to part with that last ten bucks in your wallet, because I can assure you that *Art Angels* is "really fucking good." Grimes has entered a new chapter with her fourth album. Whereas *Visions* benefitted from her attempt to write pop singles using wide-eyed ambition and humble production, this album finds her working with a whole new spectrum of styles that demonstrate the confidence and proficiency she has gained over the last three years.

"Honestly, my first three albums were normally, for musicians, something most people wouldn't hear," Boucher admits. "I think there is some beauty to the naïveté, but they are an example of someone trying to become a professional. I was hoping to take it to the next level with regards to skill and creativity. I didn't want to put out this record until I felt like I could walk into a room with any producer and have them respect me as an equal. With each record I try and do something different, and with this one I wanted people to listen to it and say, 'Whoa, she totally improved her craft.' I think that was really important. It's like *The Downward Spiral* compared to *Pretty Hate Machine*. It's so incredible to be a fan of an artist that can take these huge creative leaps."

Boucher would be far too modest to accept a comparison to Nine Inch Nails, but her development as a producer, songwriter and lyricist — even her artistic vision — is as obvious as Reznor's was with his second album. She even took cues from Reznor, as well as other alternative rock favourites like Marilyn Manson and Smashing Pumpkins, by incorporating the guitar, which she had to learn to play. The instrument provides the driving force behind some songs, notably aggressive bangers like "Flesh Without Blood" and "Kill V Maim," and the sun-kissed "California."

"I wanted to shake it up a bit," she explains. "I didn't want to make another synth-pop record. But it was more about hanging out at my stepdad's house where he has all of these guitars, and I was trying to learn how to play watching YouTube tutorials. It was pretty fun, and musically and melodically it gave me a whole new realm of possibilities. There are lots of songs without guitar, but I was more excited by the songs with them. It felt more like a new world, which is why a lot of those made the new record."

*Art Angels* seems destined to make Grimes the pop star she nearly became on the back of the "amateurish" *Visions*. It's big, bold and brimming with anthems designed for a mainstream that has opened its arms to fellow misfits like Lana Del Rey and Lorde. And with Jay Z's Roc Nation managing her career, it seems like the only person who can possibly interfere is perhaps Boucher herself.

"Just because there are hooks and music videos doesn't mean it has anything to do with the Top 40 or anything like that," she says. "I believe very strongly in creative freedom and doing what I want. That's my number one priority. If I was on a major label and the record totally failed, it would be a huge fucking disaster. I just feel very strongly about being independent. And Roc Nation is great because I don't have to figure out my visas and it lets me streamline and focus on art. Everyone says I am [a pop star] all the time. But I'm an independent artist on an independent label. I just don't think Grimes is a pop star."

## References

1. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/grimes\_talks\_medieval\_times\_of\_halfaxa
2. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/grimes-accidental\_pop\_star
3. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/grimes\_sheds\_light\_on\_mysterious\_new\_album
4. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/grimes-free\_to\_fly