Track by Track: Beacon, 'No Body' EP

Up-and-coming Brooklyn duo, Beacon recently released a new EP, titled No Body. The four song effort sees the group expanding on their laid back electronic sound, which originally caught our ears back in August. Both Thomas Mullarney and Jacob Gossett (of Beacon) were nice enough to give us an in depth track by track look at their impressive new release. The pair's explanations delve into not only some of the EP's influences, but also how they go about writing and structuring their synth-heavy tunes. Check out what T + J had to say and stream their entire EP below.

See Through You

T- See Through You was floating around in different forms from the beginning of writing this EP. We performed it live in a more high energy, aggressive form throughout the summer. The final drop/breakdown at the end of the EP version is actually closest to the energy of how the song was initially written. When it came to recording, we stripped away a lot of the excess in the beginning and focused on building an inner pulse to the song that we could capitalize on with the crescendo at the end.

J - My favorite track on the album resulted from a 4 bar beat that I had emailed Tom one day. Like many of the tracks it started as a kind of hip hop beat created around a sample that was usually difficult to craft any real melody around. I think I was still hung up on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and was really into big dramatic rhythm sections. Tom wrote some really great synth lines around it and we slowly slid out a lot of the samples to a point where they became just atmospheric accents.

No Body

T - For me, understandably the title track has some of the most exciting moments of the EP. From the second I heard the Keith Sweat sample Jake had cut, I was immediately drawn to the kind of atmosphere we could build. In the end it took a colossal amount of work to treat that sample in the most interesting way. The guys we mixed with (Terminator Smile) did an amazing job of making the deep kick “pitter-pat” through this track, driving it along like the sound of some Giant’s footsteps heard from a distance. Lyrically, this song represents both the deep longing and potentially sinister moments of first love. We designed the striking chords in the first verse to rupture the songs mood, like a surprise in a horror movie, “the shadow in your room.”

J - This track began when I was sifting through sketches I had done and Tom was immediately attracted to the swell of strings that was a Keith Sweat sample. It became this pulsating sound that all the synth layers were crafted around. The percussion went through various iterations but like all the tracks on the EP we opted for a more minimal drum sound.

Exhale

T - This melody was one of those eureka moments from our long sessions in the hot studio this summer. I remember jumping around to it, murmuring melodies that sounded an awful lot like Beyonce’s “Halo.” In the end this song became the warmest, and most sensual of our new songs.

J - Exhale is all about the low end for me. I think what makes the song work is this deep thick sub bass that when played on a proper system is quite visceral. It thumps underneath the more ambient synth work and atmospheric vocals. The beat is really restrained with kind of an off kilter kick/clap combo and shimmery cymbals hovering over it. Probably my favorite vocal on the EP as well.

Girl In A Coma

T - This is where we simultaneously began and ended the EP. The initial melody and vocals were recorded in some of our first sessions. The vocals here were written almost immediately after I heard the melody. We wanted the bass to really erupt in this track, to cut right through the warm synths and drive the EP to its close.

J - Girl in a Coma- This track was the first to be written for the EP and kind of set up a sonic structure that we stuck to when writing the rest of the album. The key thing being this really warm main synth sound that is present in every track coupled with some kind of arpeggiated synth that creates rhythm around these melodies. We also established the sub bass rumble here that became a fixture on these tracks as well.