It’s like gazing up at the night sky, had all the stars been replaced with eyeballs the size of monster truck tires.
They blink in unison to the jackhammering beat on the massive, 16K-resolution LED screen that engulfs our senses, hundreds of lemon yellow irises brightening the otherwise dark room awash in hypnotic, melodic techno and incredulity alike.
For the sold-out crowd of 18,000, it’s a wholly immersive experience, the audiovisual equivalent of standing in the middle of a downpour sans umbrella, drenched in the surreal.
Is this real life? Or is this just fantasy?
Well, for the man at the center of it all — perched high atop a DJ booth designed to look like a quantum computer — it’s all about splitting the difference between the two.
Flash back to Dec. 27: It’s opening night of Anyma’s “The End of Genesys” 12-concert run at the Sphere, which closes out with shows Thursday through Sunday.
The venue’s first residency from an electronic music artist has been a blockbuster one, with over 130,000 tickets sold during the first eight shows, the venue’s mountain-sized video screens and state-of-the-art sound system perfectly designed to rocket the cutting-edge visuals and sonics inherent to the genre even further into the high-tech stratosphere.
Anyma, who describes himself as “a hybrid persona, simultaneously coexisting in digital and physical realms,” has proven to be just the dude to take full advantage of the Sphere’s audiovisual innovations.
To prepare you for the last four nights of “The End of Genesys,” here are four things you should know about one of the most technologically advanced live music productions Las Vegas has ever seen.
Who is Anyma?
A scene supernova and solo project of DJ-producer Matteo Milleri.
Though Milleri has been making music since 2009, first as one-half of techno duo Tale of Us, Anyma is a relatively new creation, launched on Milleri’s birthday in 2021. His ascendance since then has been remarkable.
The initial idea was to blend music and digital art into a seamless whole, with Milleri collaborating with 3D artist Alessio De Vecchi, who brings Anyma’s visual aesthetic to dazzling, pupil-dilating, multisensory life.
Anyma created the first full-size NFT music video for the title track to his first EP, “Claire,” one of numerous NFTs Anyma has produced, including “Eternity” with De Vecchi, which sold for over $50,000 at Sotheby’s in 2023.
That same year, Anyma dropped his full-length debut, “Genesys,” which explores the man/machine divide amid a dark-hued techno backdrop.
The album’s visual components revolve around a female humanoid character with pulsating, electric veins.
Speaking of which …
Introducing Eva
There she stands, tall as a skyscraper — literally — a glowing, androidlike presence gazing out at the crowd as if longing to escape from the video screen she looms upon.
By show’s end, she’ll be smashing her fists against her digital confines, creating cracks in its facade.
She’s Eva, a synthetic entity in pursuit of flesh-and-blood connection, her quest to transcend her artificial origins chronicled in a series of stunning clips that serve as the thematic thread weaving “Genesys” together over four acts.
At various points in the two-hour show, we see her sprout wings, tumble down foliage-strewn rabbit holes, fend off eel-like electrical cables and more on her journey to become human.
“How does it feel to breathe? How does it feel to be real?” singer Sevdaliza wonders in “Genesys” song “Samsara,” which is seemingly voiced from Eva’s perspective.
“Leave the world behind,” she then enjoins — and that, more than anything else, is what this show is really all about.
Guest appearances?
The pop star’s face comes smothered in different colored hands, her features massaged by a multitude of fingertips, revealing tendrils of what looks like silvery circuitry.
And then we see her face fracture, like a plate-glass window shattered by a hurled brick, her visage breaking into puzzle piece-like shards, the corporeal surface dissolving to reveal a synthetic makeup.
One of the more arresting images during the opening night of Anyma’s run at the Sphere was this clip starring Ellie Goulding, which served as the debut of their single “Hypnotized.”
Goulding joined Anyma during a subsequent show to perform the song live, one of several guest appearances during his Vegas run. Among them: FKA Twigs, Delilah Montagu, Sevdaliza and Empire of the Sun’s Luke Steele.
And then there’s Milleri’s girlfriend, art pop pixie Grimes, who took to the stage during Anyma’s New Year’s Eve show to air their new tune “A Quantum Romance.”
Performing beneath a canopy of stars, she wore the Milky Way-themed “Soul Gown” from futuristic fashion designer Robert Wun, embroidered with nearly 100,000 crystals, her voice as ethereal as the celestial setting.
A robot cello duel
Not all of the myriad visual flourishes abundant during Anyma’s Sphere shows are limited to the video screens that practically swallow eyeballs whole.
To wit: Anyma’s DJ booth — itself a towering, luminous marvel — comes flanked by two glass pillars topped by robotic arms that play a pair of cellos in sync with the music, at one point.
It’s quite the sight: a human making music on machines; machines making music on human instruments.
What’s the difference between the two? This is the inquiry at the heart of the “Genesys” experience.
The idea isn’t so much to supply an answer. It’s to render the question moot.
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @jasonbracelin76 on Instagram.
