Grimes on Pussy Riot jailing: ‘People are just realising how fucked up Russia is’

Claire Boucher also told NME she'd like to record her next album in Japan

Electronic artist Grimes has spoken out about last week’s jailing of three members of the Russian punk collective, Pussy Riot.

The artist – real name Claire Boucher – has said the whole situation has made her feel “depressed”. Speaking to NME, she said:

I went to school in Russia for a while, so I’m very familiar with it. It’s funny to me because I think a lot of people are just realising now how fucked up Russia is, and like, I’m not surprised at all that that situation is happening. I think it’s something that happens more than people know.

She added: “I think what’s being done, like Madonna and people going over there and performing, is all we can really hope for. Russia will slowly become more educated. Younger people are better. It’s going to be a matter of time before things die off. But it’s still a really racist, homophobic place.”

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Grimes was speaking to NME at Summer Sonic festival in Japan over the weekend. She told NME that her first set at the event was “doomed from the start” after she went on stage and immediately hit herself in the face with her microphone.

“It was a bit sketchy,” she said. “There was no soundcheck, one of my tables collapsed while I was performing, one of my samplers broke, the mic stuff was overwhelmingly loud on stage, we had a ton of feedback, and it was my first show in a couple months without dancers, so I was really stressed out. And plus I didn’t sleep last night or the night before.”

She went on to say that she wants to record the follow-up to her acclaimed ‘Visions’ album in Japan, after getting into experimental Japanese artists. She said: “I can’t work unless I’m isolated as hell, and I just spent a couple of weeks trying to record in LA and it just didn’t work, I had people banging on my door every 10 minutes.”

She continued: “I think the only way I can record is to leave a country where anyone speaks a language that I speak and go somewhere that’s really isolated, and I feel like Japan is really calm and quiet and I’m really influenced by Japanese stuff, and I feel like spending some time here would be really good for my psyche.”

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