Her name might be Shygirl, but her onstage persona is anything but. The 29-year-old English rapper/singer born Blane Muise has rocketed to fame thanks to her dusky voice, silvery and future-forward sound, and capital-H horny lyricism — not to mention making collaborators out of Björk (one of her biggest influences), Slowthai, Arca, Mura Masa, and Tinashe along the way.
On Tuesday night, she showed a raucous crowd at Montreal's Studio TD (formerly L'Astral) why she belongs in the pop orbit, and how she's developed the onstage charisma to match.
Opening act Angelita was a pleasant appetite-whetter if only for the eclectic range of sounds — mostly in the realm of Afrobeats, reggaeton and glitchy EDM — she played during her DJ set. But when Shygirl finally took the stage just before 9:15 p.m. for her first-ever Montreal show, it was strikingly obvious who the main event was — and the packed crowd most definitely got what they paid for.
Kicking things off with album opener "Woe" before launching into "Angel" from the forthcoming deluxe edition of her debut album Nymph, Shygirl wasted little time making her presence felt while singing from an ostentatiously sequin-plated microphone. She commanded the stage with confidence and undeniable verve even when she wasn't dancing or moving around much, while her red-streaked hair flew in the air as if to remind Montreal that a budding star was in their presence. With a tasteful use of lighting (whether white or purplish-red), she deftly created an atmosphere while adding mystique and texture to her songs in a live setting.
From a production standpoint, Shygirl's set covered virtually every base with regards to hip-hop and EDM subgenres. Traces of trap, R&B, grime, drum n' bass, jungle, dubstep, U.K. garage, progressive house, trance, breaks and hyperpop can be heard in her work, and all were in full view Tuesday night. In that sense, labelling her as an "experimental pop" artist feels both wholly accurate and a misnomer at once.
Between songs, she was incredibly charming and good-humoured, while also knowing how to reach deep ("We're not going to wait for someone to tell us how important we are… or how special we are," she'd tell the crowd). She was also highly interactive with her fans, going into the front of the crowd on at least two occasions. One fan even gave her a self-made paper crown she didn't take until the end of the show, joking that her head would be too big to wear it right away; later, she signed a fan's vinyl copy of Nymph and threw two sweat rags into the crowd ("I have one parting gift: a little sweat from my body. Who wants it?" she asked).
Though she doesn't have the showiest vocal range, Shygirl works nicely with what she's got. Most crucially, she knows how to make it sound seductive and how to rile up a crowd, which is exactly what she did. Better still was her rapping, as she can clearly spit rhymes with brashness and vigour — her performances of the synth-heavy "Bawdy"; the futuristic hyphy cut "Slime" (co-produced by the late SOPHIE); and the lustful trap banger "Shlut" were hard hitting and ruthless, sounding more like Houston or Atlanta than London. She can rhyme just as confidently at double the speed, as she showed on the electro house-oriented "Freak," the bassy "BB" and the pulsating, electro-accordion-led "Poison."
One could accuse her subject matter of being repetitive, but the unabashedly raunchy nature of Shygirl's music makes it feel strange to hear her sing or rap about literally anything else. This includes songs about falling for someone who doesn't know she exists, as she does on "Firefly" (a song co-written by former Think About Life member Caila Thompson-Hannant, aka Cecile Believe).
The fourth song in her hour-plus set, the crowd-hyping "Coochie (A Bedtime Story)" felt like it would've functioned better as a closer (that honour instead went to "BDE", which stands for exactly what you think it does), but it was nonetheless one of the show's high points. If any other small gripes were to be had, it was in the show's visual component, which wasn't as well-executed as it could've been as the projected backdrop wasn't quite visible enough against the curtain behind her. Beyond that, Shygirl's Montreal debut was a hypnotic and enrapturing outing for an artist whose talent, unflinching honesty and high-end stage presence make a strong case to graduate to bigger venues very, very soon.
On Tuesday night, she showed a raucous crowd at Montreal's Studio TD (formerly L'Astral) why she belongs in the pop orbit, and how she's developed the onstage charisma to match.
Opening act Angelita was a pleasant appetite-whetter if only for the eclectic range of sounds — mostly in the realm of Afrobeats, reggaeton and glitchy EDM — she played during her DJ set. But when Shygirl finally took the stage just before 9:15 p.m. for her first-ever Montreal show, it was strikingly obvious who the main event was — and the packed crowd most definitely got what they paid for.
Kicking things off with album opener "Woe" before launching into "Angel" from the forthcoming deluxe edition of her debut album Nymph, Shygirl wasted little time making her presence felt while singing from an ostentatiously sequin-plated microphone. She commanded the stage with confidence and undeniable verve even when she wasn't dancing or moving around much, while her red-streaked hair flew in the air as if to remind Montreal that a budding star was in their presence. With a tasteful use of lighting (whether white or purplish-red), she deftly created an atmosphere while adding mystique and texture to her songs in a live setting.
From a production standpoint, Shygirl's set covered virtually every base with regards to hip-hop and EDM subgenres. Traces of trap, R&B, grime, drum n' bass, jungle, dubstep, U.K. garage, progressive house, trance, breaks and hyperpop can be heard in her work, and all were in full view Tuesday night. In that sense, labelling her as an "experimental pop" artist feels both wholly accurate and a misnomer at once.
Between songs, she was incredibly charming and good-humoured, while also knowing how to reach deep ("We're not going to wait for someone to tell us how important we are… or how special we are," she'd tell the crowd). She was also highly interactive with her fans, going into the front of the crowd on at least two occasions. One fan even gave her a self-made paper crown she didn't take until the end of the show, joking that her head would be too big to wear it right away; later, she signed a fan's vinyl copy of Nymph and threw two sweat rags into the crowd ("I have one parting gift: a little sweat from my body. Who wants it?" she asked).
Though she doesn't have the showiest vocal range, Shygirl works nicely with what she's got. Most crucially, she knows how to make it sound seductive and how to rile up a crowd, which is exactly what she did. Better still was her rapping, as she can clearly spit rhymes with brashness and vigour — her performances of the synth-heavy "Bawdy"; the futuristic hyphy cut "Slime" (co-produced by the late SOPHIE); and the lustful trap banger "Shlut" were hard hitting and ruthless, sounding more like Houston or Atlanta than London. She can rhyme just as confidently at double the speed, as she showed on the electro house-oriented "Freak," the bassy "BB" and the pulsating, electro-accordion-led "Poison."
One could accuse her subject matter of being repetitive, but the unabashedly raunchy nature of Shygirl's music makes it feel strange to hear her sing or rap about literally anything else. This includes songs about falling for someone who doesn't know she exists, as she does on "Firefly" (a song co-written by former Think About Life member Caila Thompson-Hannant, aka Cecile Believe).
The fourth song in her hour-plus set, the crowd-hyping "Coochie (A Bedtime Story)" felt like it would've functioned better as a closer (that honour instead went to "BDE", which stands for exactly what you think it does), but it was nonetheless one of the show's high points. If any other small gripes were to be had, it was in the show's visual component, which wasn't as well-executed as it could've been as the projected backdrop wasn't quite visible enough against the curtain behind her. Beyond that, Shygirl's Montreal debut was a hypnotic and enrapturing outing for an artist whose talent, unflinching honesty and high-end stage presence make a strong case to graduate to bigger venues very, very soon.
