Saya Gray Electrifies Brixton

Japanese-Canadian artist Saya Gray returned to London with a spellbinding performance,  filling the cavernous Electric Brixton for the latest stop on her tour. Following the acclaim of her 2025 album SAYA, Gray continues to redefine the edges of experimental pop, her music a mesmerising blend of vulnerability, eccentricity, and sonic depth. On Tuesday night, the larger Brixton venue, over twice the size of Village Underground where we saw her play earlier this year, became a pulsating ecosystem of sound and emotion.

Opening with ..THUS IS WHY ( I DON’T SPRING 4 LOVE ), Gray immediately set the tone for the evening: intricate, unpredictable, and arrestingly personal. The production shimmered with layered textures and warm, tactile bass, creating a soundscape that felt both intimate and expansive. SHELL ( OF A MAN ) followed, transforming into a crowd-favourite moment of collective awe, its intricate groove looping through the floorboards.

The larger space seemed to embolden Gray’s performance, her signature sense of play and vulnerability magnified under the sweeping lights. She led the crowd into a quiet stretch of guided breathing, a familiar ritual for longtime fans, but in this bigger room, it carried a different power: a thousand people inhaling and exhaling in sync, briefly suspended in calm.

Fan favourites SHALLOW (PPL SWIM IN SHALLOW WATER) and DIZZY PPL BECOME BLURRY arrived as highlights, the latter exploding into shimmering distortion and pure euphoria. By the time LIE DOWN.. arrived, anticipation was electric, the audience shouting back every word: “She can look like me / She won’t feel like me”.

The encore offered a final moment of intimacy in 416 FALLAWAY, before bursting into the electric IF THERE’S NO SEAT IN THE SKY (WILL YOU FORGIVE ME???). As the lights dimmed, it was clear that Saya Gray’s power lies not just in her sound but in her ability to craft worlds where experimentation meets emotional truth, and every note feels alive.

Photography by Emma Last