Concert Review: Elsewhere Becomes Hotel Garuda

At Elsewhere, Hotel Garuda treated music as if it a stream of color coming from an aerosol can. Suddenly, sound styles were the equivalent of graffiti ones, and the each track was a choice of what vivacious image you wanted to splash and frame on your wall. The dynamic was perfect considering that Elsewhere can feel like the lounge Banksy hangs out in. 

Again, DJs feel like my unicorn when it comes to reviewing. It is too easy to say they stand there and press a button, but Hotel Garuda treats making a rhythm like its performing surgery. Aseem Mangaokar, may sway to his sound , but he is laser-focused on making it; looking down at his mix-table as if one wrong press of a button was the same as snipping a vein. Yet, for a spirit, it can be. If music feeds the soul then an off-beat can lead to a very poor meal. Thus, you admire how coolly precise Hotel Garuda can feel as a DJ; letting his music build a glass case around the crowd as he watches us like we are the event HE came to see. 

Sonically, I can only describe the crowd’s reaction Hotel Garuda’s beats as APES**T. Yet, this was NOT the Carters version. This was get-down, twerk-off crazy version. People shook their bodies as if they had no bones like Gumby. Hotel Garuda’s capacity to combine popular pop, steamed synths, and flowing basslines proves what I will say; to pick a DJ is to pick an ambiance. Yet, with how he boils his basslines to bring out the sweetness and tartness of a rhythm, you would think a beat drop was the same as making hibiscus water. He simply teas his leaved arrangements, and gives music to the crowd THIRSTING FOR IT! 

Hotel Garuda’s show revealed a truth to me that, sometimes, I forget, thought it is my own, as well. Sometimes, you really need a night out. Despite the frigid cold and NYC’s constant decision to make subways the hardest things to catch (lol!), people persevered. Why? Because when you need to shake it off, you go to Hotel Garuda. No matter what, a person needs to dance their night away, and Aseem’s calling of himself, “Hotel Garuda”, invites people to book him. For More Information On Hotel Garuda Click Here.