Grimes at SXSW

Grimes was the first person we saw at SXSW, at the Klub Krucial on the main strip of 6th E Street. Starry-eyed and slight-framed, she played a lovely set quite apart from the sleepy late-morning hum. Her songs have a wild, cold quality, and though the icier edges of her work were blunted by the humidity and the standard SXSW restrictions, the core delicacy was preserved. A split album, ‘Dark Bloom’, with fellow Canadian-electronic explorer d’Eon is out on Hippos In Tanks soon, and you really should keep an eye out for it.