GRIMES

Back to blogging. It was about time right? I haven’t been online, well online here, for a while as work has been back-to-back chaotic along with a few personal things thrown in to provide added distraction. Before I jump back into writing about PhD academia, all things contemporary Chinese art, transcultural curating and book arts…of which I have so, so, SO much to say from all corners of the UK (and China too)…I thought I’d just tell you about something I like. Music that inspires, created by someone one who I reckon could be my number one girl that I might just love a little bit. Hello Grimes.

The video above is new, created for an old song ‘Venus in Fleurs’ directed by Video Marsh with cinematography and editing by Nic Brown taken from the soul seeping album ‘Geidi Primes’ that fuels my words and thoughts right now. Grimes is Summer. The images below were taken from style.com’s article ‘TRUE GRIMES’ that gives a tiny insight into her growing global popularity and her honest perspectives on the commercial kingdom that comes with it. She’s self-taught, part of DIY creative culture, fiercely independent (which is weirdly what my Mom calls me regularly), dedicated to destruction to her music-making and fearsome style. I love that fact that she says “Enya’s a badass”…yes. She. Is. And that “The first time I heard Mariah Carey, it shattered the fabric of my existence, and I started Grimes.” Perfect. Grimes took her moniker from MySpace, where “grime” was listed as a genre. The name was also a reference to outsider artist Ken Grimes, whose monochromatic paintings of extraterrestrials are clearly an influence on her visual lexicon. Grimes has an alien head tattooed on her left hand. She’s also an avowed sci-fi fan and has symbols from ‘The Fifth Element’ tattooed on her knuckles. This makes me love her a little bit more.

“I can’t let people do my hair. I can’t let people direct my videos. I can’t let anyone touch my beats. I have to do everything. It’s a lot of work, but it’s also that I get to feel proud and completely in control, and I never have to worry about stuff being of bad quality or having to rely on other people…I want to do something that involves my brain. Because that can last until I die.” – Grimes

My Shanghai and Hong Kong friends were all lucky enough to see her when she was touring out in East Asia earlier in the year…and I’m hoping that she’s on her way round to the UK or somewhere in Europe that’s pretty close…and I’d better be done and dusted, recovered from surgery kingdom and triple organ chaos by then. If you don’t know her, get to know her, find her, listen to her, see her, look at her…this is Grimes.