Throughout this site’s eight year history, I’ve written quite a bit about the New York-based electronic music duo and JOVM mainstays Beacon, and as you may recall the act, which is comprised of Thomas Mullarney III (vocals) and Jacob Gusset (production) have received attention across the blogosphere and elsewhere for a sound and a generally minimalist production approach that subtly draws from R&B, house music and electro pop paired with Mullarney’s aching and tender falsetto. A couple of years have passed since I’ve written about the duo — and interestingly, they quietly returned with a somber new single, “Losing My Mind,” a bold and decided sonic departure centered around a sparse arrangement of piano, a brief burst of synths and Mullarney’s aching and mournful falsetto.
As the duo’s Jacob Gossett explains, the song was originally written on piano but eventually swelled into a full-bodied arrangement before reverting back to its original shell. “I came back from a trip and Tom had a new edit that was completely stripped back. Sometimes, it just takes those infinite iterations to finally crack the code.” Interestingly, by stripping down their sound to its most essential — Mullarney’s vocals, it reveals the vulnerability that’s always been at the core of their material; in fact,t he new single finds Mullarney singing of stability — both romantic and spiritual, and the comfort in knowing that a loved one manages to remain even in the darkest, most desperate of times. Lucky and rare are those who have this.
Directed by the duo’s Jacob Gossett and Danny Scales, the recently released video for “Losing My Mind” employs a fairly simple concept — the duo’s Mullarney playing the piano is a sparsely furnished room in candlelight, as it changes from day to night and day again. And while as sparse as the song, it has a subtle symbolism that nods at religious iconography and ritual.