Speaking with Linda Perhacs was like ninja mind training. She described light, visible energy and colors, love, nature, purpose, men, a noisy river of souls outside her window, the importance of good vibes, and sending inner power text messages. Perhacs hoped to create such good vibes at Redcat, a nuclear thought explosion would blow the can roof off. She pointed out an image from Thought Forms by Annie Besant in which colorful patterns rise above a church. Besant saw these patterns rain good vibes on townsfolk.—Colorful splotches constantly emmanate from people’s thoughts. “Love for the whole world” is a spazzing blob. Gold is “higher thought patterns,” pink is “love,” green is “friend.” She sipped coffee through her own straw.

On the night of the show, Perhacs greeted Redcat smiling. “In the spirit of the ‘70s, we’re going to have a very special night,” she said, smoothing her purple dress. For the first performance ever of her music, her 1970 album Parallelograms was presented in its entirety by Dublab-selected guest bands.

“Parallelograms” went twice. First, a full band—including hippie-dancing older women—accompanied Linda Perhacs’ calm, gentle, angelically pronounced math terms—”quadrahedral, tetrahedral, mono-cyclo-cyber-cilia.” Suddenly a fantastic void leaps open mid-song. Haunting chimes. Vowels. Voices slip through a vortex before the song resumes course. The reprise performed later by Ladies Choir had one guitar and many lady handfuls. The Choir entered holding long dresses above their ankles. They stood arranged by fabric color from high to low vocal range; circles painted on their cheeks. Once again, an eerie sensation when the song breaks elicited great pleasure.

Nikki Randa—the Blank Blue siren—and Mia Doi Todd’s voices warmed the tide during “Sandy Toes.” The girls swayed. A bohemian lady with exposed nipples twirled on a beach behind them.—No Dublab event is complete without videos. Artists contributed video to each song, projected on a large screen. “Toes” had nipples. I failed to notice more than desert dunes about Daft Punk’s video for “If You Were My Man.” My eyes followed the live dancers. Flesh colored fabric stretched across their bodies, curves complimented by Ryan Heffington’s choreography. The dancers came back later to enliven a new Perhacs song called “I Dance For My Brother.” “We dance when there’s a need for greater energy,” she said.

Such energy got dark deep with We Are The World’s interpretative “Moons and Cattails.” A wide blue haze undulated above their heads. Their arms extended into pointy wooden limbs and they had no eyes. They swooned as though they lost themselves and had become only their clothes.

The cup became half full when Tom Brousseau filled a wine glass with his magical song. No band; just Tom, the glass, and a few meaningful hand gestures commanded “Porcelain Baked Cast Iron Wedding.”

Linda said Julia Holter blew her away. This girl weaved a watery tapestry using loops. It was a while before she sang; then she let the words linger. The young Holter yearned bravely, “Oh how delicious. Oh how I want this.” Desirous. “Oh how I want you…now.”—A hot line to declare for several hundred eyes fixed on you, and make them feel it.

Rio En Medio fit right in, accompanied by a cymbal tapping, dreadlocked playmate. She, Holter, Todd, and Randa make us believe they “see silences between leaves in the Chimicun rain,” so to speak. Repping outer space, Hecuba shoots by on a hot, loud time-bending comet. So what was Crystal Antlers doing among the fairies, ghosts and rainbows? Rocking a psychedelic “Paper Mountain Man.” Johnny’s scratchy vocals channelled raw flower power. My thoughts formed flared pants and hippie cloaks on the band.

“Thoughts build like a pendulum,” Perhacs explained. “Put a pen down and spiral out.” Thought creates energy creates colors creates thoughts. Shapes and colors reflect the natural world in a way that music can show us. Just close your eyes and listen to Parallelograms, and you’ll see the light, so to speak. When you open them up again and look for magic in the same way. The experience reminds us that reality is trippy without licking a sheet of acid.

—Daiana Feuer