Mortal Prophets, the alter-ego of John Beckmann, first featured on these pages last year and since then we’ve already had the pleasure of sharing two of his albums, and a couple of singles to boot.
By Graeme Smith
Feature photo by Cat Chow
He’s now released his latest EP, Sleeping In My Bed. With each new release, John has a tendency to give us something quite different from the last while still being unmistakably him. Sleeping In My Bed provides a moody collection of six tracks full of cutting lyrics, and a sense of nihilism and catharsis.
The soulful, bluesy Bury Them Deep feels at once an allegory for the dangers of greed and an outpouring of grief. Gun and a Prayer combines traditional country rock with something altogether Avant Garde, almost acting as a parody of the bravado that is usually prevalent in the genre. Title track and single Sleeping In My Bed is a slow, unsettling heartbreaker of a ballad.
Two other singles have already teased the EP. Tom Waits In Drag tells a vivid and sordid story against a looping, interesting instrumental while Hell or High Water opens things up with an expansive, eerily romantic number. The EP is then rounded off by John’s unexpected take on the traditional American folk song, Cut You Down.
The more I hear from John and Mortal Prophets, the more I adore his brand of thoughtful surrealism. He uniquely captures the spirit of hypocrisy that runs through the modern world, untwists it then reflects it back to us. You can tell when an artist is truly expressing themself with their music, and that’s what you get with John.
Sleeping In My Bed features John Beckmann on vocals and lyrics, Aoibheann Carey-Philpott on backing vocals, Jon Corbert on piano (Tom Waits In Drag), Danny Flam on saxophones and horns, Gordon Ashe on drums (Bury Them Deep), Matthew Carter on drum programming (Hell or High Water), and Will Wilde on harmonica (Hell or High Water). William D Lucey produced and mixed the EP as well as contributing bass, keyboards, samples and programming, and electric and acoustic guitars. It was recorded at LeftBank in Cork, Ireland.
You can give the EP a listen below.
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