Grimes shifts from witch house to dance sensation
Genres be damned, Claire Boucher could care less what the critics think
- Nuria Ruis
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Montreal native musician Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, has been on quite the roll as of late — opening for the likes of Austra and Lykke Li, and scoring Best New Music praise from Pitchfork for her latest effort Visions. During a late-night phone call last Thursday in preview of her Atlanta engagement at Drunken Unicorn tonight, Boucher talked about her rising confidence as a producer, why genres are irrelevant, and the reason she avoids reading her own press despite her recent surge in Internet popularity.
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Grimes. With Born Gold, Dog Bite. $10. 8:30 p.m. Mon., March 5. The Drunken Unicorn, 736 Ponce de Leon Ave. www.thedrunkenunicorn.com.
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You’ve had four releases in the past two or three years. When you finished recording the latest album, Visions, did you feel a sense of growth?
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Claire Boucher: Every part of that album I think is more mature than anything I’ve done before. It really felt like a big leap forward, and I really felt like that had to do with me growing as a person — as well as growing as a musician. Having to tour and constantly play live definitely makes you more confident. And it really makes you less worried about being humiliated publicly. You just get used to it and stop worrying about that shit! All my other albums feel like studio projects. With Visions, it’s a whole new understanding of myself, the world, and music.
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Your music has been labeled a variety of genres. Dream pop, lo-fi electro, even witch house. Do any of these buzz words mean anything to you?
I don’t really care. I mean, Halfaxa was a witch house record. I was looking at people making witch house music at the time and was like “this shit sucks,” and wanted to flesh out this idea of witch house. And Geidi Primes is pretty dream pop; I was listening to a lot of Broadcast when I made it. At the same time, both those records are different from conventional witch house and dream pop. I think I’m too ADD to believe in titles like that. I don’t really believe in genres. They’re more like tools people reference to understand music criticism. When you think about it linguistically, most words used to describe music are visual concepts. Genres are just references to the culture that surrounds the music. Like “country” or “rock ’n’ roll.” I don’t think we exist in a world where genres are relevant anymore.
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Recently Visions was dubbed Best New Music by Pitchfork. How do you feel about your rise in Internet popularity over the past few years?