There’s no shortage of talented vocalists and songwriters tinkering with the DNA of R&B these days; from the zeitgeisty mainstream and critical appeal of Frank Ocean and Miguel, to the avant-minimalist soul and dance music of AlunaGeorge, How to Dress Well, and Rhye, the thematic standards and compositional tropes of R&B are providing a healthy hotbed for experimentation. Over their short existence, Brooklyn-based duo Beacon-- comprised of vocalist and producer Thomas Mullarney and producer Jacob Gossett-- have staked out their own corner R&B by imbuing pristinely constructed, slow-burning ballads with the murky, bass-blaring darkness of trip-hop and Warp Records' output ca. the early 1990s.
Their first two EPs arrived on Ghostly International in late 2012-- No Body, originally released on Moodgadget in 2011, in August and For Now in October-- and showcased a handful of shimmering, anti-love songs reverberating with cavernous production and Mullarney’s chilly croon, which shapeshifted from sensual to toxically dominant from one line to the next. No Body and For Now also made it apparent that the duo’s vision was diamond-sharp right out of the gate; similar to Abel Tesfaye’s narcotic disillusionment as the Weeknd, they wanted to plumb the searing emotional damage and existential fallout from the desperate need for love through the lens of a genre usually reserved for passionate, sexual yearning. There’s a friction that’s generated from twisting R&B’s usual forms into something considerably more lurid and ambiguous that was evident in the song “No Body”, the first EP’s highlight, when Mullarney coos the casually sinister refrain, “I’ll follow you home, so you won’t be alone.”
And now, with their first full length album The Ways We Separate, Beacon attempt to narrow in tighter on a particular kind of romantic wreckage, using their expansive, ravey R&B to focus on the ways in which we grow together and grow apart, connecting and disconnecting, over and over. It isn’t so much a breakup album as a document of the emotional decay and guilt that arrives when the bonds forged in a relationship become noxious. Sonically, Mullarney and Gosset have pushed their atmospheric, bass-heavy compositions into larger spaces, building off the template they constructed for the quiet disintegration of “Feeling’s Gone”, the lone track from the EPs to make the album. Here, the duo have crafted syncopated webs of keyboards, interspersed with distorted breakbeats, to circle Mullarney’s breathy tenor as he sketches a last ditch grasp at reconciliation that has since soured into cheap sexual dependence: “The feeling’s gone/ You waited for too long/ But if you just stayed tonight/ We could find some more.”
“Feeling’s Gone” is part of the album’s strong opening phalanx, which in turn makes Ways feel a little frontloaded. “Bring You Back” glimmers with cascading synth arpeggios that slowly coalesce into a cacophony of clockwork chimes, even while Mullarney skirts around murky lyrics that never manage to harden for emotional impact. The tar-black trip-hop duet of “Drive” and “Between the Waves” both recall the low, dark rumble of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine with Mullarney’s vocals even hovering around the same register as Horace Andy, the Bristol group’s frequent collaborator. “Between the Waves” in particular slowly brews into a thick storm system of spiraling bass whomps, skittering drum hits, and trancey, seasick synths, as Mullarney digs through the resignation of a coupling that has slowly faded into oblivion, struggling against the numb inertia of indifference as if it’s a rip tide: “Of all the ways we separate/ Where we start to fade at different frequencies/ I could compensate, try to fill the space/ Only to suffocate between the waves.”
The album’s second half suffers slightly simply because it seems like Mullarney and Gosset run out of fuel for their intense slow burn, with the production, melodies, and lyrics not quite matching the inventiveness, and emotional wallop, of Ways’ opening salvo. The disjointed malaise and lyrical opacity of “Studio Audience” along with the undeniably pretty but slight “Headlights” (which ends up sounding like a wilted xx cover) both seem dormant compared to the quiet, devastating ruptures of “Between the Waves” and “Feeling’s Gone”. Regardless of the inconsistencies, The Ways We Separate still leaves its mark. With three releases in the past eight months alone, it’s exciting to watch as Thomas Mullarney and Jacob Gosset continue to sharpen their vision, using their dark, slickly composed R&B to explore the treacherous rifts and chasms that gradually form in human relationships.
