Alcest at Electric Brixton, London, 2024

Anaesthetised by the biting cold, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that Electric Brixton would serve as a portal to another world. Yet, just a couple of nights ago this is precisely what happened. Under a gig guise, 3 bands took the stage, flung open the gates and held the audience’s hand in crossing over to the other side.

Doodseskader

Doodseskader’s set is a fearless reflection of pain, their instruments tuned to the audience’s deepest anguish and flung back at them with implacable force. It’s a gritty, intransigent mirror of emotion, drilled into the collective subconscious with precision. There’s almost no lightness in the duo’s show but it is not missed. Against a backdrop of projected lyrics, Tim de Gieter and Sigfried Burroughs share vocal duties, crafting a performance that’s as much about forging connection as it is about accepting detachment. Drums, bass, catharsis — stripped bare.

Svalbard

Svalbard are one of those bands who make you realise group therapy works when guitars are involved. They radiate genuine euphoria in togetherness, both as a band on stage, and in their connection with the audience. Their setlist draws heavily from depression informed songs, yet there is a surprising softness to their delivery — partly thanks to their lush, gaze-steeped sound, but also from Serena Cherry’s endearing smiles that I’m sure could cure a bad mood faster than her riffs. With vocal interplay adding texture to their performance as well as the entire evening’s lineup, Svalbard are a good reminder that sometimes screaming into the void is best done in unison.

Alcest

The raft drifts silently along the river, its path unhurried and undisturbed. Moonlight spills across the delta, painting shadows and argent hues over the landscape. The air sighs with distant trills of cranes, their voices rising and falling, ghostly whispers threading through the wind.

And then Alcest start weaving their songs into the night like fragments of a half remembered dream. I close my eyes sometimes, and let music envelop me. Is it sound, or is it an impression, a warm embrace that carries me far from the world I know? Time seems to stretch and collapse, moments spilling into each other until the past and future dissolve into an infinite now. Memories flicker in my mind, their edges soft, like ripples across the surface of the water. Life unravels in flashes as though someone, or something, gently nudges me across a threshold. Perhaps I’ve already crossed.

Alcest’s music is a familiar hug, a sound I’d recognise anywhere, soothing and warm, as though tattooed to my memory. Their vocals are tender and fragile, each note delivered with such care it feels like an act of devotion, each melody crafted with an otherworldly regard, an enduring element, waiting to be heard. Gliding on what feels like clouds spun from cotton candy, I smile, the sugar rush coursing through me, too electric to contain.

Alcest have shaped and reshaped their signature sound over time, yet the setlist flows together effortlessly. Songs rise and fall like tides, layering delicate currents of melody that draw the audience into their depths. On stage, they move with fluid grace, music surging with a strength that pulls everyone beneath the surface, carrying us to distant shores.

Everything else fades. It all becomes a vacuum, and the dream deepens. In that moment, there is only my raft, the river, the moonlight. And the music — unbounded, unhurried, undisturbed.