For this week, The Substation has become a place of dark reverence – a fitting host for Marcus Whale’s live staging of Ecstasy, a performance that straddles the line between concert, dance, and devotional ritual. I attended the Thursday night (12 June) performance.
Built from Whale’s 2024 album of the same name, Ecstasy is a deeply immersive work. It melds electronic textures with choral drones and sharp breakbeats, creating a sound world that feels both sacred and volatile. Heard live, the music enveloped the hall with intensity. The Substation’s large industrial space acted as a kind of resonant chamber, amplifying the sonic weight and lending the whole event a sense of gravity.
Whale’s performance added a striking physical dimension to the music. He moved deliberately through the space, wielding a long, glowing light stick – not pulsing in sync with the beat, but instead functioning as a sculptural element, casting shadows and tracing arcs through the dim room. At times, he incorporated objects like a bell – used sparingly, perhaps only once – in gestures that felt more ceremonial than musical.
Though I arrived unfamiliar with the album, the experience quickly drew me in. Whale’s choreography and minimal staging served to heighten the emotional weight of the music, rather than distract from it. The performance didn’t offer narrative or exposition; it invited the audience to feel – to inhabit a state of ecstasy in the older, stranger sense of the word: a stepping outside of oneself.
By the end, Ecstasy had become something more than an album performed live. It was an environment – one where sound, movement, and presence merged into something haunting and memorable.
