Reading 2012: Grimes, Dance Stage

The first time I heard Grimes call her music “future-pop”, I thought a little less of her. It all seemed pretentious, a little try-hard. But here you can see she’s speaking complete sense.

She follows up a standard DJ act, the Japanese Popstars. They provide the kind of performance any Dance tent crowd will be more than accustomed to. And by the time it concludes, only a few glowstick and facepaint-addled revellers head for the exit. Whether they’re ready for the transition from party music to future party music, is hard to say.

A quick soundcheck and it arrives in all its glory. Samples skewed within a hair’s breath of combustion; vocals taken away from normality to become shifted and slathered in echo. This isn’t dance music, nor is opener ‘Symphonia IX (my wait is u)’ anything to get people on their feet. This is more something to admire from a distance or stare at in awe, which a lot of Claire Boucher fanboys/girls seem to be doing throughout the entire set.

But with the help of a topless male dancer and some free t-shirts, the atmosphere is turned on its head. The strange purring figure (and really, it does look like he’s purring and pretending to be a wild animal, with his hand gestures) acts as a vanguard of strange interpretative dance. Grimes herself also begins to move a little more alongside her grand set-up of samplers and keys, and once ‘Oblivion’ enters its opening, distinguished notes, the atmosphere is suddenly soaked in a party atmosphere. There’s no coming back from it, and by the time ‘Genesis’ and ‘Phone Sex’ make an appearance, future pop has made its mark.