By Adrienne Yeung
Electropop pixie Grimes (a.k.a. Claire Boucher)’s angelic voice has captivated millions of pairs of ears in the past two years with her dark and sugary witch house beats. Less than a year after her latest release, the split LP Darkbloom (with d’Eon), the Montreal songstress is back with her most complex and lush sounding album yet, Visions. Stylus got in touch with her via e-mail, and this is what she had to say.
Stylus: What’s an obvious difference that people hear when Halfaxa stops playing and Visions comes on?
Grimes: I think the production quality is pretty obvious straight up – but Visions is a lot “happier” in theory, even though thematically and lyrically it is significantly more depressing.
Stylus: If you could create the ultimate listening space for Visions, what would it be?
Grimes: Headphones at night in the dark – that’s my favourite way to listen to music in general, so that’s how I would want people to listen to my album. 🙂
Stylus: You’ve made four albums within the past two years. Has each record been a continuation of the same story, or do you feel that they each stand for something different?
Grimes: I mean, they’ve all got an essence that is continuous, cuz they were made by the same person and I think most people have inherent qualities that will translate into the art they make, regardless of switching up styles, etc. But they are all from different eras of my life, and definitely each one represents something different. My influences change drastically. I go through “phases” quite a bit, haha.
Stylus: You’ve stated before that Grimes is an audio-visual project. How did you incorporate the visual aspect into this album? And what were your visual inspirations?
Grimes: The inspirations for the visual aspects of Visions (which is mostly paintings I’ve done and videos) was a lot of science fiction and cyberpunk stuff – The Fifth Element, Blade Runner, Neon Genesis Evangelion. As far as technique with the painting I was very inspired by Hieronymus Bosch and Charles Burns.
Stylus: Can you describe a typical day in the midst of the most passionate stages of creating Visions?
Grimes: Wake up at 3 p.m., do a bunch of speed, start working, chug water, pee a bunch, listen to Burial for ten minutes, do more drugs, work some more, do jumping jacks, talk to my room mate, smoke a cigarette, listen to “Fingerbib,” pace, eat some peanut butter, dance to the song I’m working on, cry for a while, re-do the drums, feel good, go to bed at 3 p.m. the following day or something. [The editors of Stylus do not necessarily condone the use of drugs by publishing this interview.]
Visions was released on February 21 on Arbutus Records. If you haven’t listened to her previous albums, there’s no better time than now – Geidi Primes and Halfaxa were just re-released on CD format January 31st.