Grimes: Halfaxa [ARBUTUS]

Why you'll love it

This Arbutus reissue comes with a download card. Halfaxa is the record Grimes calls her medieval album, a dark, glowing mix of goth-pop, witch house and dark wave.

This edition

• Download card included

About the album

Halfaxa takes its name, and much of its mood, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Claire Boucher stayed at a friend's home. She has called it dark, but it was made at a happy point in her life, and Arbutus Records put it out in Canada on October 5, 2010, with Lo Recordings bringing it to the UK and Europe the following May. Writers have tagged it witch house, dark wave and glo-fi, and it wears every label well.

Boucher wrote, produced and illustrated the whole thing, aiming, in her words, for the feeling of believing in God in a very medieval way. Critics heard glitch pop, R&B, techno, industrial and electro swirling under the goth-pop surface, from "Dreamfortress" and "Devon" to "World ♥ Princess," "Swan Song" and "My Sister Says The Saddest Things." Jasper Baydala handled design and Sebastian Cowan mastered. Arbutus brought it back to vinyl in 2016 with a download card, and that's the pressing on this page.

It arrived nine months after her debut Geidi Primes, two full albums inside a single year, both on the same Montreal label. Most of us can't manage a birthday card in that time.

Also at Kops: more Grimes on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Arbutus (cat# ABT014), a reissue of the 2010 album.