![\"Grimes](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/wp-content\/uploads\/Grimes-Art-Angels-3.jpg?resize=696%2C466&ssl=1\")
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From\u00a0her early live performances,\u00a0where an\u00a0ethereal voice\u00a0pulled apart graceful melodies over simple looping synths and incessant drums<\/a>, to 2010\u2019s Halfaxa<\/em>\u00a0and her 2012 breakthrough Visions<\/em><\/a>, to \u2018REALiTi\u2019, the throwaway which emerged to become one of 2015\u2019s best songs<\/a>, Grimes has consistently shown one of the strongest instincts in all of music. She also appears to be one of the industry\u2019s hardest workers. She has previously sung of placing \u2018the need to be the best before the need to rest\u2019, and beyond spending long days in the studio mastering all facets of production, for Art Angels<\/em> she learnt to play instruments\u00a0including the violin, guitar, ukulele, keys, and drums, while ahead of its release she published her own artwork for thirteen of the album\u2019s fourteen\u00a0tracks<\/a>.<\/p>\n But while effortless genius is decidedly out of fashion, it remains that concepts of artistry and hard work don\u2019t always go together as easily as they might. And as Art Angels<\/em> steadily approached, it was easy to feel\u00a0the nagging worry that it would prove overburdened by expectation and the sheer weight of the effort which Grimes was evidently putting in to the project.<\/p>\n This worry\u00a0also owed much to the narrative that had built up around the creation of the record, which is one that Grimes could scarcely control. When she made \u2018Go\u2019 freely available in the summer of 2014,\u00a0with co-production from Blood Diamonds and a video co-directed with her brother Mac, everything about the presentation of the song\u00a0indicated that this was a one-off, an interesting\u00a0diversion in elaborating a piece of music originally intended for someone else. Instead, in an act of willful misinterpretation, many fans and news outlets regarded \u2018Go\u2019 as a startling new direction indicative of her future\u00a0work.\u00a0When this was later attached to Grimes\u2019s\u00a0much overstated decision to put aside\u00a0an album\u2019s worth of material, the impression was conveyed that she\u00a0had ditched her new record in response to the reception of\u00a0\u2018Go\u2019.<\/p>\n This came after Grimes had opted, sometime in 2013, to relocate to Squamish in British Columbia, to escape the intensity around Visions<\/em>, to begin focusing on new music, but also because she had quickly tired of having to engage in professional studio environments where male producers refused to afford her the respect and the space in which to create. All of this \u2013 her battles with the industry, her changes of address, the sense of angst stirred up around \u2018Go\u2019, and the lingering uncertainty until Art Angels<\/em> was announced in late October \u2013 posited a stop-start process over the last couple of years, surely too strained to provide us with much\u00a0fun.<\/p>\n Happily Art Angels<\/em> is Grimes\u2019 most joyous and confident work to date, any doubts utterly dispelled by the swift\u00a0one-two punch of \u2018Laughing and Not Being Normal\u2019 and \u2018California\u2019: \u2018Laughing and Not Being Normal\u2019 an overt nod to \u2018Infinite \u2665 Without Fulfillment\u2019 from Visions<\/em>, a fragmentary album opener indicating that she has lost none of her knack for otherworldly atmospheres and idiosyncratic structures; while \u2018California\u2019 shows a new dimension to her sound, with the vocals still airily layered, but foregrounded and perfectly legible within a verse-chorus form, while a sunny country twang is undercut by the bubbling and buzzing of electronics.<\/p>\n For some of us\u00a0Visions<\/em> already seemed like the epitome of avant-garde pop, both a distillation and a thorough reworking of the genre. But Art Angels<\/em> has placed itself under no obligation to match or modify that particular achievement. And the conversation around Grimes and pop music\u00a0at this point feels more than a little worn out. It has become the root of a binary and an increasingly arbitrary opposition, between those who would almost uncritically support or\u00a0dismiss her work.<\/p>\n What is pop music anyway beyond a commitment to a certain brevity,\u00a0an ardent appeal which embraces the moment, and perhaps the strategic placement of hooks? Across her four and a half records, Grimes has written only one song outside the realm\u00a0of 1-5 minutes in length; Art Angels<\/em> more than her previous albums eschews themes of love and heartbreak; and her music has always been packed with\u00a0hooks, so that if the only issue is the regularity of their position within the structure of her songs, it is certainly true that Art Angels<\/em> represents no more of a leap towards pop than Visions<\/em> did with respect to\u00a0Halfaxa<\/em>. Visions<\/em> features the floating, distended girl group harmonies of \u2018Genesis\u2019<\/a>,\u00a0and in \u2018Oblivion\u2019<\/a> a conventionally structured pop song that sounds upbeat until one realises the lyrics deal with violent assault. Dance tracks abound between \u2018Oblivion\u2019 and \u2018Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)\u2019, before \u2018Nightmusic\u2019<\/a> emerges as a strange variation on Toni Basil\u2019s \u2018Mickey\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n To the extent that pop music can be equated with wide popularity, for artists like Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> and Joanna Newsom<\/a>, this popularity is the means by which they secure ultimate creative control. And when Grimes cites\u00a0some of her favourite pop acts, they range widely, from Mariah Carey, to Tool, to perhaps most of all Dolly Parton. Where Art Angels<\/em> is more pop than her other records, it is only for the clarity of the lyrics and for the diversity of popular genres from which it draws.<\/p>\n \u2018California\u2019 has a country twang, but \u2018Scream\u2019 is a full-blown Western, with cries and shrieks, grinding guitar, and the whistle and pop of percussion, all given a contemporary twist via the breathy poetry of the Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes<\/a>: the first track Grimes has produced for another lead vocalist. This country and western vibe extends throughout Art Angels<\/em>, an instance of a broader shift in mood which seems to pull away\u00a0from urban centres towards wider vistas.\u00a0Throbbing\u00a0guitar also underpins \u2018Flesh without Blood\u2019, one of the album\u2019s standouts, with skittering drums and claps emphasising the forceful yet wistful message of the song. And the guitar accompaniment continues on through \u2018Belly of the Beat\u2019, an ode to the peculiar power of music with a\u00a0chorus that sticks.<\/p>\n \u2018Kill V. Maim\u2019 \u2013 written, according to Grimes<\/a>,\u00a0\u2018from the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Pt II<\/em>. Except he\u2019s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space\u2019 \u2013 bounds ping-ponging out of the\u00a0gate, and features a snarling vocal replete with twisting internal rhymes and cheerleading.\u00a0\u2018Easily\u2019 is one of lushest pieces Grimes has composed, a smooth neo soul number which places her pristine singing voice inside a tropical rainforest. And \u2018World Princess, Pt. II\u2019 \u00a0\u2013 a follow-up to\u00a0\u2018World \u2661 Princess\u2019<\/a> from Halfaxa<\/em>, a grinding dirge for a lost friend \u2013 blends\u00a0funk breakouts with pulsing techno, with the whispered lines \u2018If I stare into the darkness, I won\u2019t know where I am \/ I haven\u2019t seen the daylight since I started giving in \/ My eyes are falling heavy, my feet are moving slow\u2019, before the sounds fade into the late night.<\/p>\n Even the reworked \u2018REALiTi\u2019 succeeds where it appears on Art Angels<\/em>. The fan-favourite status the song swiftly attained after its release in March may have impelled its inclusion on the CD and digital editions\u00a0of the record, but for these Grimes took the brave step of altering the production and rearranging the vocal. This updated version of \u2018REALiTi\u2019 doesn\u2019t have the same heady energy as the original, but rather than simplifying the track, the dull stomp of the drums shape it into something darker and denser, brooding and hypnotic.<\/p>\n Grimes has described \u2018California\u2019 as a \u2018hate track for Pitchfork\u2019<\/a> and other\u00a0like-minded\u00a0music blogs, and many of the songs on Art Angels<\/em> operate on a sort of triadic level where \u2013 without taking her suggestion that she\u00a0doesn\u2019t write about love anymore<\/a>\u00a0too literally \u2013 they could at once concern her relationship with those in the media and among her fans who would constrict her means of expression, close friends, or other forms of romance.\u00a0This is true of \u2018California\u2019, whose beaming disposition belies the discomfit; \u2018Flesh without Blood\u2019, which appears to centre on a disappointed friendship; the beautifully evocative\u00a0\u2018Pin\u2019, with its shimmering punk pop; and \u2018World Princess, Pt. II\u2019, which Grimes has referred to as a \u2018diss track about male producers\u2019<\/a>, as she plays a Chapter 8 Tatiana to their Eugene Onegin<\/a>.<\/p>\n