Glasser isn't a new band. Glasser didn't play a bunch of new material or say or do anything provocative during their set to make people talk about it much thereafter. But Glasser did end up being one of the bigger revelations of my SXSW. I had heard the name plenty of times before, but when the first strains of their set began, I was pretty well unprepared for it.
During their setup and soundcheck, the drummer, guitarist, and electronics-box-poker looked sort of like a few slightly nerdy friends who had some instruments and played together sometimes. But that was before the jumpsuits. That was before vocalist Cameron Mesirow took the stage. The band's jumpsuits and Mesirow's flared skirt and hair pieces all combined to create what I can only call a dinosaur-couture aesthetic. Mesirow's jerky, hypnotic, hyper-focused dancing certainly didn't detract from that impression.
At turns staring down the audience with eyes wide and imposing, then swaying about the stage like no one else was around, Mesirow gave a captivating vocal performance, too. Accenting a base of cascading tribal drums with impossibly agile yelps, or spreading a few vibrato notes over a whole phrase of guitar and synth melody, she telegraphed all manner of witch-doctor, conjurer, and sometime supplicant to the enveloping rhythms and textures of her backing.
