A few songs recorded after moving to Brighton last Summer with hopes of a fresh start somewhere new, leaving the bad times behind.

LUKE'S MAGIC BAND BOOK

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Tanner McGraw: vocals and backing vocals
Lawson Mars: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio

LYRICS
Baby your sweet taste of honey
melts on my lips like wine in the summer time.
Heaven could never look so fine, a little sweet taste of honey.
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah

Going around, around, around, going around the world.
Going around, go around the world.
Golden light is dancing on your skin.
Your silhouette in the moonlight.

Every breath slow, the world's asleep, we drift away where the water's deep.
with a sweet taste of honey
Going around, around, around, going around the world.
Going around, go around the world.

Ocean glasses glimmering in your eyes.
Every mile just pulls me back to you.
Every sound is soft, the colors fade, we're lost inside this dream we've made.
with a sweet taste of honey

SWEET TASTE OF HONEY (Alternate Version)

Just trying to find the way back down from the ceiling (Violet Mix)

These are five tracks we’ve poured ourselves into - emotionally, creatively, and technically. The lyrics are incredibly personal, and we spent a lot of time building up layers with guitars, percussion, and backing vocals. It’s taken real dedication to reach the sound we had in our heads. It’s been a challenge, but the end result feels honest and powerful.
We feel it represents a good cross section of our various sounds and styles and we hope you enjoy!

The Places Where We Go

Watch the 📹Video: https://youtu.be/PhE7afina30👈
Lyrics interpretation, here: https://beatingedge.blogspot.com/2025/08/vacant-stares-interpretation-of-lyrics.html
Here we are with our last track of the month.
Lately, Carl @thebeautifuldark has been working on some important projects to raise awareness about the indiscriminate use of AI in the world of art. This track came from deep conversations between us, exploring themes of identity, authenticity, and the growing trend of music that’s “AI-made” but never truly felt or played.

Vacant Stares is a cryptic, cult-like vision of a digital future, where prompters replace creators, and artistic expression is reduced to hollow commands.
Blank stares. Selfish prayers. Fake songs for simulated feelings.
This track is a warning. A question. A reversed ritual.
It asks you: who are you, when you no longer use your own voice?

The song is divided into two parts:

Beating Edge's part:
It’s gothic, cinematic, full of ritualistic and unsettling imagery. The atmosphere evokes abandoned temples, secret cults, carved symbols… with that sense of existential disorientation like “they’re initiating me into something but I don’t know what.”
It feels like a lucid nightmare or a hallucination induced by an intelligence simulating spirituality.
Carl’s part:
More brutal, direct, anti-establishment. Almost a rap/spoken-word poem loaded with accusations towards those who use AI in a sterile, heartless way. “Selfish prayers / Fake / Unfair” hit like punches in the gut in just four words. It’s the awakening from hypnosis.

Let’s reflect! And use AI as a tool to amplify art, not to replace it!
Love you all!🫶

Lyrics:

(Tom)

Veil of whispers, carved in stone
Guiding hands, but I'm alone
Golden masks and hollow eyes
Chanting words that crystallize

Candles flicker, shadows climb
Marble echoes bend through time
Steps resound in hollow halls
Silent lips behind the walls

And they move like ghosts through the fevered air
With their silver robes and their vacant stares
Do I kneel, do I run, do I play along?
Or is this the place where I belong?

Smoke is rising, threads unwind
Painted symbols twist my mind
Fingers trace the silent vow
No way back, it's over now

And they move like ghosts through the fevered air
With their silver robes and their vacant stares
Do I kneel, do I run, do I play along?
Or is this the place where I belong?

A voice like thunder in my head
Tells me secrets left unsaid
A crimson door, a silver knife
A choice to stay or trade my life

Lights go dim, the world dissolves
A hollow chant, a fate evolves
In the mirror, I can't see
Is that me, or what's left of me?

(Carl - The Beautiful Dark)

Vacant stares
Selfish prayers
Fake
Unfair

Unnatural wear
Expressionless
Ghost digital smile
Simulated pain
You making fake dog pile

Guesses pluggs in
Self matrix is made
Showing young kids
Their artist mind grave

Not on our watch
Sing your own feeling
Talk your reflections
Save children's true meanings

Feeding them new
They'll amplify this
They'll stay plugged out
All now's reminisce

Prompters, have that reckoning
With fake thoughts you feeding

Respect the souls of past inspire
Their spirit will help you transcend the mire

Vacant Stares

Official Music Video

Something Else

Alternative indie soft song driven by  base, leyered guitars and hypnotizing melody and voice of interpreteur. Catching melody and outsider melancholic vibe is a must!😉

[Intro — slow, submerged]

[sound of bubbles, distant glass shatter]

In the water,
the light bends slow.
Shadows move
where you can’t go.

Bubbles rise,
slip from your hands,
drifting higher,
out of command.

[ acoustic electric guitar rhytmic solo ]
[ instrumental intermezzo]

[Verse 1]
You never thought
it would pull you in,
but signs were drawn
beneath your skin.
You closed your eyes,
[ bridge ]
you turned away —
the truth you hid,
[ bridge]
still found a way.

⸻

[Refrain ,whispered, layered]
Water all around you,
water breathing calm.
Your chest is slow,
your mind is numb.
Oxygen?
Just another plan… gone wrong.

⸻

Instrumental break
[hypnotic synth swells,
sharp electric guitar lines
cutting through the pulse]

⸻

[Verse 2]
Sirens call,
their voices near —
soft as knives
that you can hear.
[ bridge]
They ask for a smile,
they hand you hope,
but in your eyes
[ bridge]
the depths still grow.

⸻

[Refrain]
Water all around you,
water breathing calm.
Your chest is slow,
your mind is numb.
Oxygen?
[ bridge]
Just another plan… gone wrong.

⸻

Bridge — mantra style
Bubbles rise,
bubbles fade…
They don’t return,
they drift away.

⸻

[Outro ,fading]
([ow ocean waves,
a single synth note holding]
Water all around you…
Water all around you…
Gone.

[ instrumental outro ]

water all around

oh, that wasn't what i expected (prod. GAXILLIC) 

you had to leave your mark, without leaving your heart

burning scar (the 1906 years)

Tox̌ic

Lured by any part,
Any window, any heart
Swiftly made my way against the wall.
Been told everytime
Better find another life
Tireless were the whispers in My Head

You are Outrageous girl
You are Outrageous girl

Let It Down
I won't Let It Down
I'll go
Let It Down
I won't Let It Down

Cold as you like
You're a clover in the sun
and you told me that you'll hold me anyway
So hail to the star
And pray to the one
Jokers always solve it up for Free

You are Outrageous girl
You are Outrageous girl

Outrageous


An Ohio-born experimental artist bringing underground energy, honest expression, and emotion-driven sound.

https://www.instagram.com/welcome_kc?igsh=NDAycnEyOTZkZHo4

Tox̌ic

Chrœm