Beacon's second EP is an ethereal listen, ideal for the cold months. The duo
comprises of Thomas Mullarney III and Jacob Gossett of New York City. They are
signed to a prestigious electronic label known for Com Truise, Matthew Dear and
Gold Panda - Ghostly International. Instead of straight-forward electronic
music with the common features, Beacon, like many other artists attempting to
make an impact, try and sound different.
It's important to stand out from the crowd when you're starting to find your
feet. For instance, there's no point making several ambient recordings and
adding reverb, it may sound great at the time, but that's what Brian Eno et al
are for, it's the electronic artist’s job to deliver compositions, and that's
exactly what Beacon do with the track It Won't Be Long. There's a heavy bass
pattern which transforms into an eerie three and a half minute piece of soulful
electronic music.
For Now is the kind of release that grows with patience. It's not
music for a DJ set, instead it’s the
sound of the seafront. The dark sky brings a cold breeze, however the moonlight
adds to the romanticism. Feeling's Gone is a track I would listen to whilst
lying on a beach in the setting I described above. The simplistic synthesizer
riff awakens the listener into a world, like Danny Boyle's The Beach.
The RnB vocals are effective and put good effects to use. Nothing quite beats a
good electronic piece with distorted segments and heavily reverberated melodies
criss-crossing the track through production.
The bass beats are incredibly heavy, like the hard hitting bass thumps on
Into The Night and the opening five seconds of It Won't Be Long. It's an
exhausting feature, but it's needed when the genre heavily relies on a bass rhythm.
Safety's Off has moments of brilliance, I’m just not feeling the chorus and the
tracks structure. Give us something more Beacon, minimal music needs to have its
calling card. Right at the heart of the EP is Pulse, one of the weaker tracks
on the EP. The delay is being overused and the beat sounds too laid back
compared to the bass.
Beacon's EP is out on Ghostly International and I'm sure it won't be long
before a debut album is announced. Ignore all post-dubstep labels, Beacon are
quite simply electronic artists with soulful and melodic touches.
~Eddie
