Grimes and the post-Internet musician

Clair Boucher's Grimes project illustrates a musical convergence that rarely seems to occur these days. Grimes two full-length releases (2009's Geidi Primes and Halfaxa from 2010) tentatively reveal the conversion of the retro into future sound.

A Grimes song filters the prima materia of eighties pop - synths and drum machines - through the bedroom producer aesthetics of today - primarily, the wistful haze evoked by copious amounts of reverb. Where the likes of Ariel Pink and James Ferraro use lo-fi production and reverb drench to evoke the nostalgia of listening to an AM radio signal or a worn out cassette tape, Boucher uses it in a different way. Less hauntology more alien. The cocoon-like vessel cracks open to reveal something utterly out of this world.

To date, Boucher is concocting avant pop through highly selective curation. The symbology and fractured sonics of Witch House, Dubstep, heavy-lidded dream pop textures, R&B,  diva vocal glossolalia,  glitch, halcyon new age-ism, and the list goes on.

Yet a cursory listen to these two albums gives the impression of a confused artist. A hodge podge of ideas, textures and sounds. A singer finding her voice. The listener plays the part of voyeur, sifting through the journals, sketchbooks of the artist.

In Interview Magazine, Boucher uses the term "post-Internet" and "modern" to describe her music. We learn she didn't start making music until she was 17 or 18. Prior to that, she was a fan of Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and Disney soundtracks. She's an academic person who is too crazy to deal with academic life.

One can quickly surmise that Boucher is indeed exploring music in real-time. Two full length albums and two eps in two years. She views her upcoming album as her first. Perhaps it will be the most fully realized, a more coherent synthesis of the ideas that sprawl across her recorded work to date.

Here's where the future starts taking shape. The post-Internet artist feels free to take influence from anywhere. The mass pop culture of their youth. The digital archives of dead genres and unfinished ideas contained in the history of recorded music, most of it a few browser clicks away. Add to this exposure to the dizzying degenrefication of new music.

Post-Internet artists won't create in real time; they've come under the spell of Internet time. Record and upload. Make a video. This impulsive expression symbolizes an authenticity that has largely been eradicated by the music industry. The Post-Internet artist ignores the idea of profit life cycles and marketing schedules. Give the music away for free, build a buzz, let the audience decide.

After nearly 20 years of tectonic shift, we are seeing a new music industry rising out of the ruins of the old. The Internet enables artists to circumvent the hegemony of the music industry by taking ownership of production, distribution, promotion and image. Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube become super channels for artist-audience communication.

“I want to make a tome – access every genre of music, and also create new genres with them. I want to have like thirty albums,” she says. “I want to make something really important and intense.” Clair Boucher in an interview with Dummymag.