First Listen: Grimes - Visions (album stream)

Visions reveals Claire Boucher to be a promising young artist and producer, with a clear vision, who's work from here on out will be worth close attention.

Grimes' new album, Visions, comes out Feb. 21 in North America.


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Review by Eleanor Kagan for NPR.org.

At age 23, DJ and producer Claire Boucher has already released two full-length LPs and the well-received Darkbloom EP in less than two years. Boucher, who records under the name Grimes, emerged from the Montreal DIY loft space-turned-record label Arbutus. Her Garage Band-assembled assortment of vocal loops, dark beats, and twisted effects sound like they're meant to be enjoyed predominantly at night—or maybe in a single shaft of sunlight that breaks through to the dark corners of a dance floor.

Visions, Boucher's third LP out Feb. 21, is first with the prominent indie label 4AD. It features psychedelic and dreamy dance-pop that begs for the subwoofer to be turned all the way up. It's all grounded in her voice, which leaps easily into a lofty falsetto, and is almost adolescent at times, like Aqua has been practicing with Mariah Carey. Boucher plays with her vocal and technical abilities, looping and piling up wails, purrs, and sighs. She expresses feelings through deliberately wordless syllables, used for how they sound rather than to convey meaning. "Vowels = Space and Time," replete with these vocal runs, is one of the more alluring moments on the album.

After a short intro, Visions kicks in with "Genesis," slowly mounting with a moody bass melody and a shimmering synth line that swells and gives way to Boucher's delicate voice. Then "Oblivion" draws you in with its fleshy, propulsive beat, and a melody that calls back to Tiffany's version of "I Think We're Alone Now" as Boucher tantalizingly affirms, "I'll see you on a dark night." Songs like these provide an irreverent soundtrack to late, sweaty nights, but Visions is worth a whirl in headphones, too. Boucher plays games with panning her sounds—whether it's hocketing her own vocal "oohs" from channel to channel or dragging a sound of scraping metal from right to left on "Circumambient." This technique gives her songs a sense of movement, an element of sound design that will satisfy the audiophile while those in it for the dance beats will find plenty to keep up the energy.

As the album progresses, Boucher's songs take a turn to the contemplative, like a night wearing into the wee morning hours. A requiem for a bygone lover, the sensual "Skin" presents her both as robotic ("Soft skin / You touch me with it / So I know I can be human once again") and deeply emotional ("You act like nothing ever happened / But it meant the world to me"). Visions reveals Boucher to be a promising young artist and producer, with a clear vision, who's work from here on out will be worth close attention.

Review by Eleanor Kagan for NPR.org. Please visit that link to show your appreciation and to support them and/or to stream track by track.

Links
http://claireboucher.carbonmade.com/
https://twitter.com/grimezsz
http://www.myspace.com/boucherville
http://www.arbutusrecords.com/?page_id=21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Boucher