Entertainment
Visions
Visions
Grimes
Arbutus Records
On Visions, the third full-length album by Grimes, Clair Boucher’s honeyed falsetto floats and dives more times than this critic would be reasonably expected to count. The melodic interludes of “Be a Body,” for instance, are so high and ethereal that they seem from a world elsewhere, unassailable. But this vocal darting is grounded by low, driving synths and the artist’s keen understanding of rhythm: where to fill, where to keep it steady.
Visions
Grimes
Arbutus Records
On Visions, the third full-length album by Grimes, Clair Boucher’s honeyed falsetto floats and dives more times than this critic would be reasonably expected to count. The melodic interludes of “Be a Body,” for instance, are so high and ethereal that they seem from a world elsewhere, unassailable. But this vocal darting is grounded by low, driving synths and the artist’s keen understanding of rhythm: where to fill, where to keep it steady. Boucher’s legwork on these tracks paid off. These aren’t short, half-finished ideas she decided were complete and uploaded to Bandcamp. They are fully realized explorations of her emerging sound. This is further evidenced by the fact that eight of the 13 songs are over four minutes, something quite rare in electronic and dream-pop music. Boucher rests comfortably between what French electro-pop chanteuse (and possible Grimes influence) Melanie Valera of Tender Forever would call “the soft and the hardcore.” Has she grown enough as an artist in that time? As she sings on “Symphonia IX (my wait is u),” a soft, sweet song whose piano smatterings are strangely reminiscent of those heard in the climactic moments of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” Oh, I would say yes.
