Grimes at Brixton Academy live review: the Canadian auteur steering pop into bonkers future territory

It’s difficult to imagine that Art Angels could have ever been depressing

Art Angels, Grimes' fourth album, was released in November (Getty Images)

Exactly a year ago, the woman Pitchfork once called a human Tumblr took to the medium to explain why she scrapped her entire fourth album.

“The album was scrapped cuz it was depressing and I didn’t want to tour it,” wrote Canada's Claire Boucher, the internet phenomenon better known as Grimes.

Art Angels, when it arrived last November, bubbled with righteousness. It traced its roots in the technicolour dreamland of Visions, through K-pop, classical music and the manufactured bubblegum of Mariah Carey or Katy Perry.

Grimes went from name-checked outsider to gamechanging proposition: a female pop star who writes, records and produces crossover hits that leave the work of massive major label teams in the shade.

So the screaming that starts up at Brixton Academy before Grimes is even on stage - hysterical Bieber or Swift-pitch screams that don't fit with the dolled-up hipsters present - isn’t unexpected. But the woman they're waiting for can out-scream everyone in the venue.

Grimes has grappled with being a one-woman band, trapped behind keyboards and synths at shows. Now she owns the front of the stage, flanked by dancers, mic in hand. On Realiti, one of the few tracks to survive from the “lost” interim album, she bounds towards the crowd and bounces back as if propelled by their singing.

“Hey guys!” she squeals when the lights come up between songs, breathlessly introducing Scream, in which she raps in Russian, then Venus Fly, a collaboration with Janelle Monae that has strains of Beyonce’s Run The World (Girls).

So much of what Grimes writes could and maybe will be repurposed for mainstream, charting artists. But when she gets to keep the songs for herself, as with Go, the results are explosive. A massive EDM number written for Rihanna, Go gets the crowd so riled up under the neon lights that someone throws a bra onstage. Grimes giggles and steps over it to press a button.

“Hey guys! Please drink water and be careful not to crush your peers!” She squeaks before Oblivion, the biggest hit off Visions. It feels stately next to the crystalised hyperactivity of her newer material.

By the next “Hey guys!”, Grimes can barely be heard. She is forced to wait, pretending to hide behind her hair, as Brixton erupts in applause.

"I have a contentious opinion in that I am terribly shy so once I'm gone it's just too much, so if it's ok with you I'm going to play my encore now,” she gabbles, starting up Kill V. Maim, which nails the alpha male curse of ultimate power. “I’m only a man, I do what I can,” she sings as bass rattles the speakers, dismissing the patriarchy with a shrug.

It’s difficult to imagine that this fourth album could have ever been depressing. Grimes has steered it into bonkers, future territory. She once told an interviewer that if she sounds current, it’s because she made the new current. Right now, all her peers can hope is that she tosses them a few tunes in the tide.

Setlist:

Genesis

REALiTi

Flesh without Blood (Extended Outro)

Scream (Russian Lyrics Version)

Venus Fly

Butterfly

Be a Body (New Version)

Go

Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)

Oblivion

World Princess Part II

Kill v. Maim