Live Review: Grimes & Tasha Lee Marshall

17 December 2012 | 1:09 pm | Celline Narinli

Finishing off with Phone Sex – a new collaborative effort with Blood Diamonds – that oozed with a Caribbean-pop/dance aesthetic and left many exiting with unsure (but satisfied) smiles on their faces.

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As a 16-year-old singer/songwriter, Tasha Lee Marshall – from the Heaps Decent crew – showed incredible maturity through her on-stage mannerisms and songwriting capabilities. A little bashful at times, Marshall and her rap buddy Meds were stronger together, delivering a set of hip hop/pop tunes with confidence all around.

Walking around the Oxford Art Factory, there were plenty of Grimes fan-girls and fan-boys sporting similar haircuts and styles to the kooky Claire Boucher (and her many dressed-up personalities as seen in the video clips we know and love). The biggest question here was whether she'd live up to that level of adoration and worship? Will her minions be satisfied?

The answer was easily a yes. Appearing on stage, Grimes was commanding two sets of synths and electronic gear – wobbling knobs, tweaking the pitch and looping her vocals around during the entire duration of her set. With the combination of the majestic backlighting, her elfin demeanour and the lush textural synths that blasted through the room, her set reached high levels of ecstasy, at times feeling transcendental.

The Canadian artist, however, seemed to avoid many of the higher falsetto parts of her songs. Instead, she utilised pre-recorded vocals, adding lower harmonies and tones on-stage. Was this because she couldn't hit the notes? It was a shame, because the lack of falsetto in songs such as Be A Body – which carries with it a superior hook – was a great loss to the effect of the song.

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Falsettos aside, there were no real holes or let downs to her live show. Accompanied by two back-up dancers who danced around like radioactive zombies – they had no set choreography, the dancers, along with Boucher, simply reacted to each song's beat and direction – the action was aplenty and the mix was crystal clear, allowing the lush volumes of sound to coagulate into something greater than just sound. Boucher was successful in creating a surreal world of electronic soundscapes, elongating the intros and outros of each song into mystical waves, and even adding in some warped dubstep insanity at the end of Oblivion.

At times it felt as though we had been transported to an underground rave in Berlin, but it was great to see that Grimes doesn't take herself all too seriously, finishing off with Phone Sex – a new collaborative effort with Blood Diamonds – that oozed with a Caribbean-pop/dance aesthetic and left many exiting with unsure (but satisfied) smiles on their faces.