【搬运】【译】叉婊Pitchfork评 Grimes 2015年专辑《Art Angels》（艺术天使）
搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整）
翻译：Vivian
审译：Lynn Liu
排版：Ryan-Chopin
Art Angels is Claire Boucher's fourth record as Grimes and her most audacious yet: a gilded coffin nail to outmoded arguments that women in pop are mere frames for male producers' talents. These 14 tracks articulate a pop vision that is incontrovertibly hers, inviting the wider world in.
《Art Angels》是Claire Boucher以Grimes的身份发布的第四张专辑，也是她迄今为止最大胆的一张专辑。它完美地把性别成见钉死在了棺材板上，昭告听众女流行歌手不是男性制作人的陪衬。这14首歌勾勒出的流行图景是绝对属于“她的”，她在邀请外界进入她的世界。
"I'll never be your dream girl," sings Claire Boucher on "Butterfly", the final song on Art Angels, her most audacious album to date. Perhaps she's just being coy, because for many she is exactly that. In the age of the female pop auteur, Boucher's work as Grimes is a glorious addition to the canon, someone who beckons us to the dancefloor with big ideas and bigger beats, and resists simplistic notions of who she can be on a record or a stage. Art Angels is a gilded coffin nail to outmoded sexist arguments that women in pop are constructed products, a mere frame for male producers' talents—that because their music is immaculate, they are somehow not authentic. These 14 tracks are evidence of Boucher's labor and an articulation of a pop vision that is incontrovertibly hers, inviting the wider world in.
“I’ll never be your dream girl” Claire Boucher在歌曲“Butterfly”中唱到，这是这张专辑的最后一首歌曲。也许她只是在故作娇羞，就像很多人理解的那样。然而，在女性作者引领的流行音乐潮流中，Boucher创作的Grimes绝对是靓丽的时代经典。她在舞池中把我们领向宏大的主旨和更有力的节拍，在专辑和舞台上不断颠覆自己的固有形象。《Art Angels》完美地钉死了人们对流行乐女歌手抱有的性别成见。她们不是被制造出的产品，更不是男性制作人的陪衬。难道因为她们的音乐过于完美，所以一切就显得不真实了吗？这14首歌是Boucher劳动的成果，勾勒出的流行图景也是绝对属于“她的”。她在邀请外界进入她的世界。
Grimes shows that Boucher is the ultimate fangirl study: a D.I.Y. musician whose love of Mariah, Katy Perry, and K-pop has expanded her palette, driven by her fascination with the possibilities of the synthetic and unreal, and ultimately given wings to Art Angels. Here, she closes the gap between the pop she's idolized and the pop she is capable of. Boucher has claimed that the record has two halves, and indeed, the songs line up most easily into beginning- and end-of-the-night dancefloor jams. The former is exemplified by the bright, anxious "Kill V. Maim", with its mocking cheerleader chant over blown-out beats and Boucher working both ends of her register in a propulsive celebration of vocal fry.
Grimes是Boucher对追星女孩的最终研究：这个DIY的音乐家对Mariah, Katy Perry和K-pop的热爱扩展了她的音乐品味。这样的乐迷基础，加上她对合成器音乐和虚幻世界的想象和迷恋，最终造就了《Art Angels》。在这种专辑中，她既致敬了自己喜爱的流行乐，又力所能及地扩展了流行乐的外延。Boucher曾表示过，专辑里的歌曲可以对半分，听众也可以很轻易地把它们分为“蹦迪前奏”和“蹦迪尾声”。前一种代表是明亮而充满律动感的“Kill V. Main”。带着嘲讽意味的拉拉队口号呼应着劲爆的节奏，而Boucher在气泡音的两极游走，为听众带来了炸裂的听觉体验。
Same for "Flesh Without Blood", which is the sweetest fuck-off of 2015, one that highlights that there is much more to Boucher's voice than Visions ever had a chance to reveal. The song is Boucher eating the lunch that Miley packed, may it be #blessed with infinite stadium-EDM remixes. Post-Art Angels, it's hard to imagine anyone will reject a Boucher-penned cut: This is an album, but it's also a resume, and someone who made "California" could certainly be making crossover hits for any marquee Nashville name, while "Easily" suggests that Kesha co-writes should be in Boucher's future.
另一首单曲“Flesh Without Blood”也同样是如此，是2015年最甜美的一声“滚开”。这首歌强调了Boucher的音色，这是听众在她前一张专辑《Visions》中体会不到的。这首歌是Boucher在享用Miley准备的午餐，在经过无数电子混音处理和“祷告”后，这也许会是一顿“圣餐”。在《Art Angels》之后，很难想象会再有人拒绝Bouche创作的任何音乐。这是一张专辑，也是一张漂亮的简历。能写出“California”的人当然可以写出带Nashville风味的乡村流行跨界金曲，而“Easily”暗示着Boucher应该在未来考虑和Kesha一起写歌。
The late-night closers and their arrangements are where Boucher shows her mastery and discipline as a producer. "Realiti", "Venus Fly" with Janelle Monáe, and "Butterfly" give her a new set of peers: Sure, she's there with collaborator Monáe and Annie Clark as an auteur, but purely as a pop producer she's as deft and clever as anyone we consider a master of Top 40 craft—be it Greg Kurstin or Diplo. The songs are graced with small details: curious skeets of beats, buried samples that only appear once, toxically cute '90s pop guitar. The songs build in unexpected ways, but explode and gratify in the way we hope pop always will. "Butterfly" is a let-tonight-last-forever mutant bruiser with roiling sub-bass, the chorus's side-chained pulse making it like an uncanny valley version of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head".
专辑中的最后几首歌和它们编曲显示了她作为制作人的专业和才能。单曲“Realiti”，“Venus Fly”（与Janelle Monáe合唱）和“Butterflies”创造了她与同僚们合作的契机。没错，当她与Monáe和Annie Clark合作时，她是创作者。但作为制作人的她丝毫不比我们心目中前40的明星制作人逊色——她和Greg Kurstin或是Diplo一样机敏。歌曲中的细节非常用心：奇特的节拍飞碟，不重样的埋入式采样，令人陶醉的90年代流行吉他。歌曲间的过渡和渐进出人意料，却总能宣泄或满足我们对流行歌曲的期待。“Butterfly”是一个醉生梦死的斗士在低音吉他伴奏下的抒情，合唱的律动让歌曲像是Kyle Minogue“Can’t Get You Out of My Head”的通俗翻唱版。
All of this might seem as if Boucher has fashioned a whole-cloth reinvention and is gunning for the Top 40, but neither of these things feel true. Art Angels is a natural progression from Visions; if you strained out some of the processing and murk of the latter, you would find these structures lurking. Boucher's voice is recognizable and familiar, but it's bigger and has more range and depth than on "Oblivion". This album foregrounds her, samples her, piles tracks of her half a dozen high to form melodies and countermelodies.
这一切都暗示着Boucher的自我革新，她似乎是铆足了劲要成为那顶尖的前 40。然而，这两个猜测都显得不真实。《Art Angels》是前一张专辑《Visions》的进一步演化。如果你理解了后者的隐晦和对音乐的处理方式，你就能找到这张专辑背后隐秘的结构。Boucher的声音熟悉并同样充满辨识度，但声音的广度和深度已经超越了她对“Oblivion”的演绎。这张专辑凸显出她的特色，对她进行采样，在前六首单曲的叠加下形成了旋律和复调旋律。
One of the most notable and striking differences between Art Angels and its Top 40 kin is that these are not love songs. The album is an epic holiday buffet of tendentious feminist fuck-off, with second helpings for anonymous commenters and music industry blood-suckers. Her conflicted, vertiginous relationship with the fast fame that followed Visions seems to have led her to a place of DGAF liberation. Some songs, like "Kill V. Maim", course with a thrilling rage, even a casual misandry. ("I'm only a man/ I do what I can," she sings on the hook). Yet, what's most exciting within Art Angels is the sheer will and fearlessness of Boucher's fight to be heard and seen on her own terms. She's not a human Tumblr, as we called her (somewhat humiliatingly) in 2012; she's a human zeitgeist, redrawing all the binaries and boundaries by which we define pop music and forcing us to come along.
《Art Angels》和排行榜前40最大的区别是，这些歌没有一首是情歌。这张专辑是豪华的假日盛筵，桌上摆满了带有女权倾向的“滚蛋”宣言，但也给匿名评论者和音乐产业寄生虫们留了口饭吃。《Visions》给她带来了矛盾和令人晕眩的一夜成名，这才让她有底气在这张专辑里宣誓“老娘不在乎”。“Kill V. Main”之类的单曲带着愤怒爆发，甚至充满了对男性的轻佻和厌恶。（她在副歌部分唱到：“I’m only a man / I do what I can.”）然而，《Art Angels》最激动人心的还是Boucher主动而无畏的自我宣言：她要让乐迷看到和听到她想呈现出的作品。她不是我们在2012年调侃的“人形Tumblr”，她是我们时代的精神家。她重新绘制了我们用二元对立和边界定义的流行乐，她在逼迫我们走向新的世界。
