Mortal Prophets – Hide Inside The Moon

The psychedelic music scene has been thriving in the past decade, delivering excellent works by many brilliant artists and bands. However, only a few of them are willing to delve deeper into the genre and experiment with other styles to deliver a fresh and unique listening experience. It also seems like these artists and bands overly explore their influences and constantly mimic something that renowned acts recorded and released decades ago, thereby avoiding any kind of innovation. Thankfully, there are music outlets like Mortal Prophets who are willing to break all the rules and shapeshift the boundaries in order to deliver a one-of-a-kind listening experience worth repeating over and over again. Helmed by John Beckmann, a NYC-based mastermind whose songwriting, composing, arranging, and producing abilities go beyond comprehension, this project never ceases to amaze with its innovative, unexpected, and fascinating approach to psychedelic music. With “Hide Inside The Moon,” his latest full-length album released on January 2nd, this highly creative artist pushes psychedelic music in a direction that only a few music outlets dare to do so. Sonically, John Beckmann combines his singer-songwriter approach with various directions, approaches, techniques, and styles in order to deliver a calm, soothing, relaxing, ethereal, and otherworldly atmosphere where each vocal harmony, sonic, and rhythmic maneuver wraps around your listening apparatus and refuses to let go long after this voyage ends. Besides all the fundamental elements of psychedelic rock and psychedelic pop music, you’ll also stumble upon some of the finest properties of dream pop, power pop, shoegaze, alternative, and indie. These additional styles play a significant role in this fine piece of sonic artistry, as they serve as more than necessary enhancements, accentuations, decorations, and other details that unquestionably uplift this material to an entirely new level while the artist remains loyal to the primary sonic direction. Also, it’s worth noting that Mortal Prophets expertly evokes sixties and seventies psych music, an era when this genre ruled the airwaves, but also implements all the qualities that meet current trends in music production, making this material even more pleasant to the ears.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

As soon as you press play, Mortal Prophets pulls you into the whirlwind of beautiful vocal harmonies, delicate guitar works, lush synths, and moderate beats. With every song, you become even more hypnotized by John Beckmann’s brilliant ideas and impressive musicianship. With the tremendous help of Tanner McGraw and Lawson Mars, who contributed lead and back vocals throughout the entire material, “Hide Inside The Moon” explores themes of longing, doubled realities, and time bending back upon itself. But besides those themes, the vocals also elevate each song on an entirely new level, command attention, contribute more melody over the top, and guide the listener on the epic journey through the expansive sonic universe. These vocal harmonies seamlessly balance all the low, mid, and high notes delivered with various instruments, emphasizing everything John Beckmann intended to achieve with this material. Besides decorating all the segments and orchestrations, these vocals also contribute more than necessary emotional depth and complexity over an already intricate song structures. In the meantime, the interplay between various instruments constructs a perfect backdrop for all the vocals to shine upon. Of course, the guitars play the main role here. Whether acoustic or electric, their importance is undeniable. You’ll immediately hear how regular and arpeggiated chord progressions, harmonies, melodies, and other sonic maneuvers shine in the limelight while also immensely supporting the vocals. These are also the moments John Beckmann uses the sitar instead of the guitar, and this particular instrument unquestionably gives a whole new dimension to these songs. The artist has included a generous serving of echo, reverb, and delay for some extra space, making this sonic journey even more lush, ethereal, and otherworldly. Besides sitar and guitar, you’ll notice how synths bring more depth to the material, with all those leads, themes, melodies, harmonies, chord progressions, sequences, and pads appearing unexpectedly, leaving a lasting impact on the listener. The same goes for the string section, a less notable but equally important additions that highlight particular moments or the entire songs.

Of course, this album wouldn’t sound this good with an equally impressive rhythm section. Although the bass guitar is not so hearable in the mix, you’ll get the feeling like it’s constantly in the mix. There are particular moments throughout the entire material where the low-end plays a vital role in giving more warmth, depth, and heaviness to certain song, but it doesn’t mean necessarily that the artist used bass guitar as a main tool to achieve this sound. Quite the contrary, those low ends come from the already mentioned instruments. It’s a wise move that works like a charm on this material. The remainder of the rhythm section is so perfectly placed in the mix so it gives more than necessary groove and detail without sounding too flashy. You’ll immediately notice how all those tastefully arranged, flawlessly performed, well-accentuated beats, breaks, fills, and other percussive acrobatics keep the remainder of the instrumentation in line while dictating groove and pace, but there’s no unnecessary aggression involved in the rhythm section. Some of these songs arrive stripped down to vocals, guitars, and keys only, and they work just fine without the low-end and beats, which only proves that John Beckmann thought about everything while assembling and recording this material. With “Hide Inside The Moon,” Mortal Prophets not only prove psychedelic music is alive and well, but also showcase how this longstanding genre, when done right, can still sound fresh, unique, innovative, and exciting, just like the first time you heard it on the radio. With a comprehensive collection of sixteen fascinating songs, this album positions John Beckmann as the leading force of modern psych sound, capable of delivering deeply soulful, emotional, and delicate works that tackle your soul. He’s a highly intelligent songwriter and composer whose ideas and musicianship go beyond comprehension many times throughout the entire material, so you should immediately check out this masterpiece if you crave perfectly crafted and flawlessly performed psych music.

https://open.spotify.com/album/7JsJNLnWojJNoWGwoM3oki?si=5ct7k2isT8CWBVl3Bwptdg

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