AKA an intro to Canada’s best, weirdest, grooviest synth-pop boss lady.

The whole point of this series is to take you out of your comfort zone, just a little bit. And there is no better an artist in this country to do that for you than Vancouver (by way of Montreal)’s own Claire Elise-Boucher aka Grimes.

To listen to Art Angels, Grimes’ fourth record, and to witness to the artist herself are two very different experiences, although one fundamentally feeds into the other. The tracks on Art Angels suggest a mutated strain of synth-pop, tinged by sadness, disappointment and – this is key – contempt.

For example, the album’s second track “California” resembles fellow shortlister Carly Rae Jepsen on its surface, but beneath it lies something a bit more sinister. The song’s boom-clap-boom beat and oh-oh-oooh vocals shimmer with a summery, false sense of security, underscoring lyrics that describe Grimes’ personal experience moving out to the song’s namesake state. The sadness comes from a mainstream that will not accept her for who she is “You only like me when I’m sad”. The disappointment is from and an inability to live up to its expectations “the things they see in me I cannot see myself”. And the contempt? Oh man. “And when the ocean rises up above the ground / Baby I’ll drown in…/California”.

“Flesh Without Blood”, Art Angels’ first single (accompanied by a Prism Prize nominated video) suggests Grimes is able to walk the line between the weirdness of her early work and radio-ready dance pop. Without the context of Grimes’ own experience, the song is (justifiably) vicious Dear John. However with that context, it becomes something more; a lashing out at the industry that seems to embrace her with one too many caveats. “You hate, you bite, you lose/After all, I just don’t like you/It’s nice that you say you like me/But only conditionally” she coos. During the run-up to Art Angels, Grimes reportedly wrote a song for label-mate Rihanna – and was roundly rejected. Suddenly the song’s chorus “I don’t see the light the light I saw in you before/and I just don’t care anymore” takes on new meaning.

On “Kill V. Maim”, Art Angels’ punkest track, Grimes once again puts the boots to her industry’s blatant sexism. Stylistically it’s more early Devo than anything else, but with the acidic snark of Jello Biafra. Essentially, it’s a song that calls out male artists’ sickening levels of entitlement “I did something bad, maybe I was wrong/Sometimes people say that I’m a big time bomb/But I’m only a man/And I do what I can”. All of this amid  call/response pop seemingly tailor-made for a live audience.

So, about your comfort zone. if you dig the Carly Rae Jepsen/Taylor Swift aesthetic, that’s great! They’re great artists. It’s mostly the message/aesthetic combo that keeps Grimes away from that same status, and that’s a shame. Which is why more people are coming out of theirs (and you should come out of yours) to appreciate an album like Art Angels. Grimes took on production, songwriting and performing roles to make this record, making her one of the only artists of her kind among her peers.