Following trends, by its very nature, means that you will always be behind the times. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that; it is how ninety-five per cent of music is made and how the music world turns. But it is a world of comfort zones and familiarity, plagiarism and, at its worst, pastiche.
And whilst most people are okay with that, both listeners and music makers alike, and I’m okay with them being okay with that, I’m interested in the other five per cent. Those who lead rather than follow, those who set the sonic pace rather than shuffle along in the footsteps of others, and those exploring new pastures instead of retreading tried and tested paths. John Beckmann the man behind the marvellous and mercurial Mortal Prophets is not only one of those people, he is one of the best.
Very little music is made from anything but familiar sounds; there is, after all, nothing new under the sun, and “New Breed” is built of some recognisable sounds – clubland grooves, drifting ambient sonics, distant, almost disembodied vocals, melodic spirals and beguiling riffs. But, as always, it is the perfect positioning of such key elements; knowing what to leave out, the creation of space to allow things to breathe, the gentle collision and co-existence of sounds that rarely spend this much time in each other’s company, and other neat sonic juxtapositions, that makes this work.
That is what John and Mortal Prophets are all about. He turns the recognisable into the new, the familiar into the fresh, he goes where few have gone before, and then does something wholly different when he does get there.
I said earlier that there is nothing new under the sun; well, with people like John Beckmann in the world, that isn’t entirely true, is it?
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