Grimes: "REALiTi"
This much is true: reality—where our hyper-connectivity leaves us ever-alienated, where a data-mining “Like” can induce a druglike rush of dopamine, where everything happens so much—is not always as much fun as a Grimes song. But as often as Claire Boucher’s musical world has offered a fantastical aesthetic of cyborg-mermaids and robo-pop, she has also been fearless in the face of technology and the ways we live now. Boucher’s will to do whatever she wants—to scrap a record, to be open about the actual conditions of her life as a musician and a woman, to wear socks and sandals in public—has made her work feel even more honest.
“REALiTi” is the best new Grimes song since Visions. Boucher says it was recorded in early 2013 and salvaged from the cutting room floor where she is working on her new album, which is impressive. As much as the atmospheric pop collagework of the breezier “REALiTi” could have fit on Visions, it’s also a compelling step forth: unlike last year’s “Go”, there’s no big-tent dubstep drop, but “REALiTi” still absorbs EDM and trance into Boucher’s seemingly infinite pallete of sound. She accomplishes no small feat in making these typically massive elements feel like subtle brushstrokes rather than buckets of paint dumped whole.
Listen closer and there is a heaviness to “REALiTi” that is new for Grimes—it’s an energizing mini-anthem for anyone who knows what high-stakes are worth, the sound of a jet-setter emerging from the clouds and landing home. “Every morning there are mountains to climb/ Taking all my time,” Boucher sings on the chorus, “When I get up this is what I see/ Welcome to reality.” Her pop has been grounded before, but it’s never been so human.
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