With The Mortal Prophets and the release “Hide Inside The Moon”, John Beckmann isn’t just making a record; he seems to be curating a gallery exhibit for the ears, where the paintings are made of reverb and the sculptures are built from anxiety. It’s a curious, swirling thing a “gentle psychedelic weather system,” to borrow a phrase, that hits you with the specific humidity of a dream you can’t quite remember but desperately want to re-enter.
Beckmann, the mastermind behind this rotating cast which here includes Tanner McGraw and Lawson Mars, clearly thinks like a visual artist. He layers sounds the way a painter might scumble glaze over canvas. Take “Mad Girls Love Songs.” It’s a lo-fi interpretation of Sylvia Plath that feels claustrophobic in the best way possible. It sounds exactly like the moment you realize you’ve been staring at a wall for an hour, questioning if the wall is actually there. The oscillating harmonies don’t walk in a straight line; they stumble, wrapping you in a fuzzy, solipsistic blanket.
Then the channel changes violently. “Eyes In The Sky” is paranoid, industrial post-punk that mimics a mechanical heartbeat. It reminds me of walking past those Brutalist government buildings in D.C. cold, imposing, yet radiating a strange, frantic energy. It’s a stark contrast to “Blue Velvet,” which swings the pendulum back to lush, almost suffocating romanticism. Listening to the crooning vocals here is like running your hand across a fabric that hasn’t been manufactured since 1956. It is deeply tactile music.
What strikes me most is the album’s obsession with memory not as a linear file cabinet, but as a glitchy loop. “My Future Past” embodies this, warbling and detuning as if the tape has been left in the sun. It captures that very specific melancholia of visiting a childhood home and finding it smaller than you remembered.
Yet, Beckmann allows for eruptions of shoegaze noise, particularly on the title track, “Hide Inside The Moon.” It is a wall of sound, sure, but it feels designed to keep the world out rather than box the listener in. It creates an internal sanctuary. In a way, it functions like those hermit crabs that decorate their shells with bits of debris only here, the debris is distorted guitar fuzz and ethereal vocals.
The album takes a fascinating detour with “I Am A Hermit (Kenneth Anger-Puce Moment).” There is an ecstatic, defiant joy in its isolation. It made me think of a man dancing alone in an empty ballroom, utterly convinced he’s having a better time than anyone at the club down the street. It’s an indie rock anthem for the socially recused.
By the time you drift into the ambient close of “Twilight’s Last Embrace,” the reality of the room you’re sitting in feels suspect. The Mortal Prophets have constructed a noir-cinematic experience that doesn’t demand your attention so much as it slowly, pleasantly hallucinates around you.
Does the moon actually have room for us to hide, or are we just looking for a dark corner to quiet the noise?
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