Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, is a 23-year-old Montreal based musician and an encyclopedia for all things pop culture, from K Pop to Madonna, internet art to the songs of the Disney Princesses...
“The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer-Bradley is the re-telling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of the female characters. When I first read it I was ten or 11-years-old and it shocked me because it was so graphically sexual and violent. At the time I was attending a Catholic elementary school, and it was my introduction to paganism (in other words, the gate-way to my pre-teen ‘witch’ phase and subsequent years of unpopularity). The best part is when Arthur kills a stag, rubs the blood all over himself, and has sex with his sister, Morgan Le Fey (I’m sure it’s a horrible misrepresentation of the Beltane rites). I was disturbed but obsessed because it was so inappropriate and we didn’t have sex-education in my school and I’d never encountered it before. It’s got the same page-turning quality as Harry Potter and it’s the second-best fantasy book of all time."
"The Mists of Avalon has the same page-turning quality as Harry Potter and it’s the second-best fantasy book of all time"
Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, is a 23-year-old Montreal based musician and an encyclopedia for all things pop culture, from K Pop to Madonna, internet art to the songs of the Disney Princesses. She reads feminist literature, knows her fantasy novels, directs her own videos, is fascinated by fashion, holds (part of) a science-art degree, has a brother who’s a rapper and makes her own genre-spanning music. Proudly describing herself as “post internet” due to the number of influences she has, Boucher started working under the name Claire-slash-Alex and since becoming Grimes has produced two albums for Montreal label Arbutus (2010’s Geidi Primes and 2010’s Halfaxa), plus a split EP with her friend d'Eon for Hippos in Tanks (2011’s Darkbloom). This month she will release Visions, an amphetamine-heavy recording full of unexpected sounds. Apparently produced on Garage Band, it’s as dark as it is fun, as tough as it is beautiful.
Visions by Grimes will be available nationwide March 12.
Text by Sian Rowe
