HOME

REVIEWS

SoundsXP Presents

Next show:

BAD FRIDAY!
Peluché,
Dead Coast,
Les Sueques,
Calva Louise,
Flights of Helios,
Videocean,
Dirty Blondes
+ SoundsXP DJs

The Windmill, Brixton
Good Friday, 14th April 2017
3pm till late

Buy tickets here

On Our iPod

Latest Forum Posts

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Album Review

Grimes
Halfaxa Lo Recordings

Article written by Ged M - Mar 29, 2011

Grimes: Halfaxa

Montreal’s Claire Boucher has produced an incredible and memorable album but it’s hard to describe, being so stylistically chameleonic. She defies categorisation: you could attach various buzz words to it – chillwave, witch house, hypnagogic pop - or mention the established genres that she mines, like r’n’b, goth, nu-folk and shoegaze, and you’d still be off the mark.

So what is it about her that makes this stick in the mind? She has a floaty, operatic voice that makes me think at moments of Joanna Newsom, Nika Rosa Danilova, Liz Fraser and Kate Bush but that doesn’t quite do her justice: she really is a unique singer. Sometimes her music sounds almost trip-hop, as on ‘Heartbeats’, sometimes electronic pop (‘Hallways’), and sometimes there’s such a sense of ethereality that switched on airlines might want to check out these tunes for ads. Her songs are cleverly layered too: on ‘World Princess’ she walks the same forest path as Animal Collective. Whatever it sounds like, it’s infectious, and if there’s one track to hear, it would be ‘Devon’, which is ethereal and has an electronic heartbeat but it’s wickedly catchy and accessible too.

Her talent doesn’t just lie in music – her artwork is striking too. I recall her work in Yeti magazine and it’s all over the sleeve here. Not exactly pretty, it’s full of weird faces, guns and knives, and is a bit like tattoo flash but really haunting, the sort of images that you still see when you close your eyes. There’s a darkness and coldness to all of this that, paradoxically feels very inviting and marks an important new talent supernova-ing into being.

Links:
http://www.lorecordings.com/index.php?artist_id=120
http://www.myspace.com/boucherville