Grimes, Brixton Academy, London

Pummelled by sharp-cutting stabs of rainbow, light-spore flecked cameo netting, and liberal spearings of piercing green lasers, Brixton tonight resembles a children’s birthday party fuelled by dangerously hyperactive levels of sherbet dib-dab. London has waited four years for Grimes to return. In that time, Claire Boucher hasn’t shed her onstage shyness, but she’s also smashed down every boundary and creative limitation in sight. Once a bloopy cog operating in the shadows, Grimes returns an auteur, at the wheel of full-blown gaudy pop pandemonium.

In a single moment, ‘Art Angels’ bursts into life on stage, and even Brixton’s enormous sound system creaks under the strain of Grimes’ earth-shattering bass-pounds. Flanked by support act HANA, and a couple of dancers tasked with whipping the room up into a frenzy, Grimes is bounding across the stage, rapping in Russian (of course), and unleashing hell-raising screams of glee as she plays ‘Scream’ minus Aristophanes. Running amock through her own vision, and delighting in every saturated second, ‘Go’ turns the cavernous venue into a sweaty, closely-packed basement dive, and ‘Oblivion’ ducks and dives with new unbridled mischief. It all prompts a dazzled Grimes to yell “be careful not to crush your peers!”