On November 6th, Vancouver based “wizard rock” singer Grimes (aka Claire Boucher) released her poppy yet exploratory fourth album “Art Angels” to the world via 4AD.
Much of “Art Angels” seems to have an ambient and dreamy backdrop while keeping things moving and present enough to still be actual pop songs you might hear on the radio. Also, it seems as though Boucher took quite a bit of influence from J-pop this time around because you can hear the elements of it all over the place. Even if that does not seem to be enough to convince you, the manga style album cover should be enough to help you think so. Despite the J-pop influence however you can still hear just enough western influence as well to make it still accessible to a wider audience.
This time around Boucher got both Janelle Monae as well as Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes to collaborate with her on a couple of the songs for the album. Aristophanes can be heard laying down her raps on “SCREAM” and Monae can be heard doing soulful backing vocals on “Venus Fly”.
Overall “Art Angels” is an intriguing rabbit hole to go down. On the surface it is a pop album, but the deeper you go the more you realize there is a bit more to it than that.
“Art Angels” can be streamed on Spotify here.
