Give the lady some air! A star is being born. Grimes is the nom-de-guerre and shop window of one Claire Boucher; a creative whirlwind whose daubing of walls, fabric, vinyl, and our eardrums insisted it was merely a matter of time before she exploded into cover star fame.
Now this binary nymph, this digital muse has been snapped up by 4AD, and quite rightly so. She’s a nocturnal spirit for the post-ecstasy generation whose fourth album ‘Visions’ sees her DIY digging expand into a more covert pop. Armed with advanced synth sounds and a vocal style that’s hit stride, she’s ready to bait our cortex in electronic swoon.
Some may find ‘Visions’ consistently eschews the same ground of super slick, layered vocals over chrome digital structures but this reductive palette of sonics hears the album fly towards its peak of ‘Nightmusic’ – a collaboration with Majical Cloudz that is camouflaged electro pop that’ll keep you muttering for months.
It’s a lot more polished than her last LP ‘Halfaxa’ and in many ways less occult: seemingly less made of cobwebs, whimsy and spontaneity. This galvanization however works. ‘Genesis’, with its clipped percussion and svelte bassline, already has the well-heeled comfort of a classic whilst ‘Circumambient’ appears like Orbital ridden across the silhouette of the moon by an undiscovered narcotic chanteuse.
With 4AD’s renewed vigor in all affairs electonique and Boucher’s coherent elevation in both song quality and hook there’ll be no stopping this creative, sensual explosion of humanity called Grimes.
8/10
Words by MATTHEW BENNETT
