Review: Grimes - Visions, My Best Fiend - In Ghostlike Fading

The following album reviews originally appeared in print for triple j magazine's March Issue (no. 59), they are reproduced here in their entirety. Featuring previous 'Introducing...' inductee Grimes and Brooklyn's My Best Fiend.

Grimes - Visions (Inertia/4AD)
After two records that mix the unexplored with the atmospheric, performance artist/DIY muso Claire Boucher emerges from Montreal’s underground with her first release for 4AD. As informed by Enya as by Aphex Twin, the bizarre futurism of Oblivion and Vowels=space and time finds crystalline vocals gliding over a beatific underbelly, while the ninety seconds of Eight contains an album’s worth of ideas. Visions possesses more stimulating sounds than songs, but it’s bound to inspire cult fandom – if not hailed a sleeper hit
Grimes - Genesis

My Best Fiend - In Ghostlike Fading (Warp/Inertia)
The cloud-bursting sleeve and atmospheric title merely hint at what the contents confirms, a Brooklyn band revelling in a pre-MGMT mode of bluesy psychedelia. Cracking Eggs and the swooning Jesus Christ follow the blueprint laid out by Spiritualized’s narcotic excursions; slow-mo tempos and see-sawing chords that swell into crashing, gospel-abetted, seven-minute grandiosity. Their aloof simmer, and vocalist Fred Coldwell’s twang, can occasionally drive to distraction, but at their best – such as on the spacey Pink Floyd lilt of ODVIP – they’re a folkadelic trip.