Since Beacon has toured with Tycho they have found themselves some proper exposure from singing live with Sarah Barthel from Phantogram to hitting the road with How To Dress Well. The duo will hopefully be all over the states and EU this summer and fall, until then just enjoy the stream above.
Thomas Mullarney and Jacob Gossett, aka Brooklyn duo Beacon, introduced themselves to the world with the No Body and For Now EPs, both released last year on Ghostly International. The EPs were united by minimalist, R&B-influenced instrumentation, and also by a lyrical theme, with both serving as meditations on the darkness that underpins the most intense of human emotions: love.
The duo’s debut album The Ways We Separate both consolidates and develops these ideas. The album focuses, as the title suggests, on the idea of separation — both within the context of relationships and in a more intimate, psychological sense. As Mullarney explains, “The narrative contained inside The Ways We Separate deals with two kinds of separation: one where two entities grow apart, and the other where we grow apart from ourselves. Over the course of a relationship, the two sometimes happen together, one being the result of the other.”
Desires, passions and regrets are central to the songs on The Ways We Separate, which take a variety of perspectives to construct a nuanced reflection on the album’s central theme. ‘Between the Waves’ draws a clever analogy between relationships and soundwaves falling out of phase: “I know all the ways we separate/ Where we start to fade at different frequencies.” ‘Overseer’ catalogues a parting of the ways with discomfiting clarity: “Isn’t it fine?/ Taking it slow?/ Watching you watch me walk out your door.” And album closer ‘Split in Two’ explores how the extremes of love and loss can take you far away from being the person you thought you were, making explicit the connection between the two ideas of separation: “What I’d do for you?”, sings Thomas Mullarney, “Split myself in half/ Divided into two.”
Musically, The Ways We Separate finds Beacon working with a richer sonic palette than ever before —as Gossett says, “The production on this album is much more expansive than anything we’ve done thus far. We spent a lot of time exploring new gear and experimenting with how to pull a wide range of sound out of various instruments. Some of the key sonics that shaped this LP are analogue synthesis, lots of heavily processed guitar work, and vocal layering/processing.” While the abiding mood remains that of late-night introspection, the production draws from elements of hip hop and a wide gamut of electronic music, marrying intricate beats and subtle textures to honeyed pop melodies that belie the album’s conceptual depth. Rarely has bleakness sounded so pretty — this is a record that’s deceptively, compellingly beautiful, an exploration of a place both discomfiting and darkly seductive.
I know we still have a Boards Of Canada album to hear, I know the new Daft Punk has Panda Bear on it, I also know that I can’t stop listening to this track since we originally posted it.
If you know me personally i’m a huge sports fans, i’ve always wanted to bring design and music fans together with sports fans anyway I can. If I had a dream job it would be hopping around in-between all the major sports teams and redesigning uniforms and logos. Nike did a great job here BUT… there’s a problem, a HUGE problem in my opinion, this doesn’t seem like what a passionate design would design, i’m in love with the fabrics, Nike always nails that department out of the park. The issue is that everything is completely evolving from the early 1990’s expansion boom, that gooey round 3D look or the Sin City “we’re the bad guys” thing. Both of these new logos suffer from that influence and thats the big bummer and the color scheme the designers have to work with. Also, i’m not going to lets simple designs get away with it either, look at the Minnesota Wild logo, you would think ISO50 might like it but no way, look at those trees, what a horrible effort.
To end on a positive note, I love what Nike did for the Oregon Ducks. I hope some of you comment in the comment section because i’d love to have a conversation about all of this.
Polish born Karezoid Michal Karcz stepped away from the paintbrush and canvas years ago and focused on photography, only until recently has he started painting again but digitally this time, here’s some of the photos he’s taken further into fantasy using his altered technique.
Tomorrow’s Harvest:
01 Gemini
02 Reach for the Dead
03 White Cyclosa
04 Jacquard Causeway
05 Telepath
06 Cold Earth
07 Transmisiones Ferox
08 Sick Times
09 Collapse
10 Palace Posy
11 Split Your Infinites
12 Uritual
13 Nothing Is Real
14 Sundown
15 New Seeds
16 Come to Dust
17 Semena Mertvykh
Probably one of the most beautiful and inspiring stamp collection i’ve seen, from the color schemes to the layouts and subjects, this collection is full of gems.
As part of Saturday’s Record Store Day festivities, Warp released a solitary 12″ credited to the pair through NY record shop Other Music. The disc features a short clip of a woozy none-more-BoC piece, plus a vocodered voice reading out the numbers “9-3-6-5-5-7″. It appears the record may be one in a series of jigsaw pieces: the record is credited as “—— / —— / —— / XXXXXX / —— / ——” , and features dead space on either side of the clip, implying a fill-in-the-gaps approach.
We obviously approached the story with the requisite skepticism, but Pitchfork now claim they have had direct confirmation that the record is legit. An Other Music employee, Mikey IQ Jones, has also got in touch directly with FACT. According to Jones: “It’s real. We were given a copy to secretly place in the racks at Other Music; we’re really psyched that it was found by a big fan!”
– FACT
So the vinyl is legit, now its time to figure out what the numbers mean. I have to hand it to Warp Records and BoC, this brought back the young fan in a lot of people that might have written them off. Its funny how hardcore music fans that treat music really seriously can trash talk and the less serious more carefree listener is just geeked and ready to spend their weekend trying to decode the exciting mystery that is there.
I personally think the 6 spaces each stand for a letter and then will be converted to ASCII to text and its not going to spell out SUMMER but the album title. Any thoughts from you guys?
