With three studio albums already in her repertoire and a few tours’ worth of experience on the road, Canadian musician and illustrator Claire Boucher released Art Angels nearly a year ago under her moniker, “Grimes”. Hailing from the digital underground scene, Boucher brings her signature DIY elements to the pop music table. Art Angels is a candy-coated collection of pop anthems, both cheery and chilling, and everything crammed in between.

Boucher both produced and engineered all fourteen of the tracks on the album. This is not uncommon for her, to have such a firm control over her releases. Her previous release, Visions, was recorded solely through one of Apple’s simpler DAWs (digital audio workstation), Garageband. However, for Art Angels, she took a quantum leap into the world of a much more complex software, Ableton Live. Through this program, she was able to utilize both digital and traditional instruments, after teaching herself to play the guitar, drums, violin, and ukulele.

Art Angels debuted at the top of Billboard’s Top Alternative Albums chart within the first week of digital sales; physical pressings in the forms of cassette tapes, CDs, and vinyl did not come for another month following the original release. That makes this her most successful album commercially to date.