“Hello, uuum, we (Annie and Sarah) have the best powers of ganglifying sounds of music sounds; alternating words; mishmashing various love(r)s to explode our universe for fun. THANKS!”

Truer words were never spoken. Don’t be afraid. The truth is always this mysterious. It’s okay. Breathe. It’ll make sense when you hear GlassEYELashes.

Two Icelandic Siamese twins connected at the hair, separated in Japan, raised in Brussels, reunited in Hamilton. None of this is true, but it’s truer than what’s real, if you want to understand the sound of that Annie Shaw and Sarah Good make as GlassEYELashes. Inasmuch as one can truly understand. The music can be delicately beautiful, proudly disturbing, purposefully inept and unintentionally virtuosic at the same time. How is it possible? Only GlassEYELashes know for sure. They aspire to push the boundaries of accepted tonality, to be part of a movement to create new and interesting sounds, to do something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike what has come before.

Sarah Good and Annie Shaw have a musical history that began when the two met at the age of three. Sarah was tapping out Mendhelsson on the Pianosaurus, and Annie altered the pitch on her Speak’n’Spell to accommodate. Planets aligned and stars were born. Note: this is probably more true than “Sarah and Annie were long-time musicians who met in the Mohawk College music program, where Sarah studied classical voice and Annie studied jazz piano. Either way, the long-separated Siamese twins discovered their mutual DNA and spliced it through music. They’ve been reconnected at the follicles ever since.

Sarah and Annie may be Hamilton’s most prolific musical mad scientistesses. While GlassEYELashes is their main concern, they also list the post-punkish Demagogue Channel, experimentally droney Misner Space, Montreal chamber jazzists Serial Numbers as ongoing gigs – not to mention Bun (Sarah originals with Annie on keys), June Day (Annie’s jazz duo), and neo-awesome choral group Earth, Wind and Choir, which the duo co-founded. They’ve played with an ever-growing list of performers that includes Timber Timbre, Bruce Penninsula, Colin Stetson, Emily Wells, Laura Barret, Electroluminescent, Memoryhouse, Wax Mannequin, United Steelworkers of Montreal, Chore, Katie Stelmanis, Ghost Bees, Bahamas, Valleys, Russian Futurists, Mantler and Orphyx. They’ve appeared on stage at Supercrawl and most of Hamilton’s sympathetic venues, as well as shows in Toronto and Montreal. Sarah was nominated as an emerging artist at the Hamilton Arts Awards, while Annie was an associated artist for the HPO's What’s Next new music festival.

With experience that weaves through so many genres of music, it made sense for Annie and Sarah’s mutual admiration to become mutual creation. Sarah plays tripped out guitar, Annie plays sampler keyboards, while they share drumming duties, live looping creation and harmonizing. Traditional song structures collide with plains of noise and the occasional giggle. There’s a joy of sound here, a joy of laughter, and a joy of words. Especially words like shmeg, iowa, finger, and any word starting with "w." The music is beautiful and accessible yet entirely unordinary. It brings to mind the child-like playfulness of Maher Shalal Hash Baz but with years of musical training. Sound as fruit made into delicious preserves. Music as experience and laughter and beauty and if anything is true and real, it’s that, right there.
-James Tennant