Grimes/Claire Boucher thread

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.