Glass Beams

Glass Beams cut a striking figure, indeed, when they emerged from Melbourne in 2020, between their beaded masks and instrumental earworms. A pandemic-era creation of multi-instrumentalist/producer Rajan Silva, the trio have remained otherwise anonymous and simply let their slinky fusion of traditional Indian pop and head-nodding Western breaks do the talking. The results evoke Ravi Shankar’s crossover-friendly ragas as much as Khruangbin’s rolling psych-funk, with the 2021 debut EP Mirage sounding both subtly ethereal and hotly tipped for sample and remix status. Signing to international powerhouse Ninja Tune, Glass Beams were already booking big-time overseas tours and headline slots by the time of 2024’s Mahal EP. Between their spidery guitar licks, ultra-taut basslines and dusty-sounding drumming, the trio find a very particular overlap in their myriad influences that translates as joyously universal. In the artist’s words: Describe one of your earliest musical memories. “When I was young, my father showed me a DVD of Ravi Shankar playing with a Western orchestra, in a tribute show to the late George Harrison from The Beatles.” Find a song of yours on Apple Music that you love and tell us what makes it special. “‘Mirage’: the first Glass Beams song ever written—dedicated to my father.”