Glass Beams Bend Light at Park West
The end of May signals the introduction of summer concert season, and no show could ring in the new season better than Glass Beams at Park West. On the 31st, Glass Beams and Angel Bat Dawid played their show in Chicago, and brought to the city a barrage of mind twisting music and performance.
Park West is kind of like a mix of a theater / lounge and a music venue. Upon entering, concertgoers are greeted with a massive blue tinted room that is arranged similar to a baseball diamond. There are bars on the left and right, and stairs lead down towards the back corner of the room where the stage was located. All throughout on various levels of elevation were tables and booths for more leisurely music enjoyers.
As the audience was waiting for the performance to begin, the music faded out slowly, but no one was on stage. People looked around, not knowing where the performer was. Keen-eared listeners caught a hint of song coming from the back of the crowd, so fans turned their heads away from the stage, and towards Angel Bat Dawid. Singing a slow hymn, she moved through the audience, parting people with the sheer power of her song. By the time she made it to the stage, the audience was captivated. Dawid created her music using a drum machine and looped instrumentation complimented by her vocals. Various woodwind and reed instruments were used, as well as a large piano.
In between playing instruments, Dawid performed various spoken word segments, highlighting the joys of the world, and the keys to leading a spiritual life. In one of the most unique portions of the performance, Dawid hosted a call-and-response game with the audience, where she played a riff on her clarinet, and the audience mimicked it back to her. By the end of her performance, fans were left feeling spiritually relaxed and ready for the next band.
The enigmatic Australian band Glass Beams first came on to the scene with the release of their first EP Mirage. The music of glass beams mixes traditional Indian music with western psychedelia in a seamless marriage of styles. Each song sounds like it has been playing since the beginning of time, and it is simply related to us through the vessel of Glass Beams. The band has remained largely anonymous, evidenced by the ornate gold masks that each member dons on stage. Only one member has identified themselves, that being Rajan Silva. The anonymity of the members only adds to the mystery of the band.
Glass Beams took the stage, and without saying a word the whole performance, captured the audience's attention and never letting it go. Playing a mix of songs from their debut and their most recent EP, Mahal, the band hypnotized the crowd and had each person swaying back and forth like a pendulum. The song ‘Mirage’ opened the show, and immediately had the audience moving. The interplay between the bassist and the drummer was entrancing, and the guitarist floated on top of the rhythm they created. Other highlights included ‘Kong,’ which employs a more uptempo beat, yet somehow still relaxes the listener, and ‘Orb,’ which sounds like the musical embodiment of light refraction.
Despite the band’s limited time together, Glass Beams was as cohesive a unit as they come. The way that each member would work off the others was magnificent, and their songs are excellent displays of each member’s skill on their instruments. Glass Beams is currently continuing their tour of the US, taking stops in Australia and Europe, and then will be back in the US in the fall.