Mura Masa @ The Art School, 4 October

Live Review by George Sully | 07 Oct 2016

We’re in a new paradigm of music dissemination. Artists begin in bedrooms, upload demos to platforms like Soundcloud, trade loops with collaborators overseas, and novel treasures are unearthed daily. In Mura Masa’s case – the impossibly young Alex Crossan from the isle of Guernsey – age and geography have played no part in his exploding popularity. His mercurial, fervently contemporary talents have made not just a name for himself but also his label, Anchor Point Records, an emerging home for precocious electronic, R’n’B and trap artists.

This autumn tour is a showcase of Anchor Point recruits. Jadu Heart draw a strong mob for the night’s first act, clattering through a set of balmy, soulful electronica. As the lights play off the mononymous Dina and Faro and their Donnie Darko-esque rabbit masks, the crowd bobs, willing suppliants to the pair’s alternating vocals and the drummer’s tropical beats.

Where Jadu Heart are sleek creatures in the shadows, Bonzai bears glinting teeth. She’s backed by a riotous team – pals on synths, drumpads and decks – but the Irish-American dynamo leads the charge, grabbing her set by the balls with no sign of letting go. There’s a gristly bass undertow here, at points igniting the crowd to rave-worthy combustion, but given a tangy sweetness by her giant fuck-you diva vocal. Her penultimate track, Where Are U Now, is the pulled pin on this party grenade. Produced by our headliner, it’s no wonder when that whistling, bassy drop goes off.

Ringleader Crossan, as Mura Masa, shuffles on stage – unassuming in his plain black tee – to take the opening drum loop to Lovesick to its piano riff. Though it would have been a treat to have recent collaborator A$AP Rocky spit his verses, we count ourselves luckier still to have Bonzai return and make the Harlem rapper’s lines her own. Already a guest vocalist on Crossan’s work, she pops back onstage for multiple show-stopping vocal displays, including the forlorn Terrible Love, Low, and – of course – his alt-pop banger What If I Go?

You can hear the Hudson Mohawke influences on Hell – military bass, synthetic handclaps, toybox melodies – and this Glasgow crowd hears it too, loud and clear. Same goes for Lotus Eater and its leftfield flute-driven breakdown. The guest vocals may be the cherry on this well-iced cake, but it’s Crossan who’s supplied the whole damn tea tray tonight. Fifth in the BBC Sound of 2016, and with a debut album in the post, if this is what he’s capable of creating at 20, we’re in for a dope 2017.