Each Measure Review: Mortal Prophets

FEATURE

Back in January, I had the pleasure of reporting on the Mortal Prophets’ release, Hide Inside the Moon. I called it “a new work that’s as sincere and quietly brutal as its predecessors, free of the rose-colored tint of nostalgia, and still relevant in a word that needs surrealism as much as ever.” If you were to tell me then that only a few months later, I would be reviewing an equally powerful follow-up, I wouldn’t have believed it. Some artists take years to produce albums as colorful and richly textured as Mortal Prophets. Yet here we are in May, lucky enough to be treated with yet another John Beckmann release, the dreamlike Not Here Not There.

Mortal Prophets is not so much a band as a musical experiment spearheaded by New York-based multi-media artist John Beckmann. Beckmann refers to himself as the “songwriter, producer, and perpetual instigator” behind releases like Not Here Not There, but his is the kind of mind that refuses to be pigeonholed into a single role. His career goes back to the 1980s, when he began his musical journey in the new wave scene, and over the past few decades, his resume has expanded to encompass everything from pop and rock to folk and blues with an experimental flavor. He’s also ventured outside the world of music into the visual and narrative arts. Essentially, nothing resonant and provocative is off limits for Beckmann.

Versatility across disciplines and rejection of boundaries are permeating themes in his work. Having explored multiple mediums, he’s a denizen of the art world as a whole, but through Mortal Prophets, he’s been able to channel his creative impulses into a work that’s both cohesive and multifaceted.

As an artist, Beckmann’s philosophy is perhaps best described as fluid. It’s hard to pin down any particular ethos or didacticism in his work. Rather, he seems more interested in art for art’s sake, and his raison d'être is simply to create something that has never been done before in a way no one has ever done it.

Musically and thematically, his approach is equally fluid, but there are consistencies. In my feature on Hide Inside the Moon, I argued that the album was a successful recontextualization of20th century counterculture and popular art. In a way, I think that the same could be said of Not Here Not There. Thematically, they share a lot of similarities in that they’re both include explorations of art, its philosophy, and its role in society. Just as Hide Inside the Moon shouted out Cy Twombly, Sylvia Plath, and Kenneth Anger, Not Here Not There includes nods to Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and Harry Everett Smith. However, while Hide Inside the Moon more strongly reflected Beckmann’s new wave roots, Not Here Not There is closer to the fuzzy and ever-shifting textures of 1960s psychedelia and garage rock.

Beckmann cites Robert Wyatt and Syd Barrett among the inspirations behind Not Here Not There, and upon listening to it, my first impression was that it does sound like what Syd Barrett would be doing if he’d continued to make music through the new wave era and had access to 21stcentury equipment. Not Here Not There is packed with that signature brand of playful eccentricity. 

Beckmann’s palette reflects a taste for just about anything that sounds strange and eerie (in the best possible way): the soundscape of Not Here Not There is built upon buzzing theremins, echoey synthesizers, and hazy electric guitars. Songs like “Where Love Goes to Die,” “The Fool,” and the title track “Not Here Not There” pulse and resound with electronic heartbeats as they wind in unexpected directions. It’s a sound that’s surreal and unnatural and yet deeply primal, and if it belonged to the unconscious world.

As in Hide Inside the Moon, Beckmann Beckmann uses Not Here Not There as an opportunity to look forward by looking back. He calls upon the tropes and textures of the past and colors them through the lens of the present. Many of the tracks on the album sound almost like they could pass for singles made by a sadly forgotten underground rock band that disappeared by the end of the sixties, but not quite. Beckmann also adds a tinge of modern sensibility made possible by his decades of exposure to countercultural art. It’s not a perfect reconstruction because reconstruction is derivative. Recontextualization is inspired. 

When Beckmann evokes the past, it sounds more like recalling a shared cultural memory than a futile attempt to actually inhabit a bygone age. It’s like a weathered photograph that has been transformed by time into a wholly new work of art.

There’s one particular piece, titled “Real Person Too,” that I immediately recognized as a reimagining of “I’m Her Honey,” which originally appears on Hide Inside the Moon. Though both tracks use the same lyrics, they sound completely different. The Hide Inside the Moon version features a polished, loungy new wave feel, while the Not Here Not There version is a gritty, psychedelic haze. That difference embodies Beckmann’s statement on recontextualization perfectly. He took the same concept and gave it a repainting, an experiment in how changing the lens changes the effect. The words are almost the same (a familiar story about wanting to be loved for you soul and only receiving love for your material possessions), but the character is completely different.

It’s not Beckmann’s own voice you’ll hear on the album. He enlisted the help of Tanner McGraw and Lawson Mars, whom he calls “the kids in the neighborhood,” for the vocals. They bring a hypnotic, deadpan quality to Not Here Not There, sometimes lowering to an otherworldly whisper that deliberately keeps some things hidden behind the veil. 

The album makes a point of rarely saying anything directly, and that’s one of its strengths. It dwells in undertones, conveying messages through symbols and allegory. Take, for example, “Where Love Goes to Die,” which portrays heartbreak through a brutal description of a desolate landscape. Or lines like “I can feel your heartbeat inside like a secret knocking on locked doors,” off of “I Can Feel Your Heartbeat.” Another favorite example of mine comes from “Signs of Death”: “A door ajar could never shut / A thread unspooled could never cut / A darkness deep, no candles quell / Just knowing what we cannot know.”

All of these lines are vivid and evocative, but they’re also elusive. They hint at much more than they say. Like a wonderland for Alice to waltz through, Not Here Not There is populated with images that seem absurd, but hold a wealth of meaning beneath the surface.

Listening to Not Here Not There is about as close as you can get to dreaming without falling asleep. It’s a world of metaphors, half-remembered histories, and surreal landscapes ripped from the collective unconscious. But the thing that really makes dreams special is that they are made just for you, personalized according to your own fears and desires. Somehow, Not Here Not There has that quality, too. That’s where Beckmann’s esoteric nature becomes his greatest strength: you’ll hear what you need to hear, if you listen.

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