Finding the ultimate hypnotic muse in Glass Beams
In structural glazing, glass beams are integral components bonded to support large glass panels typically used for walls and ceilings, though sometimes for bridges, staircases, and catwalks. This design creates an ambient, open atmosphere, offering the feeling of limitless interpretation—when you can see the sky and extend your vision beyond your immediate surroundings, the sense of freedom can be profound. Perhaps this is why the psychedelic trio from Melbourne found the perfect namesake in Glass Beams.
Following the release of their 2021 debut, appropriately named Mirage, Glass Beams have been an enigmatic entity in every sense of the word. Aside from entering mainstream attention after founding member Rajan Silva revealed his identity, they remain one of the most mysterious masked bands in the contemporary landscape.
Their intriguing blend of Australian surf and traditional Indian music creates lively yet atmospheric soundscapes that are difficult to compare to anything you might have heard before. With nothing but textural sounds, Glass Beams’ music is hypnotic and melodic, their concealed identities all part of the broader commitment to reducing any preconceived interpretation to below zero. No, really—Glass Beams might be captivating just from their music, but their demeanour is cooler than sub-zero, the golden entrance that pulls you in from the mask alone inviting you into a world where identity is secondary to experience, and the focus is solely on the sound and its transformative power.
The transcendental meditative feel evoked also unravels various layers—often simultaneously—revealing broader influences from South Asia and the Middle East, blended viscerally with Western psych-rock, krautrock, and funk to create a mix of cultural expressions that encourage a dreamlike, hallucinatory state. From Mirage through Mahal, Glass Beams explore both cosmic and natural elements, evoking both deep tranquillity and complex contemplation.
The free and spacious aspect of the music also plays into this hypnotic feel—take ‘Orb’, for instance. Initially, there’s a mix of oriental rock sounds executed with a funk edge, the beginning laid-back atmosphere making way for something much darker and more rhythmic without compromising on the underlying groove that propels the track forward. All of these arrangements wrapped together feel meditative yet urgent, refusing to settle into any one mood or direction and constantly shifting while retaining its hypnotic core.
Conversely, tracks like ‘Black Sand’ seem sophisticated from a production perspective, but the roomy aspect is maintained through the ways each element feels distinctive in execution but a necessary part of the whole experience. During an interview with Rolling Stone India last year, Silva explained how the music became a “love letter to my Indian heritage” by incorporating influences like Ananda Shankar, the nephew of Ravi Shankar, who dreamed of blending Indian and Western music to “blur the cultural lines of sound”.
When quizzed about the reason for masking their identities, Silva drew on “Indra’s Net” and “Ego Death” as two potential explanations, though he resigned from confirming nor denying either. On the former, he said: “In mythology is an intricate web which extends infinitely across the universe. The net is bejewelled; it’s glistening, as at each node of the net where threads cross, there is a perfectly clear gem that reflects all the other gems in the net.”
Regarding the “Ego Death”, he explained that this interpretation reflects the broader notion of a loss of identity, where you lose your complete sense of self and revert to an all-consuming state that is just “pure awareness and ecstatic freedom”. While both of these could be either true or false, it seems obvious to explore the intersection of the two, where the ecstasy of being physiologically free converges with adopting an awareness of the universe’s complex web of networks.
On the surface, Glass Beams’ music is about embracing creativity without constraints. However, the deeper you go, the more you realise about the unpredictable, free-form nature of life itself. Just as many of the trio’s compositions defy conventional music structures, they mirror the spontaneous and often chaotic flow of existence, where plans and expectations are constantly upended by the unexpected.
