Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

Her 2012 album Visions will be released on 4AD. Net strangers I've come to trust rate it.

The lead leak is electro-Frankie Valli.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpKqQ8fsBQs

We have a Grimes thread? Oh man! This is the year when Montreal's weird noise pop electronic stuff is going to get attention! Excited!

Looking v. much forward to this album. Vanessa was a highlight of 2011 and while 2009's Geidi Primes is still her best album, Halfaxa was good and her live shows have only improved with time.

oh cool - this was one of the things that lamp posted on his sandbox thread that i really liked a lot

New track available here. Good stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=olP3279j5_0

this one is the one I love (right now).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEeQ758ldqo

Whoa. I don't think I have that - which album is it from?

from what I understand it is another track from the new one.

terrible

I don't think you're in her demographic, sweet

i am not sure i can get with this girl's voice

probably an unfair comparison but i think of her in connection with gazelle twin, who i discovered at the same time on that sandbox thread, and gazelle twin's music is so much more affecting

very strange girl! (unf, i also think she might be one of those people for whom an accelerated hype-cycle is a bad thing. hope i'm wrong.)

I just got the press release.

Moving to Montreal from Vancouver in 2006, she developed Grimes among the city’s burgeoning DIY scene; a scene where both punk ethos and pop music collide, resulting in a distinct sense of community, religiosity and psychedelic revelry.

Were it not for the word "psychedelic" that description brought to mind mall punk.

This new set incorporates influences as wide as Enya, TLC and Aphex Twin, whilst drawing from genres like New Jack Swing, IDM, New Age, K-pop, Industrial and glitch resulting in a record that is both otherworldly and futuristic.

That mix of references simultaneously makes me cringe and curious.

lists of "influences" are always cringeworthy

an accelerated hype-cycle is a bad thing

It's interesting you'd say that! I'm excited for her success, in a "get money, find rat-free living" sort of way. And although I def feel there's going to be success for Arbutus in the next couple years, I can't say that cash flow + hype is going to have a necessarily positive effect on that scene

's musical output.

Well BRAIDS has already jumped up out of that scene and into hype, and Native Speaker was a gorgeous record. Curious to see if/when/what Blue Hawaii release next.

i am not sure i can get with this girl's voice

I'm listening to the split with d'Eon from last year at the moment and this is my main issue, although it's only a couple of tracks where it sounds annoying.

I listened to Halfaxa and wasn't really feeling it - did I start in the wrong place?

Yes, i've got an album by her and it's OK, but not much more

Geidi Prime is stronger than Halfaxa, imo.

But I dunno, it depends on what part of it you aren't feeling.

I think "Oblivion" - the first single from the 4AD album - is better than almost anything she's recorded.

"Oblivion" is awesome. Those synths sounds like universes collapsing on themselves.

Huh, weird, coz I think Halfaxa >>>> Geidi Prime, it's less focused but it's more ambitious and better realised. I don't hear Enya or TLC or Aphex Twin in her music, but it does give an idea of the scope of her range. But then again, at other times, I like her coz she reminds me of those 4AD 4-track weirdoes like Danielle Dax or His Name Is Alive.

Quite pleased that certain elements dislike her (heh) but it is distinctly odd to see her popping up in the NME every now and then. I think she might actually have the ability to sustain making good music despite the hype cycle - someone's third album is a much better place for the hype to kick in, rather than, y'know, the third song.

Damn, I wish I'd saved other links from my arty experimental gothy electronica sandbox thread. The only other artists I can remember having a consensus on were Emika and maybe Laurel Halo? I don't feel like starting it up again.

Barbara Panther, Niki & the Dove, Gazelle Twin, Julia Holter, and iamamiwhoami also got shoutouts.

And Austra.

this leaked. and it's good, but I don't think it will convince anyone who wasn't prone to be convinced by the previous stuff.

i really don't know what i think of this album

there are bits of it that are OH FUCK YES, and there are bits that i am just not down with and a lot of the time it's like she's nearly hitting the spot and then nothing happens

I'm loving the background vocals on Vowels = space and time.

Skin is also an early favourite.

Be A Body (侘寂) is totally going to be the next single, right?

This is an album of wonderful moments. Not all of them are 'songs' for me yet, but a lot of them are.

I quite like "Oblivion," not sure yet about the rest.

When is this out, properly? Really want to hear this, the comments are piquing my interest.

really digging this myself

from what I understand, this is out on either the 21st of this month (Arbutus, US and Canada) or the 12th of next month (4AD, most everywhere else). and I hope that previous comments did not imply that I lack enthusiasm. I love Visions a lot, but despite all of the pop aspirations it feels like it was built to inspire obsession from a limited audience.

She definitely has the charm and hooks to pull to a wider audience but her songwriting could use some editing... many times it does sound like the songs drift without any specific purpose and as a whole it drags.

For legit consumers, Visions streaming in its entirety

Can't. Don't have the bandwidth!

*cries*

Why couldn't this have been available 2 weeks ago when I still had all you can eat broadband?

Given there's nothing on the album I'm bored by, I think editing would inevitably mean reducing the idiosyncratic facets I'm charmed by.

Best thing about Grimes: she has such disinterest (contempt?) for lyrical content as she chirps through her baby birdsong. She might as well be the electropop version of Juliana Barwick..

yeh this is excellent

"skin" is very pretty, but a bit insubstantial, tho i guess "insubstantial" is kinda the point. soft, sweet, ghostly. don't hear no afx, but enya sure. and i don't hate enya, but i don't love this. got bored before the 6 minutes were up.

"oblivion" is much more immediate. the nothing lyrics are kind of selling me, "look into my eyes and la la la la la, see you on a dark night". that's great! love the synths at the end, too.

want more songs like "oblivion"

Be A Body (侘寂) is totally going to be the next single, right?

dunno, but it's v nice. enya influence is even more prominent at the beginning, but j-lo too? love the shift to dark propulive beats halfway through.

For lex:
Grimes namechecked a similar/sympatico artist Mozart's Sister whose voice might be more to your liking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy1u4v2LIfU

^ Also of Montreal.

I'm gonna bookmark this thread for when I've topped up my data bcuz "electronic Juliana Barwick" = WCC catnip if I wasn't onboard already (which I have been since Halfaxa)

so she made this on garageband, huh?

Mozart's Sister is also v. good!

They have a three track EP called DEAR FEAR from last year. Maybe they have other stuff too? Not sure.

yaaaaaarg, just listening to her stuff now (i'm always way late with everything) and enjoying it a lot. i just took a break from some incredibly bureaucratic shit at work to watch this video and i don't..think..i can go back to work again today

Skin reminds me of a mix between Enya and Natalie Imbruglia's smoke. Am I too off?

Really can't believe we have come to a point where evoking the names Stacy Q and Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam results in a positive fucking review. I give up.

I love this album cover!

http://www.tellallyourfriendspr.com/sites/default/files/GrimesVisions.jpg

yeah, is awesome. post in the best of 2012 thread!

after being completely underwhelmed by anything i heard of hers before this record (i'm kind of with lex on the voice thing), i'm really enjoying "oblivion" and "circumabient"

Fucking adore this record.

Funny that Alex in Montreal referred to Braids upthread as this album strikes me as something of an electronic equivalent, simultaneously tuneful and spacious and drifting (whereas I think Juliana Barwick is a bit of a misleading point of comparison).

"Skin" esp. is wonderful.

i gave this a few more tries and while there's nothing i actively dislike about her music, neither is there anything hooking me back in - it's all vaguely "interesting", also very unmemorable and lite.

cf julianna barwick who hooked me straight away, and gazelle twin whose music i absolutely adore sinking into. grimes has no gravitas.

the cover of this record is really really bad. if you're going to rip off the sacred bones design scheme (which i really love), at least do it well!

ripoff Sacred Bones serifs + some Cyrillic lorem ipsum + some 1994-bad-sci-fi-book-cover graphics + giant in-class notebook doodle-looking thing = a mess and I like it

Yeah, Tim. The BRAIDS reference was not accidental.

Visions is getting a 4AD release in the rest of the world, but Grimes and BRAIDS and Blue Hawaii a couple of other bands in the same general aesthetic universe were all on the same local label for a few years based out of Montreal.

A bunch of their early stuff is available for download by donation at the Arbutus website, including Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, the first two Grimes albums, and Blue Hawaii's Blooming Summer.

Not that that necessarily implies that they sound *the same* but their music is definitely in conversation with each other.

And 'Skin' continues to be the standout for me - the first Grimes track that's hit me emotionally.

(That's not a backhanded compliment - I love the rest of her stuff, but Skin really gets to me.)

Other standouts: Infinite <3 without fulfillment, Genesis, Oblivion, Vowels = space and time, Be a Body (侘寂). Possibly Nightmusic.

thanks for the links and suggestions, alex!

Of the first two Grimes album, I think Halfaxa is a bit more like this one - it's the clear transition to the kind of thing she's doing now, but I love Geidi Primes - it's a little less cohesive, but there's a lot of cool stuff going on.

The Blue Hawaii tape was one of my favourite albums of 2010 - the standout is 'Blue Gowns'. Blue Hawaii's vocalist = the lead vocalist from BRAIDS which should help determine if it's your thing or if you should steer clear - (aka this is a warning for Lex)

The Geidi Primes cover is also really lovely:

http://hangout.altsounds.com/geek/gars/images/1/2/8/3/8/tumblr_l0qlcwbcft1qz8wqzo1_400.png

Halfaxa got another similar weird "skull" motif cover everywhere else, but in Canada we got a photo negative of a topless woman with a bunch of purple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QGXPM_BonA#!

Just found this - apparently there was a re-release of 'Halfaxa' with this track tossed in the middle of it and I never found out? This is lovely.

laurel halo did an awesome remix of that track

And naturally it's not available anywhere but Europe. Dammit. (The Original. Not the Remix)

if you're going to rip off the sacred bones design scheme

well, it does "rip off" the sacred bones design scheme (general layout, fonts), but also pushes beyond it in interesting ways. and the drawing is wonderful. one of my favorite album covers of the year so far.

Skin is killing me. Be a Body (侘寂) too. all of them really.

I think the album really shows post-everything/Internet music doesn't have to just be some senseless exercise in referencing. like there's the Mr. Bungle/Girl Talk-style, 'yo look what just threw in' approach, but it can be done more selectively. like anything is available, but then you can pick out a finite set of elements with more purpose. this feels really cohesive and harmonious to me, like there's a logic to the aesthetic system she creates, and real emotional resonance (really gets to me actually). could probably work out some cultural meaning in this beyond just 'hey post-modernism waka waka'

cf julianna barwick who hooked me straight away, and gazelle twin whose music i absolutely adore sinking into. grimes has no gravitas.

― if u leave imma crank wu-tang in my black matte truck (lex pretend), Saturday, February 18, 2012 11:15 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The (excellent) Frankie Rose album is much more in Julianna Barwick territory than this is, IMO.

She comes across as tremendously likable in the p4k interview I think - love how she invokes all this hi falutin stuff almost inevitably to have a go at herself, and she seems to anticipate a lot of the criticisms that people might want to throw at her without seeming like that's what she set out to do.

Boucher, I mean.

Smoke weed, listen to Mariah Carey. Hilarious, and awesome.

she seems like an excellent person! but i'm not hearing anything compelling in her music.

Frankie Rose is a vocalist, songwriter and musician living in Brooklyn, NY. She was formerly an original member of acclaimed garage rock acts Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, and the Vivian Girls.[1]

erm i'll stick with julianna barwick thanks :o

her background really does not inform the new album at all

haha lex how do you ever manage to listen to gang gang dance without vomiting everywhere.

i carefully avoid finding out information about them that might turn me off.

no, if i google a new act and p4k AND stereogum are on the first page of results then i consider that a sign. dunno what the fuck "brooklyn vegan" is but with a name like that it can't be a good thing.

rofl

man i wish i could not know what brooklyn vegan is

So obsessed with this album. Like I start to get really, really excited when I hear the piano-based second chorus in "Genesis" and that feeling doesn't really dissipate for the rest of the album.

genesis was played yesterday morning on 6 music.

having seen the album artwork i was very pleasantly surprised as it was not what i expected at all.

sounded ace.

glad to see other people liking this so much. was kinda surprised to see some people so meh on it tbh (I mean yeah different strokes - but this is easily turning out to be album of the year so far for me)

To be fair "Genesis" is by far the most cute tune on the album, there are some darker bits that go halfway to matching the cover.

Though in some ways gothstep feels so prevalent as the default move for artsy electro chicks that there's something unexpectedly refreshing-feeling about the combination of eerieness and intermittent cutesiness on Visions.

it's weird that none of the reviews i've read have mentioned 'oblivion', when that seems like the obvious 'hit'

http://www.pitchfork.com/news/45488-the-tale-of-grimes-insane-2009-houseboat-adventure-the-best-thing-youll-read-all-day/

what a tale!

god, "Circumambient" just sent me into a spazz. awesome.

This is a strange record, paper-thin vocals, barely competent use of a drum machine, and yet it's strangely beguiling. A lot of it's in the synths that hold the whole thing together, like she's found a really lovely ambient techno album from the early 90s and worked over the top of it.

grimes has no gravitas.

But she's not aiming for it. One of the things I like about this record is that it isn't constantly doing the glowery face.

the entire thing is paper thin. i thought i'd like it! i gave it several tries! NOTHING STICKS. i have no idea what you're all hearing.

does this sound like the blow?

lol the first 30 seconds of "Infinite Love Without Fulfillment" made me go "this is what Zooey Deschanel's electro side project would sound like"

i should probably go ahead and start a gazelle twin thread because it pisses me off every time i see this get attention instead

"Genesis" sounds like it really wants to be J-Pop

actually I guess this entire album really wants to be J-Pop by way of Sweden? that's the vibe I am getting from the first 3 songs

This is a strange record, paper-thin vocals, barely competent use of a drum machine

i have to vigorously disagree about her drum machines. the parts aren't incredibly complicated but i wasn't joking about the spaz-session that circumambient provoked last night. i seriously lost my shit, it was weird. part of that might be because i'm a drummer with a bit of a improv background, so when i hear her drums i also hear all the parts that i'm playing on top of and around the beats - it sounds fine its own, but it's the imagined space that sends me into a fit.

anyway, possibly someone else will understand what i'm trying and failing to express.

"the drum machines are good because the way that i imagine playing over the top of them in my head is good" = i'm a fucking idiot

It's so strange that Lex and I are having such opposite reactions to this and Gazelle Twin, like some bizarro inverse world. Because I find GT so nothingy and paper thin and nothing to latch on to, while Grimes sends me to a happy place. But their music is nothing like one another, so I do not understand that "why would you listen to this when there is that?" comparison. At all.

I like both Gazelle Twin and Grimes, but then again I have a place for both Fever Ray and, idunno, Stacey Q, in my collection

Mentioned it elsewhere, but listening to Grimes is like looking over the shoulder of a prodigy drawing with charcoal on paper for the first time. Formal art training & oil paints would likely just overwhelm the spontaneity, ease (thinness?) which are the present appeal.

Yes, that's the thing, the spontaneity, the shooting off in unexpected angles, the excited jumble of it all - the fact that she *seems* so excited by everything still, like the music is just rolling out of her in a mad rush.

i should probably go ahead and start a gazelle twin thread because it pisses me off every time i see this get attention instead

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 21, 2012 3:56 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lex, is this going to be the album that you started off enjoying/appreciating aspects of but not falling in love with but which is close enough to things you love that by December you will be hating it and yelling at us all for voting for it? A la 'Young Galaxy' or whatever?

There's one every year.

I think if no one paid any attention to Grimes, he would probably come round on it, or at least ignore it. But the fact that she's now getting attention from P4k and the NME and all that means that we're all sheep for liking her, even those of us who have been listening since you and Owen were raving about her. Or something.

I mean, I have it in my heart to love plenty of artists all at the same time, and hand out attention as I see fit. But I don't have it in my heart to hand out attention to an artist like Gazelle Twin if I just. don't. like. them. This "why are you listening to this instead of that?" game with not comparable artists is just stupid.

i think i'm comparing grimes and gazelle twin b/c i discovered them in the same place at the same time - your knifelike thread on the sandbox WCC. i didn't fully get grimes then but i assumed i'd come round but her music leaves no impression on me despite trying several times and yes SUDDENLY everyone is talking about her and that is annoying, if that hadn't happened i would've likely forgotten she existed.

did anyone vote for young galaxy? i was quite pleased that seemed to have been forgotten by EOY time. bad album.

I think the rhythm programming on this is excellent actually. A little bit rough-sounding but not actually rough in the sense of lacking nuance or finesse - basically this is just because Grimes is not observing the post-dubstep/minimal orthodoxy of hyper-clipped drum hits. I think she likes the slightly-degraded texture of fuller electronic drums.

Aphex Twin's "Xtal" is the tune I would point to as the past-masterpiece which I think most obviously sets out the stylistic framework that Grimes mostly works in here, that slightly grainy quality deliberately deployed to suggest a more human form of transcendence.

But the other thing to note is how sensitively transformations and transitions in the rhythms are deployed. This can be more obvious, like the beat switch-ups in "Genesis", or more subtle, like the way in which the ever-present 4X4 kickdrum behind "Nightmusic" rises and falls in prominence so that that lilting humanness she ordinarily goes for becomes subsumed within pounding mechanised mindlessness.

The only actual moment on the album that strikes me as suggesting a lack of programming skill and finesse is the synth loop on "Oblivion" which has an awkwardly-joined-together bit which throws out the groove slightly. This might have been deliberate but I suspect is not - it's too close to being right to come across as intentionally wrong.

and it's not just here obv but it's totally that thing AGAIN where i rave about an artist and everyone carefully looks in the other direction and ignores it, but as soon as p4k hand out a best fucking new fucking music or whatever it is EVERYONE I KNOW rushes off to hear it

...

you could solve that by pitching pieces to Pitchfork

wait which artist is that

t's totally that thing AGAIN where i rave about an artist and everyone carefully looks in the other direction and ignores it

maybe it's because you constantly phrase this as "UGH YOU LIKE THEM? WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ___?" it's pretty annoying and based on this weird concept that one band/artist can displace another band/artist.

like people can listen to grimes AND gazelle twin

anyways based on one listen the grimes album is nice enough but i don't really get what's special about it. i liked it enough i'll listen to it more though.

Aphex Twin's "Xtal" is the tune I would point to as the past-masterpiece which I think most obviously sets out the stylistic framework that Grimes mostly works in here, that slightly grainy quality deliberately deployed to suggest a more human form of transcendence.

This is why she is such such such WCC-bait.

Alex, you saw me getting frustrated last year when no one was paying attention to Barbara Panther because no ILX bigwigs or P4k writers were repping for her, and she still placed in the EOY poll due to slow and steady campaigning.

And like I said, lots of us didn't hear about her from P4k, we heard about her from the Canadian contingent - Alex in Montreal and Owen P! I will listen to almost anything that those two agree on!

I listened to this before the pitchfork review but was pretty underwhelemed for the first listen and put it away for two weeks. Then came back to it and was suddenly in love (this was still before the pitchfork review though).

Lex I think that you attribute too much power to your enemies. A BNM on pitchfork is often reflective of where public opinion is going, rather than causal.

and it's not just here obv but it's totally that thing AGAIN where i rave about an artist and everyone carefully looks in the other direction and ignores it, but as soon as p4k hand out a best fucking new fucking music or whatever it is EVERYONE I KNOW rushes off to hear it

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:03 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, I will cop to not having heard Gazelle Twin yet and I will get on that, but generally I think most people HERE at least (if you're mad about the universe as a whole I can't do much about that) take your recommendations as seriously as P4K's or mine or whoevers (if not moreso).

It's been a couple of years since a BNM at p4k made me check out something I wasn't already inclined to check for, but a rave from you about Nikkiya or Brianna or Jade Alston or whoever will make me sit up and pay attention. Just FYI.

Also, I meant to playfully rib, not start another pile-on about lex's approach to exhorting people to listen to music. Maybe that's not entirely possible these days. But it was light-hearted in intent, so maybe we can lay off and just talk about Grimes. Cool? Cool.

That said, I also voted for Young Galaxy, so maybe I'm persona non grata.

well the nikkiya and gazelle twin threads i started have both died swift deaths so obviously not

pretty much every artist i rep for who isn't an actual megastar already gets zero traction

The gazelle twin thread you started one hour ago.

maybe you just have shitty taste in music?

lol i can honestly say go out of my way to not listen to anything lex rides for until i hear someone else praising it

I obviously do go out of my way to check out lex recommendations, but the "stop listening to this, listen to that instead" approach from anyone makes me want to resist stubbornly. This is a man thing I think. I try to remind myself of that when I occasionally indulge in the same approach.

However I do want to listen to gazelle twin anyway because I was looking at Glenn McDonald's blog the other night and he made it like his number 2 for 2011, and I am endlessly intrigued by Glenn's taste in music.

I obviously do go out of my way to check out lex recommendations, but the "stop listening to this, listen to that instead" approach from anyone makes me want to resist stubbornly.

every other approach gets even less attention

go fuck yourself gr80

this thread has turned into a therapy sesh, sorta weird

lex you're an unsympathetic crybaby

man i just want to talk about grimes

but my two cents is who gives a shit what anyone else listens to

Well lex I've tried that approach before, and my sense is that it tends to make poeple dig in to their existing position out of defensiveness.

Perhaps mostly because people are only talking about something positively if they already like it, so if you claim that they've been blinded by false prophets you have to convince them that they're listening wrong.

And if there's one thing that is almost impossible to get people to admit to, it's that they're listening wrong.

Anyway I'm interested to know who (apart from gazelle twin, and again you started the thread one hour ago) you think people haven't picked up on. Nikkiya doesn't seem like a good example - the thread suggests that lots of people loved "When I Was High" and then found the mixtape a bit of a mixed bag or just less compelling throughout than the one song would imply. But I don't think you can claim that no-one followed your lead in listening to it. And concomitantly I don't think you can equate "people had a different reaction to this album" with "no one listens to me."

Versus the ILX poll threads where about every fourth post was "I found this tune through Lex. Thanks Lex!"

Both albums are good, the only reason they're being compared at all is because they both popped up in the Knifelike thread but they're really nothing like one another at all. I can see the Gazelle Twin/Fever Ray connection but Grimes doesn't remind me of anything else on that thread.

Hah also Tim I totally thought that one song reminded me of 'Tha' rather than 'Xtal' but there's definitely an Air France playing around with Selected Ambient Works 1 vibe to a lot of this.

The "Knifelike" thread was really just "recommend stuff that WCC would like" TBH I don't think there was much of a unifying theme at all in the end.

Anyway I'm interested to know who (apart from gazelle twin, and again you started the thread one hour ago) you think people haven't picked up on

no point if people are gonna avoid them if i say. i mean, it's stuff i've written about and posted about and tweeted about and linked to videos on facebook etc already anyway but i don't think there's any point in me starting threads really

there's definitely an Air France playing around with Selected Ambient Works 1 vibe to a lot of this.

This is a very neat description I think.

Grimes doesn't remind me of anything else on that thread.

I think my "in" with Grimes was when I realised that this is so different from any notion in my head of an emerging gothstep hegemony.

There's nothing wrong with that sound (if it can be called a "sound" at all) but there's a sense of a rising tide sinking all ships in terms of my enthusiasm levels for checking out Austra / Emika / Zola Jesus / Gazelle Twin etc. Which is unfair both in terms of the quality of some of those artists and their internal differences; I guess that's the tyranny of critical framing at work.

I think my "in" with Grimes was when I realised that this is so different from any notion in my head of an emerging gothstep hegemony.

otm, for me as well

this stuff is pretty cool

it's stuff i've written about and posted about and tweeted about and linked to videos on facebook etc already anyway but i don't think there's any point in me starting threads really

so there's this undefined "stuff" that you feel has not been taken up despite the fact that you've tweeted about it and linked to vides on facebook and made the odd post, and you have been so upset about this that you have first been motivated to lash out at people listening to the wrong music, and then subsequently sunk into a black pit of despondency over your inability to effectively communicate the greatness of music to others.

my god lex, if I applied this standard I would have slashed my wrists long ago. Heaps of my threads are automatic tumbleweed. But the fact that even some motivate other people to check out music I like seems more remarkable to me than the fact that others are ignored.

emika is nothing like the others?! she's far closer to, idk, subeena or someone, except with songs rather than tracks. but given the minimal attention she and gazelle twin got, i have no idea what you're talking about re: tyranny of critical framing. if only they'd been framed critically at all.

austra never transcended their knifelikeness for me (also released their album in the summer). i guess i like zola jesus when i happen to hear her but i can never remember to have a real opinion or indeed remember she exists when i'm not.

i get that grimes is trying to be more playful and more pop but could she at least write some hooks if that's gonna be the case and not just replace the "goth" affect with "twee". also, enunciate. goths can get away with not doing that but few others.

i enjoy (but don't love) the gazelle twin album. listening to "genesis" right now and, like most other grimes track i've heard, i feel like i could love this were it not for that voice

does grimes, like adele, win a lot of people over b/c she seems like a really cool girl? the wkiw effect?

adele seems like a really cool girl?

that is what a lot of people seem to think, i didn't say i agreed

iirc, lex hates adele because she is fat

emika is nothing like the others?! she's far closer to, idk, subeena or someone, except with songs rather than tracks. but given the minimal attention she and gazelle twin got, i have no idea what you're talking about re: tyranny of critical framing. if only they'd been framed critically at all.

Read my post again. The critical framing I was talking about was my own.

i would kick it w/ adele

There's nothing wrong with that sound (if it can be called a "sound" at all) but there's a sense of a rising tide sinking all ships in terms of my enthusiasm levels for checking out Austra / Emika / Zola Jesus / Gazelle Twin etc. Which is unfair both in terms of the quality of some of those artists and their internal differences; I guess that's the tyranny of critical framing at work.

Dude, you are sinking dangerously into "Women In Music Special!" with this post here, and if you were talking about the exact male equivalents of the music, you would be quite quick to assign them to different electronic music sub genres.

(sigh) read my post again!

http://i.imgur.com/EpHXx.gif

I liked this Grimes album! I give it five out of five fives.

TO BE VERY CLEAR:

My "in" with Grimes was realising how unfair it had been of me to equate her with all of these other artists who probably don't sound much alike except in terms of how I've framed them in my head!

LOL this always happens: any time I admit to having had a wrongheaded opinion and then try to self-critique it people feel the need to point out to me how wrong I was.

she at least ... enunciate

As far as I can tell, its just the "Oh baby I ..." refrains taken from 90s R&B that are in English. Most of vocals are pure glossolalia.

Can't find the mid-2011 Grimes interview where she pretty upfront about not caring about the lyrical content at all, as she just likes the sound that emerge.

^sorry bout the singular/plural errors there. I type correctly, then suffer dyslexia editing backwards.

where she pretty upfront about not caring about the lyrical content at all, as she just likes the sound that emerge.

2012 shockah

Grimes' vocal approach here reminds me of Heaven or Las Vegas, not ostentatious glossolalia but instead walking a borderline between lyrical sense and aural sensation.

I can't agree with the allegation of a lack of hooks, the more I listen the more hook-filled (even overloaded with hooks and melodic motifs) the songs seem.

iirc, lex hates adele because she is fat

when have i ever said anything even approaching this? i feel like people must literally imagine my posts instead of reading them sometimes

i'm pretty sure jon is just trolling you, which is funny cuz when people do it to him he "leaves" ilx in a huff

I distinctly remember some thread where there was discussion of an article in which Adele sort of defended her lifestyle and talked about being okay with her body and lex posted something about how she shouldn't be satisfied with being lazy or something to that effect. I can't find it now and I don't really feel like putting in the effort required to dig it up.

Not trolling, but probably overstating what lex said in that particular thread.

I guess this entire album really wants to be J-Pop by way of Sweden?

is anyone else doing this? because that sounds like a genre I could obsess over for a while.

pretty much every artist i rep for who isn't an actual megastar already gets zero traction

You were ranked number one in the ILX hivemind section of the EOY Trax poll iirc. fwiw I tend to give everything I see you rep for at least one go-through. I'm not going to absorb it all properly, but that's just life. I think a lot of people here respect your opinion about certain types of music. It's all good.

does grimes, like adele, win a lot of people over b/c she seems like a really cool girl? the wkiw effect?

i wnkiw her tbh. I read that she was kicked out of college for not attending classes for a year, which annoyed me for whatever reason when combined with her failed Mississippi River adventure. seems like the kind of person I would actively avoid.

stay in school if you want to kiw gukbe folks

I think the rhythm programming on this is excellent actually. A little bit rough-sounding but not actually rough in the sense of lacking nuance or finesse - basically this is just because Grimes is not observing the post-dubstep/minimal orthodoxy of hyper-clipped drum hits. I think she likes the slightly-degraded texture of fuller electronic drums.

dudes, there are garageband presets all over this record (synths too). not that that's inherently a bad thing - it's a tool like anything else, she's making choices, etc. but out of all the reasons to listen to this record (the vocals, the writing, personality), sound design is at the bottom of the list.

but out of all the reasons to listen to this record (the vocals, the writing, personality), sound design is at the bottom of the list.

i dunno about that. unique sound sources /= good sound design.

Having seen that Grimes video where she plays the black keys exclusively, I'm kinda curious whether most/all of her tunes are in C♭ major or A♭ minor (the black key diatonic scales).

using presets or garageband is fine, and you can make it your own, i just don't think the record sounds that interesting.

I don't really care about where the sounds come from.

It's not like most house beats or dubstep beats or etc sound unique.

Oh hey everyone what did I miss

ILX tearing itself apart over a 6/10 album

Unsurprising.

It's not like most house beats or dubstep beats or etc sound unique.

sure (except for the ones that do). i'd just be surprised if the beats & sounds were the reason someone was attracted to this record.

imo the reason to be attracted to this album is how she uses her voice as a background sound effect/adornment

otoh a reason to be repelled from this album is the interminable cooing babydoll voice she puts on seemingly through 500% of it

i love when she goes into that super-high deniece williams falsetto

the cooing babydoll shit didn't repel me as much as i thought it would but it's definitely a reason that i don't think she'll ever connect with me properly

her falsetto is astonishing, which really makes the cooing that much more irritating to me

it's like all of those Mariah singles with that fucking grating whisper voice where you're like "gtfo with that and start singing"

i know right

haha basically it's the inverse of the tUnE-yArDs album

Having seen that Grimes video where she plays the black keys exclusively, I'm kinda curious whether most/all of her tunes are in C♭ major or A♭ minor (the black key diatonic scales).

smh

http://stereogum.com/962491/deconstructing-grimes/news/

julianne escobedo shepherd goes innnnn

and i'm so glad she did cuz she articulates a lot of the reasons i can't connect w/grimes better than i could

yeah, that's a good piece, and like the author, i'm finding the album as a whole pretty unrewarding. i still enjoy the songs that initially attracted me, especially "oblivion" and "be a body", but most of the rest drift past in a gauzy blur. i don't get any clear sense of the performer's identity, and je shepherd otm in that roboticism is only interesting when it has something human to catch in its gears.

I would disagree with the article's contention that Grimes tries to sound less human than her analogues and contemporaries.

A different kind of humanness perhaps.

Like, this sounds like it would be true (and as a skewering of broad brush stroke positive crit probably is true):

"Grimes seems bent on negating her humanness and operating from robot zone, herself. Yet others who’ve embarked on such pursuits — Bjork, for example — have recognized the paradoxical intertwining between nature’s ether and that of the web. Grimes’ music feels like it’s operating in a vacuum, and while internet-referencing internet music is zeitgeistical, eventually the vacuum’s gonna run out of air."

But it misrepresents or ignores the strong sense of humanness that runs through a lot of these tracks, especially in the second half (and especially especially "Skin", which is actually going for almost the exact same altered-humanness vibe as Vespertine, albeit with slightly different sonic reference points). To my ears Boucher's use of a variety of different voices is intended precisely to capture the multivalency (and the internal conflictedness, and the being-with-yourself) of human experience.

As is often the case with such articles this feels like a good, targeted attack on Grimes as she is described in tumblrs and less so w/r/t what Grimes' music actually does.

In this regard the parallels (or inverted-parallels... is there a word for that?) with Lana Del Ray are interesting.

But it misrepresents or ignores the strong sense of humanness that runs through a lot of these tracks, especially in the second half (and especially especially "Skin", which is actually going for almost the exact same altered-humanness vibe as Vespertine, albeit with slightly different sonic reference points). To my ears Boucher's use of a variety of different voices is intended precisely to capture the multivalency (and the internal conflictedness, and the being-with-yourself) of human experience.

yeah, but a "strong sense of humanness" isn't something that exists outside our varying perceptions of it. what you hear as "human experience", i hear as freeze-dried cotton candy: lovely, but frustratingly insubstantial.

Too often when I read these kind of "take-down" pieces I find them utterly flimsy and gauzy, and directed not at the artists themselves, but this take-down of the endless reflecting chamber of blog/tumblr posts, and given that I hardly engage with that at all, it is less than meaningless to me. I don't listen to blogs. I want to tell them to get off the internet and engage with something that isn't endless critculure.

I don't hear a robot-ness to her voice at all. a transbody mysticism that isn't sensual enough for some maybe... but I think there's still a warmth there, an assuring Platonic kindness.

I think the article probably has a bias for a brand of feminism that favors sexuality-as-power, and maybe Grimes is just more of a mystic, isn't trying to progress through a combative politics but through some other means

JES's criticisms along the lines of thin/charmless/unemotional/infantilised are the ones that ring true for me - yeah this is personal preference to an extent, i much prefer (female? alt?) artists to reach out and grab me and make me feel like i have no choice but to listen; or if they're introverted, i tend to really enjoy the ones that are very still and meditative; and grimes fits neither of those descriptions. but i can't find anything else in there at all - THIN is exactly it, and it doesn't register emotionally at all.

yeah, but a "strong sense of humanness" isn't something that exists outside our varying perceptions of it. what you hear as "human experience", i hear as freeze-dried cotton candy: lovely, but frustratingly insubstantial.

sure but if that's the case then the real argumentative thrust of the article kind of falls over beyond the more limited (and hence perfectly legitimate, though admittedly difficult to build a hit-baiting "takedown" around) claims you and lex are making w/r/t not personally being into the sound of her voice and not being able to forge an emotional connection with it.

That's different to saying "Grimes' problem is that she fetishises the robot and forgets to be human in the process."

i like JES a ton, but that article was full of strawmen. tim f otm.

I want to tell them to get off the internet and engage with something that isn't endless critculure.

ironically this is the same thing JES is telling grimes to do

that jes thing is really well written but i had to stop after she tried to apply grimes' opinion about mariah carey to grimes' own artistic pursuits

feels like a disingenuous, forced connection

i say that as someone who initially held lex's view of the record and then realized last week that it is the gothy freestyle record i have always deserved

haha

There are so many reasons one could dislike Grimes. I was excited to see them articulated, but this piece was just bizarrely off base. This part in particular:

Grimes seems bent on negating her humanness and operating from robot zone, herself.

Really? She sounds like a robot? She negates her humanness? You might not like her personality, but how can you accuse her of not having one? If anything, I thought people found her personality overbearing.

Yet others who’ve embarked on such pursuits — Bjork, for example — have recognized the paradoxical intertwining between nature’s ether and that of the web. Grimes’ music feels like it’s operating in a vacuum, and while internet-referencing internet music is zeitgeistical, eventually the vacuum’s gonna run out of air.

Come again?

Of course, Grimes’ cyborg unicorn stance is an updated ideal on the continuum of the asexuality that a certain strain of indie rock values, up to and including twee.

In what world does this album lack sexuality? Grimes dwells constantly on physical contact ("Skin," "Be A Body"). And she sings in orgasmic squeals.

oh yeah i also stopped reading because of the word "zeitgeistical"

Grimes has a host of recent-vintage contemporaries who approach their music with a similar concept, like Lykke Li and Fever Ray and Bat For Lashes and even fellow blog star Charli XCX, all of whom do similarly conceptualized music but tap into their womanhood and sexuality as a source of power, some might say THE DARK ARTS OF WOMANNESS.

This is just terrible writing and impossible to take seriously.

My problem with it is that the writer fails to recognize the paradoxical intertwining between nature’s ether and that of the web, unlike others who've embarked on such pursuits.

And she sings in orgasmic squeals.

lot of squealing on this album, not a moment of it sounds "orgasmic", thankfully

and her dwelling on the physical never actually reads as physical. upthread enya comparisons otm. the language might suggest physicality, but the music and performance deny this. closest thing to a body here is the hiccup in the "oblivion" loop.

I think there may be some yearning for the physical, but as far as its presence it's kind of floating as a figment within, or sharing the same space with a more spectral reality. like how people live lives with one foot in the physical and one foot in this non-place/space/everywhere which all kind of shares the same space (and in the case of the online, your personality/humanness kind of floats there as an ethereal presence - I think her voice works in the music like this - liquified humanity floating in a digital everyspace)

sorry, that could have been written more clearly (a comma between 'everywhere' and 'which' would help)... just waking up here.

basically just meaning to say there that her human presence registers the way personality registers online, there's still a human presence hovering there but some of the things that come with physical interaction/presence are gone or diminished. although I personally still feel her music reflects the balance, or coexistence, of online and offline life, culture and humanity seeping into online space

strongly resistant of the temptation to read this album as being "about" online identity, even if that's the artist's explicit intent. just don't see this theme convincingly or compellingly developed in the music/lyrics themselves, and though it's an interesting lens to try on, it could apply equally well to almost any electronic/low affect/alienated/disembodied music.

it's not that I see it as being directly about online identity, as much as it's just coming from that reality. I get this picture of a faint, slightly bewildered humanity still trying to connect and find ways to live out its humanness in a rotating topology of some Information Sublime

Chris S's posts are great; and I think they speak to how substantial Boucher's songwriting is, even if she downplays its importance

Totally agree with contenderizer, too. These songs aren't about online identity. That's just lazy writers' way of framing them based on something cool she said in an interview once

I mean, "post-internet" is a cool way of contextualizing these songs, but if that's your only takeaway from them, you need to do less reading and more listening

i don't really feel like grimes succeeds in conveying what her songs are "about" at all - not that she should have to but it's why they feel somewhat thin and empty to me. don't get a sense of physicality or otherwise, it doesn't evoke much of anything, certainly nothing about identity let alone post-internet identity.

i certainly don't need it be about anything, beyond an interesting voice & some good ideas

i agree that the whole "post-tumblr" thing is ridiculous, but it's just press copy, doesn't affect how i hear the music

well demanding a song be "about" "something" "specific" is ridiculous yeah, but music should certainly evoke something, put something in mind, even if it's just an image or colour or whatever, and that's what i don't get from grimes music - it's flat, it's literally just sound.

tbh I totally experience all those things in the music - post-internet identity (in her presence and in the flow of influences, and stuff about 'being a body' etc in the face of all this). the slight thinness, 'emptiness' to her voice (although it has a lot of substance/emotional resonance for me, but there is certainly a faintness/ethereal quality) is a part of this too - to my experience of it at least

My sense of this album is that its intimacy feels internalised, as if Boucher is singing to herself (I'm using "to" in a strong sense here - like she's addressing herself) and the listener is posited as the part of her being sung to.

My reaction may be slightly overdetermined by how much she reminds me of Happy Rhodes in electronic mode - both vocally (with the high portion of Happy's register anyway) and musically, but also thematically - there's a kind of dasein vibe at work, which is maybe why so many of the songs also seem to be about the creative process itself, music about its own making (and perhaps as a general rule if you're not really enamoured of a musician's creative process then any oblique odes to it will seem to be about "nothing).

My sense of this album is that its intimacy feels internalised, as if Boucher is singing to herself (I'm using "to" in a strong sense here - like she's addressing herself) and the listener is posited as the part of her being sung to.

...there's a kind of dasein vibe at work, which is maybe why so many of the songs also seem to be about the creative process itself, music about its own making

again, those are intriguing concepts, but i don't think they're strongly present in grimes' music/lyrics - at least no more so than in lots of other music. i mean, "dasein vibe" suggests so much, but specifically attaches to so little. grimes' songs tend to be less about doing than being, but that's as far as i can follow that train of thought wr2 what i actually hear here.

intimacy is a strange and loaded word in any context. i've realized recently that the quality i like best in several of the 2011 albums i was initially exposed to in the year-end poll thread is a quality of intense intimacy (referring primarily to colin stetson's new history warfare 2, julia holter's tragedy, king creosote & john hopkins' diamond mine and nicholas jaar's space is only noise). there's something a bit sickly and even oppressive about that kind of intimacy, an unfiltered, unmediated engagement that verges on oversharing. when you're close enough to hear the tongue moving in someone's mouth, see the contractions and dilations of their pupils, you might be too close for comfort. i don't get that sense at all from grimes, and therefore it's hard for me to think of her music as particularly "intimate". which perhaps does raise questions about what intimacy might be in a dephysicalized, delocated context, but i don't think this album really addresses them.

that's interesting, Tim - it brings to mind the stuff she's said about wanting the be both the producer and the Star... the producer being a traditionally male role and the Star kind of being the inheritance of the classical Western role of the woman as object-to-be-seen-under-the-Male-Gaze. like, in John Berger's Ways of Seeing, in his chapter on the Male Gaze and the history of the representation of women in art, he describes how within women in this context, there can be an internal male judge viewing themselves as they are seen from without, and from this every action is performed with understanding that men are always seeing and rating.

and Boucher demonstrates that here, creating and performing herself, to herself (a viewership/listenership that also symbolizes the outside listener/viewer), but in taking more charge of the producer role and exposing the creative process she's kind of collapsing that binary

and back to the Internet again, it also reminds me of the way the Net makes people realize they're always performing in a sense, so they learn to take control of both the process of self-creation and self-display (through Facebook profiles, twitter, everwhere). her self-conscious performing herself into being (but earnestly so, it doesn't feel like the gestures made are artificial) is like this gender-neutral fusion of the Gainsbourg and Birkin/Phil and Ronnie Spector/Hazlewood and Sinatra... so in other words it's a Lana Del Rey visibly and honestly in charge of her own production/realization

so in other words it's a Lana Del Rey visibly and honestly in charge of her own production/realization

or lady gaga or any other woman who produces the music that she is seen to perform

sure

it's a thing I'm seeing a lot lately

the female producer-and-performer is not that rare

intimacy is a strange and loaded word in any context. i've realized recently that the quality i like best in several of the 2011 albums i was initially exposed to in the year-end poll thread is a quality of intense intimacy (referring primarily to colin stetson's new history warfare 2, julia holter's tragedy, king creosote & john hopkins' diamond mine and nicholas jaar's space is only noise). there's something a bit sickly and even oppressive about that kind of intimacy, an unfiltered, unmediated engagement that verges on oversharing. when you're close enough to hear the tongue moving in someone's mouth, see the contractions and dilations of their pupils, you might be too close for comfort. i don't get that sense at all from grimes, and therefore it's hard for me to think of her music as particularly "intimate". which perhaps does raise questions about what intimacy might be in a dephysicalized, delocated context, but i don't think this album really addresses them.

I find the Holter and Jaar albums much less intimate than this, though I can sort of see what it is and them that you find intimate. With Jaar in particular the intimacy strikes me as a byproduct of the music being so insubstantial that it cannot form an existence separate to the listener (and I love most of Jaar's non-album work).

I think all this goes towards how a lot of the qualities we're arguing over whether Grimes does or does not have are qualities which do not exist in themselves but only by virtue of the relationship struck between the music and the listener - humanness, intimacy, corporeality/physicality etc.

It's a trite truism obv but I think that we'll basically keep on digging in our trench positions on this point all governed by whether we "click" with the album in the first place.

lex - yeah, definetely not, even the whole process of beautication is self-production for performance, it's as old as gender constructions, but I'd say there's maybe more of an emphasis on an exploration of the production side, and its technique, with Grimes and artists like her. but maybe not (will need to make a list I think)

a lot of the qualities we're arguing over whether Grimes does or does not have are qualities which do not exist in themselves but only by virtue of the relationship struck between the music and the listener - humanness, intimacy, corporeality/physicality etc.

that's a good point, and it perhaps raises questions about how music can imply things about the nature of that relationship. maybe one of the things that's interesting about grimes' "singing to myself" approach is that the result doesn't really define the space in question, leaving listeners to decide for themselves where they stand in relation to the music and the place the artist establishes for herself within it. thus you can construct it as intimate or distanced, depending on your proclivities. maybe this fluidity also enhances the sense that the music reflects identity on the internet.

completely disagree about nicolas jaar's music being insubstantial, even on the slighter-in-comparison album - each track has a deceptively solid foundation, a bassline or a groove or a hook that works as the starting point for him to weave his magic.

The female producer-and-performer is not rare, but at the same time to simplify massively it exists along a continuum where one side of the equation can be emphasised more than the other.

Lady Gaga, for example, seems more invested in performance than production, which is not to say that she does not attend to the latter, but that she produces for the purpose of performance.

If this seems meaningless, compare with, say, a house producer who adds soft diva-esque vocals to her own tracks - while it might be important to her that she does her own vocals, the music itself does not frame the vocals in that matter (and but for our own intermittent

That cut off the second half of my post. Let's try again:

The female producer-and-performer is not rare, but at the same time to simplify massively it exists along a continuum where one side of the equation can be emphasised more than the other.

Lady Gaga, for example, seems more invested in performance than production, which is not to say that she does not attend to the latter, but that she produces for the purpose of performance.

If this seems meaningless, compare with, say, a house producer who adds soft diva-esque vocals to her own tracks - while it might be important to her that she does her own vocals, the music itself does not frame the vocals in that manner (and but for our own intermittent creator-fetishism, as listeners it probably wouldn't matter to us who did the vocals). You could say that an artist doing this kind of thing is performing for the purpose of production.

Grimes exists pretty squarely in the center of the continuum, and I think an effect of that position is that the resulting performance of the equation sounds both more self-aware and dialogic (again, this is not unique, but it's only a small subset of female producer-performer work). The fact that she uses multiple voices rather than a single narrative-centric voice only underscores this.

good post, spot on I think

Grimes exists pretty squarely in the center of the continuum, and I think an effect of that position is that the resulting performance of the equation sounds both more self-aware and dialogic (again, this is not unique, but it's only a small subset of female producer-performer work). The fact that she uses multiple voices rather than a single narrative-centric voice only underscores this.

yeah, that's a good way of describing a certain approach. suppose kd andersson's work in the knife and especially fever ray walks the same line, see also planningtorock et al.

as far as gaga goes, i've always seen her primarily as a producer, and one of the things she produces (lol pun) is a knowingly prefab pop personality called "lady gaga", so in my view, she's closer to the center than it might seem

so, i'll take it there's no point in trying to wade into this thread now huh

i dunno, what do you think about internet robots who are also producers?

daft punk is ok i guess

i dunno, what do you think about internet robots who are also producers?

you mean like horse_ebooks?

as far as gaga goes, i've always seen her primarily as a producer, and one of the things she produces (lol pun) is a knowingly prefab pop personality called "lady gaga", so in my view, she's closer to the center than it might seem

Yes I agree with this which is one reason I felt it necessary to caveat my explanation as a pretty massive simplification - insofar as performance is always a production (of one sort or another) it's actually theoretically dodgy to try to insist on a division between performance and production.

What I'm really getting at is the idea of character in music - and again not in the judgmental sense of "this music has no character" but more the question of whether the music presents a character or characters.

Lana Del Ray and Lady Gaga are both very clear, striking examples of that.

New video! I really like this, although I'm not sure why, since it's essentially just four minutes of Grimes looking cute and goofy singing with headphones in various locations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtH68PJIQLE

The "Vanessa" video cost $60, mostly for booze. I believe this one cost at least twice that.

I'm pretty sure that the stadium in that video is the one I run a couple times a week at the gym.

I like the video, looks like she's having fun.

this is quite good, not sure what i expected but didn't expect this

Wish there was more love for "Nightmusik", sounds like an update of Cranes
So happy to see so much love for this girl

Has anyone seen her live? I might try to catch her set at SXSW. Worth going?

I seen her live, it was pretty awesome! She certainly knows what she's doing. Good for her with this new video coming out and all. Hope she has a good year!

Me too. I'm excited for her. I saw her at SXSW a couple times last year, she was on tour with Rollie. She cradles the mic between ear and shoulder like a telephone.

sounds like an update of Cranes

This is at least 70% of my love for Grimes

Yeah, I think that was my first comment on her over in the Sandbox: Cranes with a laptop, which is p much like total and completely WCC-bait.

huh, the invocation of Cranes makes me want to give this another try; my initial reaction was "nice enough, but not nice enough to seek out"

i think i much prefer halfaxa to visions, and i really like visions. but stuff like "dream fortress" is just otherworldly

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/422518_10150717333636763_671491762_11222055_6886399_n.jpg

I like this!

GRIMES IN 2012

GRIMES VS GRIME

Reading things like this...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/08/grimes-visions-review

...make me understand why Lex doesn't like Grimes.

But then again reading things like Circumambient, a close runner-up to Oblivion in the standout stakes, sounds like an R&B song with all the money sucked out of it. makes me want to punch indie music criticism in the face.

I finally managed to d/l this off the 4AD website.

I like it. I was already predisposed to like it, so I'm relieved that I do like it.

It's just odd, that the amount of ink that seems to have been spilled over this record, none of it seems to bear the slightest connection to the music that I am hearing.

Coming around to the idea that reading about music may actually be the worst possible way of discovering music I might like.

I've always looked at music criticism, reviews, message boards, etc. as a way of finding and rediscovering music without giving any weight at all to the opinions behind the writing. I kinda sift through the opinions for keywords or phrases that are suited to my taste or warn me that I probably won't be into the music being discussed. The idea that someone can interpret a song, or any art for that matter, and bludgeon everyone else with that interpretation seems pretty dickish.

That said, I hope Grimes isn't dissected into oblivion by fans and critics alike. She's so damn likable, but even better than that she has interesting songs and you can actually dance to some of them. The ideas behind them are what stick out for me.

into "oblivion"

It was unavoidable. I love that word.

Not tired at 4:30 AM and having a bedroom dance party to Visions. This is what it was made for.

If The xx were 2AM music for when I'm sad, and Claire's first two albums are music for when I want to zone out and drift (in a good way), this one is designed for dancing alone in the dark.

Also, the two Canadian-vinyl-only bonus tracks are pretty darn awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxoSVzNn8Gs

Grimes - Life After Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPK3MyUlx9o

Grimes - Ambrosia

They're the two extra tracks on a 12" vinyl version that cuts a bunch of the rest of the album - 8 tracks total, but two are 'new'.

When you figure out where to slot them into the full length version of the album (I've put Ambrosia before Symphonia IX and Life After Death right before Nightmusic) and tack on the Amazon bonus 'Angel' at the end (and exclude 'Christmas Song', the track what has her brother rapping on it), Visions is a formidable album.

I just got this and it's still growing on me, so I'm not sure where it will end up on my scale of 1-10. This does seem a bit more diverse in its influences than typical electropop, with nods to house and R&B among other things. The combination of fairly fast, steady tempos, sing-songy melodies, glitches (or whatever they're called now), and the slightly affectless, introverted vocals remind me a bit of Lali Puna.

"Vowels = Space and Time" is so perfect. Especially when the bassline comes in and she's singing little girl-like and then switches to breathy ethereality on the line "'cos boy you could [something something something]... yeah yeah yeah!"

people have really complex thoughts about her. i have only heard one song which i thought was slight but nice. i liked her more upon noticing the triforce tattoo on her arm.

I do like how she uses her voice on this album - I just think she could have a bit more presence.

Just saw her live for the first time in a year - holy shit - what a difference. Stage presence to spare, gigantic dance party for an hour and openers Born Gold were damn good too. Miles away from the soft-spoken and slightly-flustered set I saw opening for How to Dress Well. Glad to see the material is finally translating to a live setting really well.

Only complaints: (1) nothing off the first two albums which have basically been declared non-existent, Shakira style, (2) only the uptempo stuff got played. Not sure how 'skin' would have translated live, but wish she'd have tried.

still, amazing. off to afterparty now.

this album is dope

actually I guess this entire album really wants to be J-Pop by way of Sweden?

― (thinks and smiles) (DJP), Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:01 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark

my thoughts exactly -- pretty freaking novel and great IMO

It feels very right to me that you like this J0rdan!

yeah i was sleeping, no excuse

i like certain tracks on this a lot, and like the overall aesthetic, some songs are def not standing with the best ones to me? it feels inconsistent

Srs question how much have you listened to it deej? My experience was first few times I liked a couple of tunes a lot and was not so hot on the others, and then each time I listened the tracks that had blurred past me the first time got more and more distinct, and now my favourite tracks are probably "Vowels = Space & Time" and "Nightmusic" which I would never have said early on.

yah i havent listened to it as much will try to spend some more time i suppose

the vocals on "vowels = space and time" are so good

sounds very r&b to me

gtfo no

yeah, like r&b only way better

xpost

/troll

it's really kinda beautiful & novel imo... it's almost like an entire song of backing vocals

novel if you haven't heard many weak-voiced women cooing aimlessly over timid electronic twiddling

idk her voice sounds pretty great on that song

one of the things I really like about her is that many of the vocal arrangements/lines in one song are little hooks/songs by themselves.

novel if you haven't heard many weak-voiced women cooing aimlessly over timid electronic twiddling

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 17:49 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

*bookmarks post*

if only boucher was a strong-willed women singing the kind of authentic r&b music that critics ignore in this day and age!

if only she could write any sort of hook or make any sort of interesting sound

Her voice is many things. "Weak" is not one of them. I recognise that the theatricalness of her voice may be off-putting to some, but to dismiss that as "weak" is evidence of your bias, not a lack of strength or skill or personality in her technique and performance.

this is gonna sound weird, but i almost think visions is like love king, where like every element is its own little hook, one of the reasons i like it a lot

and yes i did just compare boucher to terius

every element is its own little hook

this is how i hear the record too, which makes lex's comments increasingly obscure to me

anyway looking forward to him dropping into this thread periodically to tell us about how he doesn't like grimes

i gave this album way more chances than i usually give albums that i don't enjoy initially, and after all of them i could not recall a single hook, if they existed at all

some of my favorite moments on this are the brief seconds when she switches to a recognizably "good" singing voice, amidst all the swirling multitracked chipmunkisms

it's a choice, you know, lex.

it's just completely unmemorable to me, and i didn't find it "interesting" enough to even admire from a distance (like with julia holter)

Lex, you're allowed not to like a record. But when you continually drop into a thread to tell how much you hate it and we're all stupid for liking it, that is unbelievably tedious. It's not for you. Move on.

this is gonna sound weird, but i almost think visions is like love king, where like every element is its own little hook, one of the reasons i like it a lot

― "I know its hard to hear but I'm a Realest." (rennavate), Wednesday, April 4, 2012 12:57 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

*yanks rope on bus*

anyway it's not like lex revived this thread, i did -- it's cool

It's just... It doesn't make me doubt my judgement over Grimes. But it does make me rethink my areas of agreement with Lex's taste, which generally do overlap and have a lot of common ground. Bah stupid meta, will shut up now.

i think it's obvious that she has a good, powerful singing voice and this is one of the first recent indie albums i've heard where manipulating the vocals or choosing not to sing 'traditionally' really works for it -- she's not attempting to mask or hide any sort of vocal deficiency, but a lot of times it's like you're trying to reach out and grab these great hooks or melodies that aren't pushed to the forefront... but for like the entire album. again tho i think it works because she can sing.

i think there's something narcotic about the album but not in the super obvious way that, idk, jj or the weeknd go for 'narcotic'

J0rdan otm. She isn't just setting a superficial mood; the songs penetrate much deeper than that

i'm not saying she *can't* sing, i'm saying the way she chooses to sing doesn't work. there's nothing to latch on to.

i'm pretty much coming in here b/c most people in here are the people i usually talk to all the time and mostly agree with so it's the extra WTF are you hearing in this boring music factor.

j0rdan otm itt

That's it, Jordan. she's a hugely skilled vocalist and everything she is doing to her voice, the treatments, the odd tonality, seems completely thought out and deliberate. You can dislike what she's doing, but implying she's doing it out of lack of skill rather than choice is just wilfully negative.

So much of that chipmunk voice and baby-cooing seems like a deliberate parody or reducto ad absurdum of the quality of ~Femininity~ and fragility. And guess what - the other woman that really plays with that contrast between pretty-voice delicacy / fragility and chopped up aggressive music is St Vincent, who Lex also hates.

So it's becoming more apparent to me what it that Lex dislikes in both of them. Though obviously I disagree.

*yanks rope on bus*

Explain, please. You're probably just shaking your head at that comment haha

i'm pretty much coming in here b/c most people in here are the people i usually talk to all the time and mostly agree with so it's the extra WTF are you hearing in this boring music factor.

― lex pretend, Wednesday, April 4, 2012 1:16 PM (15 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Except this happens, without fail, 3 or 4 times yearly. People who mostly share your taste will occasionally like things you don't, and berating us for being wrong just makes us all grumpy. We're not the people who are ignoring the things you're loving - we're going nuts about Dawn and Kalenna and everyone else - and we're not going out of our way to try to sell you on things that we know you don't like after you give them an honest shot. I dunno. It just feels like an unproductive conversation, because you're not likely to be convinced, because what a lot of us are valuing here are part of an aesthetic framework that you actively don't like.

Normally, I'm all about back and forth to try to figure out what makes something work for me and not for somebody else, especially when so much of our taste tends to overlap, but we've done this enough times that I already know how the conversation plays out, so why not save yourself the stress and rage and just ignore the thread and we can get excited about Teedra or Jade Alston or Nicki somewhere else without hitting all of our heads against the wall?

i'm trying to think of fragile-voiced female singers i love...cassie obv. ashanti too. latter-day mariah when she goes cooey and breathy? stina nordenstam obv! anja garbarek to a limited extent. nordenstam and garbarek can write hooks though.

don't think i ever got round to disliking st vincent's voice specifically due to hating the production so much, but it didn't grab me for sure.

'Visions' has been a grower for me, as much as I loved it from day one. I was worried that the glossier polish and more 'song'-like songs would eliminate some of her ramshackle charm but there are so many more hooks buried in this - I'm not sure if I agree with rennavate re: 'Love King' but I do think his description is on point wrt the album being a constant stream of mini-hooks that sometimes integrate into songs and sometimes don't.

I'm curious what j0rdan and Evan and folk would think of her live show. The vocals are still manipulated and fragile to some extent, but there's more belting and more power in the beats. It's much more of a dance-oriented show than the album would suggest.

also, her dj set at the afterparty was all remixes of Mariah's 'Obsessed' and turn of the millenium r'n'b

"but I do think his description is on point wrt the album being a constant stream of mini-hooks that sometimes integrate into songs and sometimes don't."

ya that's what i mean. i don't mean that it's actually like/as good as love king.

I know this drives you nuts, Lex, but I think a lot of us here appreciate Grimes more than so many similarly styled electro-pop acts precisely because we do hear a little more R&B in her. And the way she appropriates the genre doesn't seem subtle or exploitative to me; she's pretty clever about it. I think your overarching bias against all non-traditional displays of R&B prevents you from taking that same enjoyment away from it, though, so it's kind of a lost cause. Which is a shame, because this otherwise seems like something you could love, too.

It's much more of a dance-oriented show than the album would suggest.

More power live is never a bad thing in my book, even if the subtleties I love on the record get lost. I'm actually going to Pitchfork this year pretty much for the sole purpose of seeing her live; hope it's good.

I think your overarching bias against all non-traditional displays of R&B

that doesn't exist (see enjoyment of creep, kingdom etc passim)

i wouldn't have associated grimes with r&b at all if you lot hadn't talked about it.

also, for the thousandth time, good taste when djing is not correlated to being a worthwhile musician at all. fucking bloc party can dj a banging set of 90s dance but they should still kill themselves before recording another note of their own material

It's funny because although I do hear traces of especially Mariah Carey in her vocal treatment, the thing she reminds me most strongly of is that "etherial girl" thing so beloved of 4AD in the late 80s / early 90s.

That kind of babyish ethereal girl singing voice, I later loved on people like Tanya Donelly of Belly/Throwing Muses and hated on her out of Blake Babies (Juliana Whatsit?) and then you had people like Miki Berenyi and Alison Cranes who took that style and completely subverted it, like it was no longer cutesy anime girl but became this edge of slightly psychotic and demented behind all the pretty.

Take this voice which could be a doll, but turn it into a mad child in the attic with a knife.

Grimes seems like she is both playing the Ethereal Girl and at the same time, ripping the archetype to pieces in a really (to my ears) interesting way. But if you read it as straight girly-girl I would find it infuriating.

the thing she reminds me most strongly of is that "etherial girl" thing so beloved of 4AD in the late 80s / early 90s.

only a few tracks in myself but whatever it's worth this seems blatantly, painfully obvious

i'm sure a big r&b ballad is only a song away tho

also no offence but never speak of mariah ever again

hmm maybe it is slightly more 80s pop styling than just simply 4ad indie but i can't quite recall the singer i'm thinking of specifically

there are some moments esp on "vowels" that are much closer to being 'wispy' the way 90s Mariah was than whatever 'wispy' singing lex was referring to

also another thing about this album is that if you told me it was produced by john talabot I would believe you

You gonna laugh but there are moments that her productions and harmonies remind me so much of 80s Prince, but that might just be there's a song (sorry don't know titles, I listen to this when I'm jogging) which has almost exactly the same drum sounds and beat as When Doves Cry. Could be my shitty earbuds though.

But mostly it's 4AD 4-track weirdoes with a Reason DAW. It has as much His Name Is Alive and Danielle Dax in it as Mariah Carey.

But, you know, LOL signifiers. I thought one of the songs on Halfaxa sounded like Republica, what so I know?

Better sound palette than Talabot. More Germanic, too. This reminds me of Cluster with Orbital-1994-era Alison Goldfrapp singing over it.

But wtf do I know. I really like it, though.

Every person who listens to this record seems to bring an intensely hears set of signifiers and reference points to it - and they're all completely different.

Which probably means she is actually quite unique? I honestly can't think of much that sounds exactly like this so I'm always reaching, and it's possible she's never heard any of the things I project onto her voice.

Intensely heard. I Fucken hate this iPhone.

My knowledge of rnb is practically zero, so, y'know. We all have different analogues.

the only thing i know about grimes other than seeing the name on the internet on occasion was being a conversation behind me at the liquor store the other day:

guy a: "hey, you have to check out this album i think you might like it. they're called grimes..."
guy b: "already have it"
(divergence off into conversation about turntable.fm)
guy c: "you guys play some really boring stuff in that room"
guys a + b: "..."
me: (stifling guffaw as i pay cashier)

FFS it doesn't even SOUND LIKE Talabot and certainly doesn't use better sounds

To your ears, dude.

Me, I can't for the life of me hear what anyone likes in Talabot. I find it so banal and lifeless.

That's why there's chocolate and vanilla.

The difference is, I gave up w Talabot and I don't spend hours haranguing ppl on his thread saying they should be listening to, like, Grimes instead.

FFS it doesn't even SOUND LIKE Talabot and certainly doesn't use better sounds

― lex pretend, Wednesday, 4 April 2012 19:36 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

srsly, 4 the luv of god

Yeah, I love Talabot but Visions, doesn't remind me at all of him, so I'm with lex on that, at least.

i haven't listened to this album but the video of her doing genesis alone in a room w a table of pedals has been obsessing me for the last week or so.

the "oblivion" video is even better!

im sorry about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3iAoxHb8B8

i think the bit that really started to sink in for me was the part where she's singing what sounds like "my heart" over and over. there's a moment where she goes "my-Y heaart" (its like 1:59 in the video if you're interested) and it has this feeling of being chopped up in pro-tools but you see her do it there in front of you, just this slight vocal affectation. i mean its not the niftiest of tricks, and its hard to bring it up without making it seem like you want it to be read like so many iterations of the body imitating the machine. there's this strategy of incorporation that i think is working in this album. these layers of signification being compressed. her voice overlaid with the ghost of its machine alteration. this particular synthesis. (its hard for me to think of without remembering that she is roughly the same age as me, grew up singing along to productions by guys who first encountered this as a nifty studio gimmick.)

i'm not being clear. i think though, that this approach definitely bleeds into what she's doing elsewhere. the vocals can sound intimate and alien and naked and elusive. the lyrics that turn into vapor. smoke weed and listen to mariah. a whole set of associations that can be tapped into in all these oblique ways. lateral steps along a chain of signification. its connected with the collapse of the chillwave project i guess. she is a post-anco popstar for sure. all those haunted houses of pop songs. and yeah vowels = space and time. all this negative space, something missing at the centre.

how hard it is to feel things, presumably

attach judith's comment to tim's comment about it being "music commenting on its own making" but even to the point where i think the making is semi-erased (thus the "something missing at the centre") and it's all otm to me

also the persistent criticism i encounter of this record is that is sounds "unfinished" or "like demos," which, okay, it definitely doesn't sound like that to me, but considering that, what would make this sound more "complete" necessarily? someone upthread said they imagine drum parts in this record where there are none. i think that is a totally legitimate way to love music, to fill in spaces yourself. it's an interaction, not a closed system. like hearing music faintly, from another room, how other parts are summoned that are not necessarily part of the music but are not totally your own making either

Brilliant album but let's not try to explain it via R&B perhaps. Still think mid-80s Happy Rhodes is the best comparison point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F9mg0wmBUk

The part of Lex's crusade that I disagree with most (while recognising this is a subjective measure) is the "no hooks" measure - this album is like hooks on hooks.

Making this more "complete" would ruin it for me.

i don't recognise the "unfinished" way of listening to music at all - i can't say i've ever experienced music like that.

the "no hooks" argument is my strongest, everything else is trying to justify it retrospectively but what it comes down to is that it goes in one ear and out the other, and i have given it waaaaay more chances than things like that normally get. it doesn't stick at all.

There's nothing I can say to that but, it sticks to my head like crazy. Even though they are insane pitched riffs that I couldn't possibly sing along with.

xpost I believe you, it just seems bizarre to me because I feel my number one reason for liking this album is its kaleidoscope of hooks. The songs don't feel unfinished to me at all, but really generous, like she's offering more ideas than she needs to in each song. The way the songs are filled with this winning little shifts and switch-ups vocally/sonically/melodically. It also means it withstands repeat playing a lot more.

winning little shifts and switch-ups

otm

fwiw the R&B connection doesnt really resonate for me, like, i believe its there, but it doesnt really operate like R&B for me & i dont think thats key to understanding or enjoying it

how hard it is to feel things, presumably

― r|t|c, Wednesday, April 4, 2012 9:38 PM (Yesterday)

lol thank you for checking out the course reader

http://i.imgur.com/dsTSB.gif

lex everyone knows you got baited into hating this by critics you spend your entire life claiming to avoid

it goes in one ear and out the other... it doesn't stick at all.

I have had the "see you in a dark night" line from 'Oblivion' stuck in my head - in a good way - for about two months straight

yeah, i get various hooks that don't seem to last more than 2 seconds stuck in my head all the time.

right now my favourite track from her is not on this album, it's "vanessa".

the part where she goes :
"My heart, oh
and I don't care what you say
but it's the way it goes and it's a happening everyday"

has been completely stuck in my head for days !
(+ she's very cute in the video)

Ha! I woke up with a Grimes song stuck in my head this morning, without having heard it in days. I don't know the name of it or even the lyrics so I've substituted Cocteau Twins nonsense but it's like "some, some, some, some, give it all back, I would start the seaside, I would start the whoooaaaa-ooaaaa-ooooaaa"

I've checked, it's Visiting Statue and it's "seabed" not "seaside" but approximately the same lyrics.

That song is an earworm!

they're (almost) all earworms !
I've just bought tickets to see her in paris in may.

i need someone else
to look into my eyes and tell me girl you know you gotta watch your health
(to look into my eyes and tell me girl you know you gotta watch your health)
LA LA LA LA LA

otm

Interesting interview from Tiny Mix Tapes:

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/grimes

Used to work at D&Q!

(ha ha, it took me like 3 years to learn how to export lossless from GarageBand but by that time I'd moved to the Record upgrade of Reason, so now I don't feel like such a dummy if she couldn't crack it either.)

Hildegarde von Bingen! OK, I love you. I knew I was right to do so.

Well, now we know her primary influence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37I7egeAtSY

I have never heard that song before; it's awesome.

yeah, wow, that's gorgeous. and jeez, you can really hear what grimes took away from it. hamill sounds like she had a p interesting career. according to wikipedia, she recorded with, toured with with or joined: procol harum, jethro tull, king crimson, gilbert o' sullivan, wishbone ash, jon and vangelis (she's on friends of mr. cairo!). voices sounds pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tdeqk3zdPI

http://twitter.com/#!/Grimezsz/status/189136305098199041

http://grimestyle.tumblr.com/

never gonna get over her malice mizer background

Reading her twitter, she just reminds me so much of my siX0r at that age, like freaky avante-naive prodigy goth girl in love with *everything* and eating up everything she possibly can with a spoon and dishing it out in this weird cuisineart blender of everything all at once, and yet still very personal and distinctive.

But, you know, I just love spooky art school girls so much. It's like... man, we could hang out, and drink wine and make the baby jesus cry. It'll be awesome.

Side note, OK, why have I never heard Claire Hamill before? This has my name all over it!

Hamill's Voices topped the UK New Age Chart in 1986, but its outlier in a discography of 70s folky/proggy singer-songwriter and 80s Kate Bushisms (for a few songs each folky album, at least).

yeah def wanna hang w/ grimes

interesting to discover her favourite album of last year was Katy B.

interesting that her favorite album of last year was so uninteresting

I was thinking of you when I posted that, admittedly.

I bit my tongue so hard before taking the bait... I really, really tried not to

not much crossover between this thread and the billy joel poll

The Katy B record is great!

Most of ILX (the smart half at least) thought it was great, too. Sometimes I think Grimes would make an excellent ILX0r. And then I realise she'd probably be a noize borader. Feh.

I've fallen and I can't feel my face.

i think theres an rnb influence but not one that should be overstated. like daydream era mariah in places but thats about it. i mean its there and its not there.

It's an influence, it's hearable, but it's one of about a million "influences" that have been chopped up and thrown in the blender. It's not exactly a USP or anything, it's just a thing that's there.

http://twitter.com/#!/Grimezsz/status/189590724138909696

i'm grimes you guys

You're so positive

Ben Gruber ‏ @benhenrygruber · Details
@Grimezsz listening to michael jackson covers are we?

feel like posting this in the irrationally angry thread, read it and thought "this is why i hate people", not sure if i can explain properly but i can't be alone in this

like the fact that this person thought his knowledge of the fact that alien ant farm's biggest hit was a michael jackson cover was not only worth tweeting@a hipster girl he obv has a boner for, but the fact that he phrases it in a way that makes it look like he seriously expects her to respond to that

it's just

ugh

and it's not even that she's internet-famous or anything, i get weirdly annoyed when i see guys do similar things to girls they know on fbook (it is always straight guys who do this to girls on fbook), i just don't understand what goes on in ppl's heads

anyway i like grimes some of her songs are gud

i just don't understand what goes on in ppl's heads

pussy

I'm not calling you that, im just saying that is what is going thru straight guys who write dumb messages to girls heads.

dude does seem hella thirsty

heh nsfw http://grimestyle.tumblr.com/post/21872453967/preview-grimes-pussy-rings-first-creation-of-the

Grimes fave (and Montreal pals?) Purity Ring are now also releasing their debut lp on 4AD (7/24/2012).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETbGpGJNVLM

I really love Visions. It's so catchy yet I don't get tired of listening to it. I love singing with her and making up lyrics like I did when I listened to Cocteau Twins.

love this >

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxmCvdY4NZQ&feature=youtu.be

hm, doesn't seem to want to embed. lets try..

http://youtu.be/FxmCvdY4NZQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxmCvdY4NZQ

love this

Did Grimes get really big all of a sudden? On Friday I was in two "young people" clothes shops and they were playing tracks off Visions.

it's a "thing" now

in my clothing shops of young people

'phone sex' seems like it's striving v hard to be a big summer jam, but for me it's succeeding very well, so whatyagonnado.

the tent for her set at field day had overspilled in a serious way, she is v much 'in'.

I'm more about this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIqz3Q4qsMw

Joanna Newsom meets electronic music.
maxjimmyjazz 11 hours ago

wow, I wish

I actually quite like that remix.

i haven't been listening to much new music this year but i do like some grimes jams

She played our stage at Field Day and I was amazed at how popular she was - people were going apeshit but I still don't really get it. It seems to be more about her as a personality than the music. It was really interesting watching the crowd change for Tortoise who were on after her.

It seems to be more about her as a personality than the music.

yes, this must be it.

That's the kind of comment that really irritates me. Like, you don't *get* the music (which is fine, that's why there's chocolate and vanilla) but because you don't *get* it, that means other people's appreciation must be based on her... personna or something?

It doubly irks because it's the kind of criticism that often gets thrown at female musicians - it can't possibly be their music, it has to be about something else - saying people are responding to that performer's "personality" is a step up from "you just like her looks" but it's coming from the same highly loaded place IMHO.

she's pretty cute tho

So's Thom Yorke. Your point is?

Gukbe had all the bait this entire time, you guys

WCC did not take my post in the spirit within which it was given

your use of "within" makes that sound quite liturgical.

just striving to hit that point where the post plunges through its own transparency to meet the power that created it

It was really interesting watching the crowd change for Tortoise who were on after her.

well ya, it went from (to generalize) a slightly younger mixed group to (to generalize) a slightly older largely male group. this is perhaps not v startling when it comes to tortoise vs just about anybody. and rly i'm not even sure what her persona is, especially not as something notably distinct from the music.

(mild passive aggressive dickishness aside, your stage had a lot of great stuff, doran, i found myself there more than anywhere else. and also, if you were who i thought you were, that was a v sharp fitzcarraldo-esque suit you were sporting.)

Nah, personality may be part of it, but i think the biggest part is blog fame/peer pressure.

she was v.much 'bad' at primavera - needed a smaller stage I think, struggled to fill the space

also, an artist's personality always comes through their music; it's a bad argument that separates the two.

^^^^It's got nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman and everything to do with the fact her music is - IN MY OPINION - paper thin and on the whole unmemorable, the fact her voice is (to me) pretty irritating and there's only really one strong song on the album and even then, I'd sooner listen to Julie Cruise.

Apologies if I've expressed myself badly here but the post was supposed to suggest that I'm middle aged and perhaps too old to 'get it', hence the reference to Tortoise. As I twittered at the time I was pretty much convinced it was the coolest/youngest thing we've ever had our name attached to and it was pretty funny seeing all these people slowly morphing into fucked old dudes who look like me for Tortoise.

But yeah, if I was passive/aggressive or a dick, I'm sorry BUT I reject any claims of misogyny vigorously. There's absolutely no reason why anyone on here should have read anything I've written but all the same there is enough evidence out there to suggest that I@m not some sexist creep - quite the opposite hopefully. Sorry if I've upset anyone I'll try and phrase things more precisely next time.

oh, i meant i was the one possibly being a passive aggressive dick, sorry! (communicating over the internet bad, grimes better.)

additionally i can't fucking stop listening to the track with blood diamonds, i should really be saving my summer jams for summer.

Ah, sorry. And thanks for the kind words on my suit - usually I expect people to say I look like a sex tourist in it. I'm glad you enjoyed our stage. It wasn't as good as last year but yeah, I think there were some ace sets.

^^^^It's got nothing to do with the fact that she's a woman and everything to do with the fact her music is - IN MY OPINION - paper thin and on the whole unmemorable, the fact her voice is (to me) pretty irritating and there's only really one strong song on the album and even then, I'd sooner listen to Julie Cruise.

Doran you can just not like the music rather than posit that her music has no appeal to anyone and people are just vibing off her personality.

Which doesn't really make sense given this album's take-up seems to be much broader than the reach of interviews/profiles on her would suggest.

If anything most people I know who are really into the album got into it in a way entirely disconnected from any notion of who Claire Boucher "is" - in particular at least 3 people I know first became obsessed with "Oblivion" as a kind of ~this year's "Heartbeats"~ thing where they didn't really care who was responsible for the music so long as it filled a specific need for them.

Look, it was an off the cuff observation based on how it seemed to me and I've explained that personally I'm at a loss to understand what people see in her as the album, in my opinion, isn't that good. Then, I had the privilege of watching her gig from the side of stage and seeing how it went off. People were screaming for her deafeningly even while she was setting her gear up. Apart from a pretty cheesy rubber n'angel wings dancing dude there isn't any show to speak of and she commanded our biggest crowd of the day by what I would call force of personality. But this is just what I got from it, obviously most other people would disagree with me and say that the album is full of tunes etc. But as observations go, I now accept that it was a bit shit and maybe not totally thought through properly.

I don't think Doran was out of bounds. I think a lot of listeners DO respond to her personality; it seems like it is a significant apart of her appeal (and certainly a significant apart of her recorded presence). I don't think that's an inherently bad thing at all, but it's something I wrestle with listening to the album, which I really love. I can't always tell how much I'm responding to her music and how much I'm responding to her overall endearing, cool-girl vibe. There's probably no need to even make a distinction between the two, b/c they're so connected.

I guess that's part of why I'm so conflicted about that Blood Diamonds song. I dig it, but it's so sexually charged that it makes me question my motives for liking it and Grimes overall. Am I into the music, or am I just another dude crushing on the cute girl? And again, how can I even make a distinction?

But as observations go, I now accept that it was a bit shit and maybe not totally thought through properly.

the only thing that bothered me about with comment was the suggestion that grimes' audience was responding more to her personality than to the music (something we can't really determine from outside other people's heads). in saying that, you at least seemed to denigrate the way grimes' fans relate to her, intentionally or not.

I guess that's part of why I'm so conflicted about that Blood Diamonds song. I dig it, but it's so sexually charged that it makes me question my motives for liking it and Grimes overall. Am I into the music, or am I just another dude crushing on the cute girl? And again, how can I even make a distinction?

i don't think there's anything wrong with liking a song in part because you think it's sexy - same goes for performers. i mean, people sometimes get gross about this kind of thing, but i think we all pretty much know when we're perving.

I think the other thing is she has a little girl voice, so when she sings that "talk to me daddy" line, she's playing into some sort of icky fantasies

Visions is sexy too, of course, but its sexiness comes from her overall energy and intimacy and the romanticism and physicality in her lyrics. This is the first track I've heard where she seems to be going for a deliberate Lolita thing, so it just feels a little cheap and easy

maybe it's just me but the title feels like a bit of a red herring - i can't decipher all of the lyrics, but it seems there are a lot of tones going on in there besides sexual, and the sexual side itself seems to have some conflicting facets to it.

I have pretty much no concept of who Claire Boucher is but I really, really like this record.

as rich and interesting and fun as her music is, I don't get how someone would only be able to imagine her appeal as only possibly being due to her image - appealing as it may be

There's this thing that ppl do when they're defensive (I include myself in this, BTW) which is, when they're accused of saying/doing something sexist (or racist or homophobic or whatever) which is to say "but I'm not misogynist so I REALLY resent that!" which is infuriating and counter productive.

It's like - we live in a culture which is just soaked in sexist values and we pick them up, consciously or not. I mean, I'm soaking in these ideas even though I've been actively resisting them for 30+ years. They're the things that pop out when we're shooting off the cuff, when we're tired, or not qualifying things or thinking them through.

And it's much better to own it, say "that was a sexist assumption" and move on to a more thought-out reflection or assessment - this actually helps work against that subconscious, internalised sexism in a way in a way that flat-out denial does not.

Just putting that out there, you can do with it what you like.

For the most part, I'm with Tim - drawing conclusions about why people like music that you don't is a fool's game.

You can interrogate your own tastes but trying to go in on others' is a bent mirror.

i'm on the fence about the music, but like scik mouthy, i don't know much about grimes/c boucher. i don't even know what she looks like. while i sometimes think musical voices and personae are sexy, it's usually a rather abstract sort of appreciation, separated from the tangible, bodily things that tend most immediately to engage my erotic imagination. "phone sex" does't even spark that kind of secondhand frisson. there's no sense of physicality or lust in it.

(one of the few songs i do find genuinely erotic, sonic youth's "eliminator jr." is apparently about a famous sex crime, so maybe my calibration is off, i dunno...)

^^I've explained and apologised for what I'm going to. You can't dress me down for presuming too much about other people while doing exactly the same to me. Well, you can, but I'm fucked if I'm going to 'wear' anything. Sounds like by your own admissions you could do with getting your own house in order and stop projecting your own standards on to others. Also you could do with checking the dictionary meaning of "seems" as it pertains to perception.

I didn't know anything about her or know what she looked like before I saw her live but one of the many things that led me towards thinking there was perhaps a cult of personality at work was the fact she looked really cool and there were girls dressed like her in the front row. (Not that these things always correlate - for example I don't think Slipknot are over-endowed with personality...)

A friend of mine heard the album and then saw the Oblivion video and went out and got that haircut within two days fwiw.

okay, so i watched the video. still my by far my favorite thing on the album. funny that i should only notice this while watching her pronounce the lyrics, but she lisps a little, right? "look into my eyeth and tell me..."

anyway, i now know what she looks like, though i don't think i want that haircut.

Doran if you would stop being so viciously defensive and actually looked at the things you were saying...

Like, why is Grimes as an "image band" indicative of "personality" while Slipknot, who are just as much an "image band" - how it that not coded as "personality" in the same way? If you'd stop kneejerking we could have an interesting conversation about that. But you have to admit that there are things in play here.

I guess it's because you're projecting things onto me that just aren't true (as far as I'm aware)... I'm not viciously doing anything. I didn't say Grimes were an image band. I didn't make a sexist/misogynist assumption about Grimes.

Last things first - I don't have to admit anything, I have no idea what your last sentence means.

I don't think a band/singer having a strong image is a negative thing. In fact I'd say that out of all my favourite bands/artists most (Prince, Bowie, Slayer, TG, PE, Kraftwerk, SunnO)))) have a defining visual look and only a few (PJ Harvey, The Fall) don't. So I think the fact that Grimes has a strong visual identity is a positive thing. Slipknot who are a passably entertaining band with one good album, who were quite exciting to watch live at a certain point are positively lacking in personality. It's all just mall nihilism, Hot Topic, Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, merch rights nonsense dressed up as the apocalypse. So in this, I'm suggesting that Grimes is far superior to Slipknot.

So, this conversation you were talking about, I'm all for it but I feel we'll both - not just me - need to pay closer attention to what the other one is saying.

You might wanna change that screen name first.

That is a fair point.

Done.

lol

Doran, I think you're being treated unfairly here but that was cute.

late to the party but wasn't there an interview/thinkpiece/whatever about how boucher is like hyperaware of her image/persona and puts a lot of effort into it? thing is it's not a bad thing imo and it's dishonest to suggest that the majority of artists don't care about their image or the majority of listeners don't care about an artists' image. there's nothing wrong or inauthentic about merging personality with art; it's essentially unavoidable. the annoying thing is that it's almost always used as a criticism of female artists because hey ingrained sexism.

I liked her music before I knew about her personality. I think it really came out in the "Oblivion" video, but she had two albums before that that people liked. There weren't many interviews with her before Visions so I didn't know much about her or her image. Only the "Vanessa" video which is nice but pretty anonymous.

It becomes so impossible to talk about this stuff, no matter how nicely you dress up the conversation, because people freak out and go "OMG you're accusing *me* of misogyny!!! how DARE you!!!" (see also the Erykah Badu thread ad infinitum) when what you are trying to say is "this stuff does not happen in a vacuum." The dialogue surrounding the way music made by men vs that made (or even liked) by women is discussed is loaded at a societal level.

It's this thing that outsidery dudes *love* to do when they are so tied up in their "OMG, I'm such an outsidery dude, I'm so not *affected* by society's mores!" that they don't even notice that they are telling a woman to "get her own house in order" from a screen name with a vastly derogatory term for women because that's just a cute or funny word to them, rather than a term of abuse which has been used to degrade you, personally, and hold back your entire kind. I don't know if it was intended to be *ironic* saying "I'm not going to wear that" when you were, literally, wearing it. You might insist you're wearing a plain white shirt but if you are existing in an environment where every single light shining on you is red, that shirt will look pink. Shouting that you are wearing a white shirt doesn't do anything about the red lights. They're still there, and denying that they exist makes the problem worse, not better.

This whole thing of "image" and "personality" is something that does get held against female artists in a way it just doesn't with male. That if you go to a Grimes gig and the front row is full of girls with her haircut who are dressed like her, that gets held against her and her fans, in a way that if you go to a metal gig and the front row is full of men with long hair, weedy beards and scruffy black clothes exactly like the dudes on stage - that doesn't get counted against them as being "just image." Even though it is the same kind of use of image for drawing tribal boundaries or identity. As far as I'm concerned, it's not a valid complaint against either. But it sure as hell gets used much more on one side than the other. (See also: Wayne Coyne's eccentricity gets him painted as creative, wacky, hoopy frood, while Erykah Badu's eccentricity gets her painted as "crazy.")

I get that you're saying that you didn't mean it in a gender-loaded way, you were doing the whole thing of saying "I'm old and I just don't understand why this is so popular because ugh X and ugh Y" when X and Y might actually be the things that are attracting that audience to that music in the first place?

That you hear music which is "thin" when I hear music that is light, playful, fun, joyous, that she has a mixed-bag, magpie approach to genre and style where everything gets thrown in together to create something frothy which is about mood and tone and creating these kid of theatrical set pieces.

That you dislike her voice - you'd rather listen to Julee Cruise. Which is kind of point-missing, to me. That Julee Cruise uses an airy, ultra-high voice to create things that are pretty, ethereal, beautiful, and generally nice to listen to. While Grimes takes that same vocal style, and uses it to create things that are sometimes pretty, but more often weird, theatrical, odd, strained, unnatural. It's like saying you'd prefer Katherine Jenkins to Diamanda Galas. I, personally, *love* what she's doing with her voice because she specifically uses that ultra-feminine coded high voice and uses it in a way that isn't always pretty, but is sometimes like a parody of feminine-coded voice pushed to absurdity and even ugliness. It's saying, to me, "look at this performance of gender, how fucking weird it is when you push it to extremes!" In a very similar way that The Knife pushed the performance of male and female voices to be slowed down and sped up so you could never tell if it was the man or woman singing or both. (I'm sure that metal dudes love the cookie monster voice, when I fucking hate it - and possibly even for the same reasons, because it's similarly a hyper-exaggerated take on performance of "masculine" voice.)

It's absolutely very much filling the kind of space created by The Knife - that's why I posted her on the post-Knife aesthetic thread on the Sandbox. I respond to many of the same things. The taking a grab-bag approach to the aesthetics of dance and electronic music as suits the song, rather than trying to fit to a specific genre. That air of theatricality - of pretence and masks (literal in The Knife's case, but figurative in Grime's. She doesn't mask her face, but she does mask her voice) is something I find very, very appealing. The whole idea of "give someone a mask and they will tell the truth."

That might be semi-political for me, but that goes way beyond the scope of a Grimes thread. (In a world where Straight White Male is seen as default, people who aren't one, or even several of those things, often already have to wear a metaphorical mask to pass or get by. So a mask seems less like a put-on and more like a tool. But that's another thread.)

To me, interesting stuff comes out when you push beyond that "I dislike (or like) this artist, and I can't freaking understand why people would (or wouldn't!)" kneejerk thing. That often you find out that the thing you hate is precisely what they love. But sometimes you have to have the conversation about whether your shirt is pink or the lights are red (and perhaps both societal and personal attitudes about pink as a colour for shirts, and what that means, though that's perhaps a metaphor too far) before you can get to that point.

Sorry for wall of text. I don't imagine anyone is going to have the patience to read through all of that.

I will in a bit but my screen name was obviously in references to other people's posts with specific reference to a female rapper I currently like. You can refuse this explanation if you like and to be honest, given the circumstances I really don't blame you but you at least have my side of things now re: the screen name.

Ok, point by point:

Don't paint me as supporting Wayne Coyne or use it as an analogy here. I don't support him and it's not helpful.

It becomes so impossible to talk about this stuff, no matter how nicely you dress up the conversation, because people freak out and go "OMG you're accusing *me* of misogyny!!! how DARE you!!!" (see also the Erykah Badu thread ad infinitum) when what you are trying to say is "this stuff does not happen in a vacuum." The dialogue surrounding the way music made by men vs that made (or even liked) by women is discussed is loaded at a societal level.

I'm a fan of Erykah Badu and The Flaming Lips (especially the albums Soft Bulletin, Clouds Taste Metallic, Embryonic, Zaireeka) but I hate their Fat Freddie's Cat smokin dope and chasing skirt counterculture, hippie persona. If it turns out they did release that video without asking for her permission (no matter what she agreed to do or whether she'd done her research or not) then fuck that guy - what a cuntish thing to do.

Also, stop with the caps and the multiple exclamation points. If you keep on insisting that I'm being hysterical, "vicious", "violent", "knee jerk", shouting, losing my shit etc then eventually some people on this board will actually start treating me like I am and I'd prefer it if that didn't happen, given that I've responded to you calmly at every stage of this. All I said was that I reject any claims made here of misogyny. I know what the current thinking in gender studies on this is: it almost doesn't matter what I think, it only matters how you and other women feel about things I say. Which is fair enough I guess. Just don't expect me not to defend myself, and do me the courtesy of not throwing up a vitriolic and confusing smokescreen with all this OMG!!! stuff and constantly blurring the line between what you claim I do and what men in general do.

It's this thing that outsidery dudes *love* to do when they are so tied up in their "OMG, I'm such an outsidery dude, I'm so not *affected* by society's mores!" that they don't even notice that they are telling a woman to "get her own house in order" from a screen name with a vastly derogatory term for women because that's just a cute or funny word to them, rather than a term of abuse which has been used to degrade you, personally, and hold back your entire kind. I don't know if it was intended to be *ironic* saying "I'm not going to wear that" when you were, literally, wearing it. You might insist you're wearing a plain white shirt but if you are existing in an environment where every single light shining on you is red, that shirt will look pink. Shouting that you are wearing a white shirt doesn't do anything about the red lights. They're still there, and denying that they exist makes the problem worse, not better.

I'm not an "outsidery dude" and have never claimed to be one. I'm the 40-year-old father of one who has a mortgage, edits a magazine and does a lot of freelance to keep that magazine going. All I do is go to work and go to nursery. Literally. I'm about as outsider as Keith Chegwin. I have never claimed to be not affected by society's mores. I do not know where you are coming up with this stuff from. I'm not even saying you're doing this on purpose but you seem to be partially having a row with me and partially with some other guys who've said stuff to you in the past. As irritating as it may be to be surrounded by oafs who talk shit about women must be, if we could stick to what I've said and done that would be helpful.

There's this thing that ppl do when they're defensive (I include myself in this, BTW) which is, when they're accused of saying/doing something sexist (or racist or homophobic or whatever) which is to say "but I'm not misogynist so I REALLY resent that!" which is infuriating and counter productive.

It's like - we live in a culture which is just soaked in sexist values and we pick them up, consciously or not. I mean, I'm soaking in these ideas even though I've been actively resisting them for 30+ years. They're the things that pop out when we're shooting off the cuff, when we're tired, or not qualifying things or thinking them through.

This, and only this, is what led me to suggest you get your own house in order. You have just admitted that you make sexist, racist and homophobic comments on a public internet forum. I have not admitted to doing so, nor will I, no matter how much it irritates you. You are presuming too much about me with close to no evidence to go on. I will admit that your second paragraph here is spot on in general terms and yes, it's always good to have ones attitudes challenged and this board and OTF have played a significant part in me fine tuning my beliefs and attitudes on several matters. This, however, was not and will not be one of those occasions and there is no evidence to prove otherwise.

I will in a bit but my screen name was obviously in references to other people's posts with specific reference to a female rapper I currently like. You can refuse this explanation if you like and to be honest, given the circumstances I really don't blame you but you at least have my side of things now re: the screen name.

Dude, I will accept this explanation. And I do not want to get into the whole "bitch" discussion again. However, you do have to understand that it is still a loaded word. And though there are contexts in which I am prepared to accept it, and even use it - it is one thing for a woman, be that Nikki Minaj or Meredith freaking Brooks, to use it. But that does not give you the right to trot it out coz you think it's funny.

And dude, this whole "gender studies" thing. This is a thing that is lived experience of myself, and many other women. It's a thing that we have to deal with, and we have the right to talk about it. If it's not something that applies to you, then you can admit "misogyny is a real thing" and move on.

It's when you go beyond that, and start implying things about my motivations for what I'm doing, you make yourself the asshole here.

I've been trying to be nice, and light-hearted and playful with the "OMG's" and stuff because I've learned that humour gets a better response when talking about serious issues. If you want to read that as "vitriolic" - that's your baggage that you're bringing to the party. I didn't use either the term "vicious" or "violent" at all in my post, but you somehow decided that I did.

This kind of stuff - reading "vicious" and "violent" and "vitriolic" where I'm trying to be playful and lighthearted and have not used those terms at all - can you see how that might lead me to think that there's other stuff going on in your head?

I am, unequivocally 100% sorry about the offence caused by my screen name. I'm fucking mortified in fact. I genuinely thought that on a board such as this, taking a line from a female rapper and using it in a different context, i.e. about reading someone else's posts, with no direct misogynist overtones would be ok but I now see that I was being a fucking idiot - and that by using such a loaded word with such a grim history I would have upset at least a handful of people. This much is crystal clear. If there is anything I can do to try and make up for this within reason, I'll try and accommodate you. And I'll try and watch my language - an unfortunately atavistic product of my upbringing - in future.

XP: I just wrote this so I'll submit anyway.

Doran if you would stop being so viciously defensive and actually looked at the things you were saying...

I didn't put the word vitriolic in quotes.

You have just admitted that you make sexist, racist and homophobic comments on a public internet forum.

That is not what I said at all.

I said that I am soaking in a culture that is so deeply seeped in racism and sexism and homophobia, that some of my first, subconscious reactions to things are informed by the racism, sexism and homophobia of the culture I live in. I am not separate from my culture or my society. I breathe this stuff the same as everyone else does.

Rather than give in to those learned impulses, I TRY to examine things, from my own perspective, and from the shared experiences of others, BEFORE I type or hit submit on an internet forum. It doesn't always work, I often have to be corrected, especially on issues of race and class. But the difference is, I acknowledge that this society is often racist and classist, I admit that bias, I try to correct it, and I move on. I don't carry on still insisting that other people are somehow out to get me, or "violent" because they point out that these things exist. That's an asshole move.

Yet that's exactly the move that you are playing on me, when I suggest that society's ideas about women *might* be affecting the criticisms you raise about a female artist.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4u3ssxC1r1qi8gqpo1_500.gif

You claim that you're stopping to read other people's posts before hitting submit but you just aren't. I said you were accusing me of talking violently, with vitriol and being vicious.

I shouldn't have put the word "violent" in quotes but the sentiment still stands.

Look, as far as I can tell I'm reading everything that you say very closely and you're not doing the same with me. If you don't stick exactly to what I've said and done there's no point in carrying on.

If you want me to I can get back to answering all the points in your first, giant post of today if you like.

No. This is where I walk away from the argument because we've been butting heads for nearly a decade now, you just accuse me of things you do (and I no doubt do the same) and this isn't solving anything.

It does not matter to me if you answer or not. Have a nice life.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4m9z1RTKh1r5hjvro1_500.gif

Wait, I know you? Who are you? I have no idea literally. Someone from the Plan B messageboard? Or OTF? Those being the only places I've argued with people online.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4nrtd1Dhn1r5hjvro1_500.gif

Jesus Christ I hope people aren't responding to the image if that's what it looks like because her image is fucking terrible. It reminds me of those Klaxons style hipster wizard suits.

I'm sorry to be a pedant but for the record I said personality which is a combination of image and many other things in this context. Sorry, but you can probably see why I'm a bit jumpy about this now.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0mkvdthnR1r95yl5o1_500.gif

#seapunk

so Grimes is opening for the Lips in New Orleans on their record-breaking gig attempt whatever thing.

was going to b**** about her skipping DC but just noticing that she's playing here with Elite Gymnastics in September so fuckin' get in

For the sake of my mental health I hope they don't make a video together.

should be an ILX fap at the lips/grimes show, everyone can talk a few things over in the bar beforehand

For the sake of my mental health I hope they don't make a video together.

A+

cmon clusterfuck supernova would be fun while it/we lasted.

naw

friend of mine doesn't like this artist because iho it is "lifestyle music"

The lifestyle of being 23 and going thrifting?

I always think that's one of the daftest kind of criticisms people make. all music is lifestyle music, there's no escaping it.

later the same night he put on ariel pink though :-/

i def think some music is more "lifestyle music" than other, but it's definitely a neutral characteristic rather than a solid basis of, like, dismissal

fuck everyone

I dunno, even bland, regular guy music is 'bland, regular guy music'

although I guess there are varying degrees of awareness of this. like bro-punk bands that are "y'know, just playing music"... which of course means music that reflects their lifestyle and sounds like a musical personification of their character/culture

somehow this is a real thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ScPaXIyb3SA

huh, all it took was one kreayshawn collab to kill this thread

Or just a lack of any new music or exciting performances?

Still loving the album. Incredibly excited about a recent twitter exchange that suggests that Claire and le1f might be recording something together. Waiting to see what happens next.

her music has that chillwave someone singing along to the radio thing going on, which is pretty i think limting

but she some cool qualities

"Skin" is kind of transcendent, really.

But this whole album creeped up on me unexpectedly, having initially dismissed it as vapidly pretty.

i like to think that i would have gone to grimes skrillex diplo had i been in town, going to be insane

no grimes skrillex diplo is the name of my dog

Driving in for Pitchfork today mostly to see her. Hoping it'll be a good show; she has a headlining-ish slot

She played Toronto last night w/Diplo and Skrillex. Didn't go but I chatted with some random attendees afterward: "oh yah she was cool but we were there to see Skrill". Skrill? OK!

lol :-)

next unlikely touring lineup can be The (Skrill) Ex.

that would be p dope if he officially changed his name to "SKRILL" at some point

Sounds like fish food to me

Skrill (ex-Skrillex)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R9SlVtMsWjs/T0y6eio4LSI/AAAAAAAAL2Q/tqwG6FWSaUw/s1600/Krillex.jpg

Performance on Jimmy Fallon's show last night was way boring, but after the song and after he shook Claire's and her dancer's hands and ran up into the audience, they huddled on the stage and started jumping up and down and giggling. It was cute.

drugs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH-q0I1fJY

can someone tell Mortiis his wife's got out of the cave and is running about in the desert?

bitches must be dreading a hit these days if they're gonna get driven out to wear outfits in the desert every time

― r|t|c, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 11:42 AM (2 months ago) Bookmark

Yeah yeah - song is still great though.

I cannot lie, that gang looks like a bitchin good time.

This year's gathering of the juggalos look crazy

the way she looks into the camera is p mesmerizing