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Along the Lethe

by Beacon

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD is the exclusive physical format for B-Sides Feel Something, Gambler, and Chance.

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1.
There’s a darker way now But darkness settles With my face to the glass Both sides of the tether A morning sun Fresh with blood On prevailing winds No sea’s too far That I won’t go Bring embers for you We’re better off lost My face to the glass The darkness calls With both hands I dig Back to the core My face to the glass The darkness calls With both hands I dig Back to the core No sea’s too far That I won’t go Bring embers for you We’re better off lost
2.
Oranges 03:54
Stay here Inside my arms Stay here In my arms And if the dark becomes us Let your eyes adjust
3.
Pay My Debts 02:58
There’s someone lost Inside my head I’ll pay my debts I’ll pay my debts It found my voice The voice it said No more regrets No more regrets Something in the sky turns black Start another fire, I guess The painted walls The wars you’ve bled I’ve found my place In this labyrinth I leave my thoughts Along the Lethe No more regrets No more regrets Something in the sky turns black Start another fire, I guess Something in the sky turns black Start another fire, I guess Is there another life? Is there another life? Or am I keeping mine? Or am I keeping mine? Something in the sky turns black Start another fire, I guess Something in the sky turns black Start another fire, I guess
4.
I’m the answer I’m the outcome And you’re my problem Nowhere left to run You’ll never learn Until you back down You’ll never learn Until you back down ’Til you back down All that carbon, all that bone Cast in amber like before I’m the answer Won’t be the last one ‘Cause you remind me Of what’s yet to come You’ll never learn Until you back down ’Til you back down You’ll never learn ’Til you back down
5.
I’m alive! Cease fire I kept time In the constant dark With both eyes Hypnotized by The clock Of a constant heart The city lights In an hourglass I wanted you I can’t turn back The city lights In an hourglass I wanted you I can’t turn back
6.
I don’t want to talk about What happens next I’ve given you all my doubts You’ve given them back We’ve waited for it The last to know We’ve waited for it The last to know But now you’re gone We’ve waited for it The last to know And now you’re gone
7.
Nova 03:43
Not alone Not alone Guess I’ll never know What I lost What I lost In time to let it go Hearts roll Hearts roll Through fingertips of dirt Then I’m gone Then I’m gone It’s time to leave my bones Destroy my wicked I want your lithium I took the fires from you Each time we made a pact I’m your Prometheus I’ll never give it back And now the water’s clear The bottom’s plain to see Don’t look around for air You’re where you want to be now Destroy my wicked I want your lithium Guess I’ll never know Guess I’ll never know Guess I’ll never know Stay, Stay
8.
Show Me How 02:39
They say it’s happening It’s starting now You thought you left me You thought you knew how And they say I could love you more Than I do now Well show me how Show me how
9.
Harm 04:26
Let it in The bite that breaks the skin I’m falling back in time Wondering if you were ever mine What half will I become? Three days since my last spell The force that slowly builds And breaks inside my blood If I do no harm If I do no harm If I let it in All that I know Is that I don’t know Start it again If I let it in All that I know Is that I don’t know Start it again If I let it in I’ll do no harm I’ll do no harm I’ll do no harm I’ll do no harm
10.
You talk a mile a minute And I just lie to keep up How could I try to leave this? It’s everything that I want Everything I want And so the roots take hold And break through the floor So ceremonious It’s where they’ll find us It’s where they’ll find us So ceremonious MATTHEW DEAR Cassiterite On a screen I slip, and you catch A long word To repeat, again, and again and again, and again As red lines Until they find us How could I try to leave this? It’s everything that I want

about

Perceptions of time and its effects have changed dramatically in recent memory. At some point in the past, four years might have been an average wait between new albums for a busy touring band like Beacon. But in our current post-quarantine, perma-pandemic reality, four years can contain lifetimes.

It was during this strange, illusive period that Beacon wrote Along the Lethe, their fourth full-length record following 2018's Gravity Pairs. The Lethe is one of the five rivers of the underworld in Greek mythology. The newly dead who drank from its waters lost all memory of their earthly lives. Composed and produced largely in quarantine, Along the Lethe is an album as much about the allure of forgetting tragedy as it is the need to maintain our connections to the past.

"I see Along The Lethe as Jacob and I preserving an extraordinary moment of our lives," explains Thomas. "It contains the most difficult and exalted experiences we’ve had creating music together. Writing it down makes it impossible to forget."

Album centerpiece "Ostrich" invites multi-instrumentalist Colin Stetson to weave a tapestry of saxophone notes into its subdued piano chords, gracefully revealing Along the Lethe's untethered emotional core. The sonic hallmark of the song is its ‘Ostrich’ tuning, a method that calls for all strings on an instrument to be tuned to the same note.

Lead single "Until Next Time" is a soft-glowing piano piece bolstered by the hearty backbone of hip-hop. Its genre-blurring tracks touch on slinky UK garage, ecstatic synth-pop, and avant-garde electronica, even as they wrestle with heavy lyrical themes like seduction of forgetting ("Oranges") and the ecological intrusion of disease on civilization, sourced from Malaria research ("Harm"). Album closer "Mile a Minute" somehow feels both unsettling and life-affirming with its sunny tones and skipping arpeggios at odds with a surreal vocal appearance from Matthew Dear and Automaton-delivered declarations of love.

It's no stretch to say Along the Lethe is Beacon's most eclectic, expansive album to date. As Jacob describes it, "It feels like a record without restraints."

Along the Lethe arrives on September 9th, 2022 on the band’s imprint, Apparent Movement. Read more at beaconband.com.

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released September 9, 2022

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Beacon Brooklyn, New York

Brooklyn duo Beacon explore the dark side of sweet melody with a sound thats as seductive as it is subtly discomfiting. They fuse the deceptively sweet melodies of R&B with an intoxicating undercurrent of darkness, drawing on influence as disparate as Warps back catalogue and Underworld. ... more

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