So Claire Boucher is a star. The 24-year-old’s emergence as the genre-taunting Grimes
has confirmed a few things that I was beginning to suspect, but namely
this: Charisma counts for a hell of a lot. Boucher has released an
ever-more assured string of releases in seemingly no time at all, but
I’d hazard to say that the main reason that we’re all crammed into the
low-slung surrounds of the Corner’s bandroom on a Wednesday night is
because, quite simply, she is compelling.
Supported by [aa.artist:Geoffrey O’Connor], Boucher was playing the
first of two sold-out shows at the Corner prior to her Meredith
appearance over the weekend. Boucher, rocking a super-endearing
teen-with-a-crush lisp, announced that, “Melbourne is officially the
farthest I’ve ever been from Canada”, and her excitement was palpable.
Hype being hype, Boucher had attracted a pretty eclectic crowd. There
were kindred spirits: Hardcore fans, cosplay types, queer kids and
crusties; there were envious musicians and sceney types, trying to
figure out whether to hate or to take notes; and there was the more
workaday set, looking for a beer and a chat while some freaky shit went
down onstage. All got what they came for.
But firstly, a word on Geoffrey O’Connor.
O’Connor, as always, was suave, absurd and a bewildering sight for
the uninitiated. As always, every song sounded like a hit from a
parallel universe, with his new material sliding in seamlessly alongside
tracks from last year’s excellent Vanity Is Forever.
Borderline piss-take? Yes. A seriously limited singing voice? Yes. Best
pop songsmith in Australia right now? Arguably, yes. The second-coming
of the Fariss brothers? Steady on now…
The move from bedroom producer to international headliner has been
rapid for Boucher: She would have been forgiven for palming off some
responsibility for her multi-layered compositions to a backing band, but
here she stubbornly takes on much of the keyboards, vocals, and sample
triggers herself. What’s more, rather than settling for the
not-unimpressive task of bringing her studio compositions to life,
Boucher takes great pleasure in stretching, extending, distending and
deconstructing her songs, even dancing gleefully throughout. It leads to
a decent number of glitches (the expletive-laden, and yet somehow
endearing, monitor-related meltdown in final song ‘Be A Body’ was the
most conspicuous example), but it also ensures that the set rises above
the karaoke-ish vibe that often afflicts programming-heavy acts when
performing live. Helping out in this regard were a pair of bodacious
dancers, looking like hallucinations from Game Of Thrones, who stepped out of the heavy blue mist to throw shapes while Boucher operates her console.
‘Oblivion’, given an airing early in the set, was given a startling
new dubstep outro; great polyphonic choirs of Grimeses connected one
song to the next; and piercing bleeps, squawks and drones periodically
shot through the room at unexpected intervals. The newly renovated songs
remind you that for all her K-Pop influences and the crossover
potential of Visions, Grimes’ instincts still tend towards
“witch-house”, or “grave-rave”, or whatever term we’re currently using
to describe dark, gauzy electronica with dance beats that aren’t really
for dancing. This was fine, as the pop moments forced their way through
anyway. Boucher’s solo take on ‘Phone Sex’ (a collaboration with Blood
Diamonds) was one such moment, a strangely effective, straight-faced
appropriation of seminal ’90s band The Vengaboys.
This was perhaps the most striking thing about Boucher’s performance –
its sincerity. She flagged that she had no intention of doing “the
thing where I go offstage, then you all clap, then I come back onstage”,
and requested the audience’s approval to ignore said ritual (there was
approval). When the beat finally kicked in during ‘Genesis’, Boucher
danced like a kid at a slumber party, feeding off the audience’s
excitement.
Her eclectic, up-to-the-minute influences and
so-unpretentious-it’s-pretentious tastes have led to back-handed labels
such as “post-interne”’, and a general suspicion that Grimes is a little
too good to be true. Not so. Boucher came across as a fan, as in love
with the music that she was channelling as her audience was with her
(excluding the talkative bros that the dotted the periphery of the
room). Boucher’s enthusiasm – and her charisma – were infectious.
