[MP3/VIDEO] Grimes – “Vanessa” & “Oblivion”

i need someone now to look into my eyes and tell me girl you know you’ve gotta watch your health

Who: Claire Boucher
What: Angelic freak pop, like Lykki Li, Austra
Where: Montreal, Canada + Facebook / Amazon
When: 3rd LP Visions is out now.
Why: Hearing the name “Grimes” doesn’t quite conjure up anything like the image you see at right and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t realize I loved Grimes for a long time. Based on the name I made assumptions about dirty, lo-fi, distortion, etc. Then I was in Austin for SXSW and dancing my ass off at Barbarella and this beautiful beat came on the PA followed by this china-fine voice that slipped through my ears. “This is Grimes,” Joel told me. And then I was hooked. “Oblivion” is a hyper-infectious groove machine that bounces through a foggy forrest of elastic bass. Boucher’s voice punches through the haze with it’s own slippery rhythm and the whole thing is magical. Turn it up.

Upon realizing Grimes has been around forever in Internet years (3 albums), I nabbed a few tracks floating around and “Vanessa” is one of those gems. A slower experience but equally enthralling. Now that I have found myself in Montreal this weekend it seems appropriate to write about Grimes. And also time to catch up to present day and get my hands on Visions. While I do, I highly recommend joining Grimes in her video for “Oblivion.” Suddenly all that arena sports crap looks appealing if I got to wave hot dogs with Claire. And that’s not a euphemism. Maybe.