The Mortal Prophets Bend Time, Genre, and Devotion on UNDER THE INFLUENCE

Five radical reinterpretations—and one deliberately untethered single—map the deepest strata of The Mortal Prophets’ creative DNA on UNDER THE INFLUENCE. This release treats influence not as reverence, but as raw
material.

Long defined by an alchemical fusion of avant-rock minimalism, post-punk abrasion, and nocturnal romanticism, The Mortal Prophets return with UNDER THE INFLUENCE, a five-track EP that excavates, mutates, and reanimates the songs that quietly rewired their musical imagination. These are not covers in the conventional sense. They are confrontations—sonic experiments that approach influence as something unstable, volatile, and alive, capable of transformation under pressure. Each track functions as a dialogue across decades, collapsing eras and aesthetics into a single tense present. Rather than preserving originals in amber, The Mortal Prophets pull them apart, isolate their nervous systems, and rebuild them in unfamiliar forms. The EP moves fluidly between dreamlike suspension and urban severity, tracing a lineage that runs from glam introspection and art-rock rigor to Berlin-era decadence and downtown New York no-wave.

Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” is inverted into an ambient elegy, its sunlit expansiveness folded inward until the song becomes hushed, fragile, and interior. Brian Eno’s “Third Uncle,” already a proto-punk anomaly, is sharpened into a serrated, post-industrial sprint, its mechanical urgency pushed to the brink of collapse. “Sister Midnight” plunges deeper into the nocturnal paranoia of Iggy Pop’s Berlin years, while David Bowie’s “Repetition” is stripped even further than the original—minimalism reduced to a claustrophobic pulse study. The EP closes
with Bush Tetras’ “Too Many Creeps, resurrected as a fractured downtown apparition, all jagged basslines and urban dread. Running parallel to the EP is a standalone single recorded during the same sessions: a spectral reinterpretation of The Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody.” From the outset, the track resisted containment. 

Where UNDER THE INFLUENCE is defined by abrasion, velocity, and tension, “Unchained Melody” moves with cinematic stillness. The Mortal Prophets drain the song of its 1960s orchestral grandeur and rebuild it as a slow-motion incantation—intimate, aching, and weightless. Too emotionally exposed to coexist with the EP’s harsher contours, it was released separately, a drifting satellite orbiting the project rather than completing it.

Taken together, UNDER THE INFLUENCE and “Unchained Melody” form a study in contrast: severity and tenderness, confrontation and surrender. Founder John Beckmann describes the project as “inviting these songs into the laboratory and seeing what happened when their binaries broke apart.” The result is not nostalgia, but inheritance reshaped by friction—a reminder that influence is not something to be preserved, but something to be risked,

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, vocals, and production
David Sisko: mixing, MinMax, NYC
Tom Rogers: mastering, Atomix, Los Angeles

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

The Mortal Prophets Announce New Album HIDE INSIDE THE MOON: a Psychedelic Dream-Pop Descent into the Luminous Unconscious

New York, NY — The Mortal Prophets return with HIDE INSIDE THE MOON, a new album that drifts through the velvet borderlands between dream and waking life. A year in the making, the album unfolds with the slow-blooming logic of a recurring dream. Across these songs, John Beckmann once again serves as the project’s mastermind, taking on musical, writing, and production duties, shaping the record with a clear, cinematic vision. He is joined by two new voices — affectionately introduced as “the kids down the street” — with Tanner McGraw contributing lead vocals and Lawson Mars adding backing vocals that glow, dissolve, and reappear like hallucinated echoes.

HIDE INSIDE THE MOON inhabits the magnetic space where psychedelic dream-pop, noir-cinematic pop, and ambient haze intertwine. The album carries a trace of early Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett — playful yet haunted — alongside the later solo recordings of Robert Wyatt, with their unmistakable fragility, hushed intimacy, and emotional clarity suspended inside drifting atmospheres. These influences are not quoted directly so much as absorbed into the album’s emotional weather.

The record’s imagery reaches beyond music into the visual arts as well; there is even a song inspired by the American painter Cy Twombly, whose windswept scrawls and mythic fragments echo the album’s fascination with memory, time, and the beautiful mess of feeling. Like Twombly’s canvases, the music invites the listener to inhabit both silence and eruption, restraint and abandon.

Synths ripple like heat mirages, guitars melt into prismatic afterimages, and voices seem to travel across lunar distances. Rather than racing toward crescendos, the songs breathe and hover, opening inward, inviting listeners into a gentle psychedelic weather system of dreams, recollections, and imagined futures.

Throughout the album, Beckmann explores themes of longing, doubled realities, and time bending back upon itself. Tracks such as “Hide Inside the Moon,” “My Future Past,” and “Eyes in the Sky” follow the surreal logic of dreams, where the future feels remembered and the past feels newly invented. The record doesn’t simply describe this sensation; it induces it — a soft, immersive hallucination that feels both intimate and vast.

A cinematic current runs throughout, recalling the torch-song surrealism of David Lynch and the lush melancholy of Angelo Badalamenti, while remaining unmistakably The Mortal Prophets. Songs like “Mad Girls Love Song,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Devil Doll” conjure rain-glossed streets, late-night diners, and red-curtained stages where reality gently frays at the edges. Even at its most uncanny, the music stays tender and deeply human — its psychedelia grounded in emotion rather than spectacle.

Sonically, the album traces constellation lines between Syd Barrett–era Pink Floyd, the later solo works of Robert Wyatt, Cocteau Twins, Beach House, Mazzy Star, Vangelis, and the softer edges of kosmische music, while preserving The Mortal Prophets’ own devotional intensity and noir-poetic storytelling.

With HIDE INSIDE THE MOON, The Mortal Prophets step deeper into a shimmering, psychedelia-tinted dream-pop cosmos — inviting listeners to drift beyond gravity, slip out of ordinary time, and hide for a while in the radiant half-light of the moon.

HIDE INSIDE THE MOON

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Atomix LA: mastering

NOT HERE NOT THERE

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

AIN'T NO FOOL

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Abbey Road Studios, London: mastering
100bpm

PRAYER TO GREATER IDIOTS

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Abbey Road Studios, London: mastering
94bpm

HELL-CAT MAGGIE

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music
Recorded at Lux Astralis Studio, New York
From January - March 2023

Angel Mounds (Indiana)

Wupatki (Arizona)

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: vocals
David Sisko: producer and all instruments
Min Max Studios, New York
Jonas W. Karlsson: mastering
Henkka Niemistö Mastering, Helsinki, and Los Angeles

LYRICS
Woah, my love, my darling
I've hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me
Lonely rivers flow
To the sea, to the sea
To the open arms of the sea, yeah
Lonely rivers sigh
"Wait for me, wait for me"
I'll be coming home, wait for me
Woah, my love, my darling
I've hungered, hungered for your touch
A long, lonely time
And time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me

UNCHAINED MELODY (Single)

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
David Sisko: mix
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Joe LaPorta: mastering engineer, Sterling Sound

NEW BREED

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, and production
Brian Eno: lyrics
David Sisko: mix engineer, MinMax, NYC
Recorded at Lux Astralis, New York
Tom Rogers: mastering, Atomix, LA

LYRICS
There are tins, there was pork
There are legs, there are sharks
There was John, there are cliffs
There was mother, there's a poker
There was you
Then there was you

There are scenes, there are blues
There are boots, there are shoes
There are Turks, there are fools
They're in lockers, they're in schools
There is you
Then there was you

I'll burn my fingers, burn my toes
Burn my uncle, burn his books
Burn his shoes, cook the leather
Put it on me, does it fit me or you?
It looks tight on you

Burn my fingers, burn my toes
Burn my uncle, burn his books
Burn his shoes, cook the leather
Put it on me, does it fit me or you?
It looks tight on you

There are tins, there was pork
There are legs, there are sharks
There was John, there are cliffs
There was mother, there's a poker
There was you
Then there was you

There are scenes, there are blues
There are boots, there are shoes
There are Turks, there are fools
They're in lockers, they're in schools
There was you
Then there was you

I'll burn my fingers, burn my toes
Burn my uncle, burn his books
Burn his shoes, cook the leather
Put it on me, does it fit me or you?
It looks tight on you

There are tins, there was pork
There are legs, there are sharks
There was John, there are cliffs
There was mother, there's a poker
There was you
Then there was you

There are scenes, there are blues
There are boots, there are shoes
There are Turks, there are fools
They're in lockers, they're in schools
There was you

THIRD UNCLE

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: music
David Sisko: mix
Recorded at Lux Astralis, New York
Atomix: mastering, LA

REPETITION

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: music
David Sisko: mix
Recorded at Lux Astralis, New York
Tom Rogers: mastering

TINY DANCER

SISTER MIDNIGHT

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, vocals, and production 
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Abbey Road Studios, London: mastering

The “Alabama Song” was written in English on Bertolt Brecht’s behalf by his close collaborator Elisabeth Hauptmann before 1925 and published in Brecht’s 1927 Hauspostille (Home Postil), a parody of a collection of sermons by Martin Luther. Brecht and Weill’s version of the song was first performed by the Viennese actress and dancer Lotte Lenya.

LYRICS
Well show me the way
To the next whiskey bar
Oh don't ask why
Oh don't ask why

Show me the way
To the next whiskey bar
Oh don't ask why
Oh don't ask why

For if we don't find
The next whiskey bar
I tell you we must die
I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you
I tell you we must die

Oh moon of Alabama
We now, must say goodbye
We've lost, our good old Mama
And must have whiskey
Oh, you know why

Oh, moon of Alabama
We now must say goodbye
We've lost, our good old Mama
And must have whiskey
Oh, you know why

ALABAMA SONG (Whiskey Bar)

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

LYRICS
Steel halos spin where clouds once roamed,
Concrete roots rise in the place of home.
Invisible hands shape the steps we take,
Whispered orders in choices we fake.

They know our dreams before we sleep,
Every secret, theirs to keep.
Measured, numbered, scanned, then sold—
A story that’s already been told.

Eyes in the sky, watching it all,
Building a tower where free minds fall.
Every move, every breath, they claim their toll,
Surveillance is the key to control.

Signals blink on a silent grid,
Truth erased, each trace is hid.
We march in patterns we didn’t design,
A future caged, yet wrapped in divine.

Mirrors surround, yet none reflect,
What’s left of the soul they dissect?
We’re wired into a silent war,
Where freedom’s a word they don’t restore.

Eyes in the sky, watching it all,
Building a tower where free minds fall.
Every move, every breath, they claim their toll,
Surveillance is the key to control.

But can you feel the cracks below?
A spark ignites where courage grows.
What’s hidden can still rise and fight,
Truth unveiled in the dead of night.

Eyes in the sky, fading away,
Freedom reborn in the light of day.
We break the chains, reclaim the whole,
Surveillance fails to take our soul.

Steel halos spin where clouds once roamed,
Concrete roots rise in the place of home.
Invisible hands shape the steps we take,
Whispered orders in choices we fake.

They know our dreams before we sleep,
Every secret, theirs to keep.
Measured, numbered, scanned, then sold—
A story that’s already been told.

Eyes in the sky, watching it all,
Building a tower where free minds fall.
Every move, every breath, they claim their toll,
Surveillance is the key to control.

EYES IN THE SKY

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Tanner McGraw: vocals
Lawson Mars: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Atomix LA: mastering
LYRICS
The desert of no end,
Without desire,
Without memory,
A nothingness, 
Deeper than death,
For my friend,

Cy Twombly.

DESERT OF NO END (Cy Twombly)

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

LYRICS
Mmm…
She wore blue velvet,
Bluer than velvet were her eyes,
Warmer than May, her tender sighs—
Love was ours.

She wore blue velvet,
Bluer than velvet was the night,
Softer than satin, the silver light
From the stars.

Blue velvet—
But in my heart, it lingers still,
Precious and warm, a memory
Through the years.

I see it yet—
Blue velvet soft and shimmering,
Distant, fading, glimmering,
Through my tears.

BLUE VELVET

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Tom Rogers mastering, Atomix, LA

LYRICS
Beneath the weight of a silken sky,
Where the river bends, but will not cry,
A garden grows in barren stone,
A place where love is left alone.

The vines are threads of old regret,
Braided with promises we forget.
The air is heavy, thick with sighs,
This is where love goes to die.

No bell to toll, no tear to shed,
Just echoes of the words unsaid.
The soil drinks what hearts once bled,
A sanctuary for what’s misread.

The sun won’t rise, the moon won’t fall,
Here silence wears no face at all.
And every step, a question why—
This is where love comes to die.

But even here, beneath the gloom,
A wildflower dares to bloom.

WHERE LOVE GOES TO DIE

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Sylvia Plath: poem/lyrics
Tanner McGraw: vocals
Lawson Mars: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Atomix LA: mastering

LYRICS
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in,
(I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead)

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed,
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade,
Exit seraphim and Satan's men,
(I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead)

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again,
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

MAD GIRL'S LOVE SONG (Sylvia Plath)

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Tom Rogers mastering, Atomix, LA

LYRICS:
I am your lover
A fool like no other
Lost in your eyes,
Drowning in desire.

You are my heartbeat,
My one true fire,
Together we'll soar,
Beyond the highest wire.

I am your lover,
A fool like no other,
Chasing your whispers,
As night turns to thunder.

LIKE NO OTHER

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio

LYRICS
I woke before the dawn’s first sigh,
a whisper traced across the sky—
was it your voice, or only the breeze
stirring the hush of slumbering seas?

The stars lean close, they know the way,
soft-footed time dissolves to clay.
All that I was, all I will be,
melts into echoes of you in me.

Call me wind, call me rain,
call me the hush between pleasure and pain.
I am the ember, I am the flame,
rising, dissolving in the wake of your name.

A door swings wide without a key,
love walks in—unbidden, free.
I set my sorrows by the fire,
watched them turn to wings, rise higher.

Tell me, love, are we the same—
mirrors held inside a flame?
Or just two notes on a trembling string,
vibrating into everything?

Call me wind, call me rain,
call me the hush between pleasure and pain.
I am the ember, I am the flame,
rising, dissolving in the wake of your name.

No end, no edge, no path untrod,
only the silent gaze of God.
And in that gaze, I disappear,
only to find you waiting here.

WAS IT YOUR VOICE

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Geoff Pesche: mastering, Abbey Road Studios, London

LYRICS
Beneath the moon, the night does speak,
In silence deep, where hearts do seek,
The dance of love, the flame of light,
Awakes the stars in endless flight.

Oh, the soul is calling, hear the sound,
In the stillness, love is found,
Flow like the river, calm and free,
In the whispers, we are meant to be.

The heart is a garden, the seed is grace,
We bloom and grow in love’s embrace,
No need to search, no need to chase,
For truth is here, in this sacred space.

Oh, the soul is calling, hear the sound,
In the stillness, love is found,
Flow like the river, calm and free,
In the whispers, we are meant to be.

We are the song, we are the prayer,
A single breath, a cosmic flare,
In love, we are both lost and found,
In silence, the universe resounds.

Oh, the soul is calling, hear the sound,
In the stillness, love is found,
Flow like the river, calm and free,
In the whispers, we are meant to be.
In the whispers of the soul, we are whole,
In the dance of life, we’re free to flow,
The love we seek is deep inside,
In the quiet, we’re all alive.

LOVE IS FOUND

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Tom Rogers mastering, Atomix, LA

LYRICS
A step, a slip, a breath held tight,
feet unbound, eyes full of light.
The sky is wide, the road is thin,
the world undone, yet all within.

A flower sways within his hand,
no map, no mark, no place to land.
The cliff-edge hums, the winds embrace,
the past dissolves without a trace.

No fear, no weight, no tethered mind,
the stars have whispered, “Go, be blind.”
For what is fate but leaps unknown?
A seed must fall to find its home.

The dog barks once, the ground is near,
but still he walks, no doubt, no fear.
For all who fall may rise again—
the Fool begins where others end.

THE FOOL

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Geoff Pesche: mastering, Abbey Road Studios, London
93bpm

LYRICS
If one star had strayed, if one door had closed
Two souls spinning wide in the endless ocean 
The Universe held back, it knew when to start 
Every trial is a lesson shaping the heart

If one star had strayed, if one door had closed
We’d have never touched, never even known 
But the world aligned in a single beat 
Everything I was, everything I’d been through 
Was just the road that led me home to you

If one star had strayed, if one door had closed
Two souls spinning wide in the endless ocean
The Universe held back, it knew when to start 
Every trial is a lesson shaping the heart

MY FUTURE PAST

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Geoff Pesche: mastering, Abbey Road Studios, London

LYRICS
He came down in a Cadillac cloud,
Rhinestones humming like a sacred shroud.
Said, “I’ve seen the end, baby, it looks like me—
Gold lamé dreams on a burnt TV.”

He don’t shake no more, he just levitates,
Reading minds behind mirrored shades.

Psychic Elvis Presley, in a jumpsuit of light,
Sings the future in a Vegas night.
He knows your secrets, your sins, your sighs—
He's got a hotline to the afterlife.

Velvet voice in a velvet tomb,
He reads tarot cards in a hotel room.
Says, “Time’s a loop and love’s a curse,
And heaven’s just Memphis played in reverse.”

He walks through Graceland with no feet,
Moonlight melting in the heat—
And whispers to the radio:
“The King’s not dead, just on remote.”

Psychic Elvis Presley, star-born and strange,
Sipping visions from a desert rain.
He hums your fate in a minor key—
A ghost with hips and ESP.

He’s still crooning in the cosmic dark,
Leaving footprints in your heart.
Psychic Elvis… has left the room.

PSYCHIC ELVIS (Haunted)

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Atomix LA: mastering

NO SUBSTITUTE

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

LYRICS
You stood by me when no one did
Past, I know, didn’t say much
Still, I got it — you were there
Silent love in the open air

No big stage, no spotlight fame
Just your voice when you say my name

But when you laugh, I lose the world
It’s just us, and that’s enough
No perfect lines, no spotlight fame
It’s just us, and that’s enough

You don’t try hard to impress
Still somehow, you do it best
And I still show up, every time
You and me, no grand design

No big stage, no spotlight fame
Just your eyes, I feel the same

But when you laugh, I lose the world
It’s just us, and that’s enough
No perfect lines, no spotlight fame
It’s just us, and that’s enough

No crowds, no noise, no lights above
Just a quiet kind of love
You and me, no need for more
That’s what we’ve been waiting for

When you laugh, I lose the world
It’s just us, and that’s enough
No perfect lines, no spotlight fame
It’s just us, and that’s enough

JUST US

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

LYRICS
Tried on a hundred faces
Still don’t feel like me
Laughing in all the right places
But it’s not that easy

Every move’s a little show
Trying hard not to let it show

Is this enough to make you like me?
Big smile, soft voice, move politely
Trace your steps, don’t speak too much
Give you all of me—but it’s never enough
Is this enough? Is this enough?

Wearing the trend, fading inside
Scroll through a perfect lie
I change, I bend, I try
Still feel too loud, too quiet

Every look’s a little test
Do I pass like all the rest?

Is this enough to make you like me?
Big smile, soft voice, move politely
Trace your steps, don’t speak too much
Give you all of me—but it’s never enough
Is this enough? Is this enough?

Oh, tell me—am I enough?

TRIED ON A HUNDRED FACES

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

LYRICS
You said “forever” with sunscreen in your eyes
I laughed, lit a sparkler, and watched it die
Poolside promises, cherry-stained lies
Another summer love, deep-fried

Endless July, yeah, we’re such a cliché
Kissing like we mean it, then drifting away
Plastic hearts in a heatwave high—
A perfect fake in endless July

Told the moon all our secrets, then forgot
Your name tastes better when it’s not
Slow-dancing with nowhere to be
You said “this is real”… ironically

Endless July, yeah, we’re such a cliché
Kissing like we mean it, then drifting away
Plastic hearts in a heatwave high—
A perfect fake in endless July

Maybe we’ll mean it next time
Or maybe just lie…
Like always
In endless July

ENDLESS JULY

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

LYRICS
Like ripples on the water
Where the stone is skipped away
Like the echo of a secret
That you almost meant to say

Moments bending into hours
And the hours into time
Spinning quiet constellations
In the windmills of your mind

Turn it over, turn it slow
Watch the seasons come and go
Every thought a silver line
Through the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that fade before they land
Footsteps melting in the shoreline
Letters written in the sand

Faces change without a warning
To the shapes you leave behind
Turning, turning without ending
In the windmills of your mind

Close your eyes and feel it flow
Things you lost and never know
All the threads you can't unwind
In the windmills of your mind

THE WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND

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

LYRICS
In truth is love,
In love is life,
In life is light
That never dies.

This is the light,
Steady and clear.
This is the light,
Always near.

In every heart,
The flame will rise.
Through darkest night,
It never hides.

This is the light,
Steady and clear.
This is the light,
Always near.

Through time and storm,
Through joy and pain,
The light endures,
It will remain.

This is the light,
Of which we sing.
This is the light,
In everything.

THIS IS THE LIGHT

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lawson Mars and Tanner McGraw: vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
124bpm

LYRICS
Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh
We are the children of the sun

Woke up in the morning light,
Chasing colors, chasing heights,
Every shadow fades away,
When I see the golden rays.

Every step I take, I feel it pulling me,
Something in the sky, it’s where I want to be.

We are the children, children of the sun,
[driving bass groove + claps]
Hearts wide open, shining one by one.
I’m a flower, just following the sun,
We are the children, children of the sun.

Catch the warmth upon my skin,
All my doubts just fade within.

Everywhere I go, the world is opening,
Love is in the light, and I am following.

We are the children, children of the sun,
Hearts wide open, shining one by one.
I’m a flower, just following the sun,
We are the children, children of the sun.

Ooooh, spinning with the daylight,
Ooooh, chasing down the blue skies.

We are the children, children of the sun,
Hearts wide open, shining one by one.
I’m a flower, just following the sun,
We are the children, children of the sun.

Oh-oh-oh, children of the sun.
Oh-oh-oh, just following the sun.

CHILDREN OF THE SUN

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

LYRICS
I haven’t seen you for days on end,
Like fools lost in the wind.
Are you out there chasing dreams?
I need you—come to me

I’ll be there,
Just for you

I don’t know where you are tonight,
Are you dancing in the fading light?
You know when the light comes up,
It always leads you back to me.
I’ll be there,
Just for you, 

Even if you’re far away,
I’ll wait for the dawn of the day.
Because true love never fades away,

Yeah, I’ll be there,
Just for you

I don’t know where you are tonight,
Are you dancing in the fading light?
You know when the light comes up,
It always leads you back to me.
I’ll be there,
Just for you, 

Are you dancing in the fading light?
Are you dancing in the fading light?

I don’t know where you are tonight,
Are you dancing in the fading light?
You know when the light comes up,
It always leads you back to me.
I’ll be there,
Just for you

DANCING IN THE FADING LIGHT

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

LYRICS
When you’re down and feeling low,
When these things fall apart,
These things fall apart,
I know, that we’re only human,
So spare the humour.

ONLY HUMAN

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lawson Mars: vocals and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
116bpm

LYRICS
Three hours staging your dorm room shrine,
Perfect disaster, neon divine.
Crying at the fonts on your laptop glow,
You look so fine, but nobody knows.

Ohhh—
Plastic crown, nervous hands,
Strike a pose, fall apart,
It’s a brand.

Teenage disaster, baby, strike that pose!
Glitter in the breakdown, everyone knows.
Teenage disaster, crashin’ so chic,
Gorgeous when you’re fragile, tragic every week.

Selfies in the bathroom, angles just right,
Gloss on your mouth, eyes burning bright.
Parties down the hall but you’re not sure—
Judge them from the mirror, that’s the allure.

Ohhh—
Pretty chaos, shaky laugh,
Take a shot, cut the lights,
Split in half.

Teenage disaster, baby, strike that pose!
Glitter in the breakdown, everyone knows.
Teenage disaster, crashin’ so chic,
Gorgeous when you’re fragile, tragic every week.

Bathroom flashes, red-lip grin,
Curated chaos, you always win.
Dance on the wreckage, wear it like art,
Oh, you’re a crisis with a beating heart.

Teenage disaster, baby, strike that pose!
Glitter in the breakdown, everybody knows.
Teenage disaster, crashin’ so chic,
Gorgeous when you’re fragile, tragic every week—
So tragic every week!

TEENAGE DISASTER

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

LYRICS 
She says that I’m her honey,
But she only wants my money,
And my built-in swimming pool,
But I’m a real person too.

’Cause I ain’t no fool (ain’t no fool)
Oh, oh, oh
Playing her little games (her little games)
Oh, oh, oh

She wants the diamonds, the brand-new car,
Chasing a dream of some superstar,
But my love’s the only truth I knew,
And I ain’t no fool.

She’s got her eyes on diamonds,
And my shiny brand-new car,
But I love her so, yes I love her,
Even if she plays the part.

’Cause I ain’t no fool (ain’t no fool)
Oh, oh, oh
Playing her little games (her little games)
Oh, oh, oh

She wants the diamonds, the brand-new car,
Chasing a dream of some superstar,
But my love’s the only truth I knew,
And I ain’t no fool.

I see through the lies,
Through the sparkle in her eyes,
But still I keep holding on,
Though I know she’s wrong.

She wants the diamonds, the brand-new car,
Chasing a dream of some superstar,
But my love’s the only truth I knew,
And I ain’t no fool.

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Tanner McGraw: vocals
Lux Astralis: New York: recording studio + mastering

LYRICS
Dreaming I’m a rock star,
The stage is made of dawn,
Every note a veil that falls,
Until the self is gone.

Dreaming I’m a rock star,
Where the music drinks the sea,
Every chord dissolves the world,
Until the world dissolves in me.

Dreaming I’m a rock star,
No name, no face, no flame,
Only love becomes the song,
And the song forgets my name.

Dreaming I’m a rock star,
Dreaming I’m a rock star,
Dreaming I’m a rock star…

I AM YOUR LOVER

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

LYRICS
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in,
(I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead)

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed,
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade,
Exit seraphim and Satan's men,
(I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead)

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

I should have loved a Thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes, they roar back again,
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead,
(I think I made you up inside my head)

I THINK I MADE YOU UP INSIDE MY HEAD

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

LYRICS:
You mean the world to me, as far as my eyes can see,
Like moonlight on the ocean, or a whisper in the trees.
You're the silent song at sunrise, the last soft kiss of night,
A dream that never fades, but blooms in the morning light.
What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams,
Through every distant horizon, to every star's gentle gleam,
You are the echo of my longing, the keeper of my dreams.
No measure of time or space could ever pull us apart,
For you are the boundless sky that cradles my heart.
What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams,
What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams

LYRICS
You mean the world to me, as far as my eyes can see,
Like moonlight on the ocean, or a whisper in the trees.
You're the silent song at sunrise, the last soft kiss of night,
A dream that never fades, but blooms in the morning light.

What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams

Through every distant horizon, to every star's gentle gleam,
You are the echo of my longing, the keeper of my dreams.
No measure of time or space could ever pull us apart,
For you are the boundless sky that cradles my heart.

What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams

What will I need?
What will I give to be with you,
In my dreams

IN MY DREAMS

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

TOO MANY LIES

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

RADIANT WALTZ

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lawson Mars: vocals and backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
130bpm

LYRICS
Red arcs in the summer air,
Blue sails drift and disappear.
You move the sky with just a wire,
A little chaos, a little fire.

I see the shapes start to collide,
Balance breaking, I’m hypnotized.
You built the wind a place to play,
And I’m just floating anyway.

We’re spinning in color,
Falling through time,
You and me, a mobile in flight.
Every turn, every line,
You made the stillness come alive.
Oh, Calder, I feel that design —
We’re spinning in color tonight.

Soft as light through painted steel,
Your hands made metal learn to feel.
The world’s a circus in your eyes,
Planets dance, the hours fly.

In the gallery’s hush and hum,
The future swings, the past undone.
You showed me art could dream and move,
Now I’m in orbit because of you.

We’re spinning in color,
Falling through time,
You and me, a mobile in flight.
Every turn, every line,
You made the stillness come alive.
Oh, Calder, I feel that design —
We’re spinning in color tonight.

Maybe love’s just like your art —
A balance of chaos and heart.
Hanging by threads, suspended high,
Turning slow beneath the sky.

Red arcs in the summer air,
We’re still out there somewhere.
Just two shapes in motion’s light,
Spinning in color tonight.

SPINNING IN COLORS (Alexander Calder)

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Tanner McGraw: vocals
Lawson Mars: backing vocals
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
116bpm

LYRICS
In the echoes of the past, I hear a new song
Every heartbeat is a rhythm, where we both belong
Holding on to dreams, weaving futures so bright
In this dance together, we ignite the night

With every step we take, we shape our destiny
Two souls intertwined, in perfect symmetry

In the moments where shadows used to live
I found a light that sparkles, more than I could give
Every whisper of doubt, watched it fade away
Now I'm breathing in the warmth of a brighter day

We are writing our own story, page by page
Lost in this sweet harmony, free from the cage

With every dawn that breaks, we paint a brand new view
Side by side, we'll chase the skies, a canvas made for two
In the laughter that we share, love's melody unfolds
Together in this journey, our hearts forever bold

With every heartbeat felt, we build our legacy
Two souls on this journey, writing our symphony

In the aftermath of storms, we find our strongest ground
With the laughter in our hearts, love's melody resounds

WRITING OUR OWN STORY

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Anaïs de Nerval: vocals, and backing vocals
Lux Astralis: New York: recording studio

LYRICS
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool

You can put your fingers in it
You can put your fingers in it

Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool
Dirt is cool

DIRT

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Atomix LA: mastering

LYRICS
Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A newborn King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum.
So to honour Him, pa rum pum pum pum
When we come.

Little baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
That’s fit to give a King, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum.
Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum.
Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum,
Me and my drum
Me and my drum
Me and my drum
Me and my drum

LITTLE DRUMMER BOY

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
140bpm

Farewell Lullaby For David Lynch

FAREWELL LULLABY For David Lynch

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
Abbey Road Studios, London: mastering
130bpm

BABY SNAKES

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music, lyrics, and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio
120bpm

BLEEP HOP BLIP

MUSICIANS
John Beckmann: all music and production
Lux Astralis, New York: recording studio 
75bpm

ENTITLED HUMANS

www.mortalprophets.com

“Anyone having trouble getting to, or staying, asleep should proceed with caution when playing The Mortal Prophets’ debut album around bedtime. The demonic intentions implied by the album’s name and defined by John Beckmann … coil each selection in menacing directions, bringing fresh, often frightening twists to these standards. Be aware - when you engulf yourself in these riveting, uncompromising performances. They are not for the squeamish.”
- American Songwriter

The Mortal Prophets: John Beckmann’s Cinematic Descent Into the Electric Psyche

In the sprawling constellation of modern music, The Mortal Prophets occupy a shadowed corner—less a “band” in the traditional sense than a living, breathing séance conducted by John Beckmann. Across a series of albums, Beckmann has been excavating the strata of Americana, dream pop, blues, and avant-garde minimalism, folding them into a fever-dream narrative that feels like it was beamed from a late-night pirate radio station somewhere between the Mississippi Delta and the outer rings of Saturn. 

Beckmann, who founded New York’s Axis Mundi Design before turning his obsessive creative drive toward music, approaches songwriting like a visual architect—each track a space you inhabit rather than simply hear. His arrangements have the tension of architectural blueprints: precision married to instinct, steel and stone softened by ambient light. In GUITARWORKS II, the most recent installment in a sprawling instrumental odyssey, guitar tones unspool like distant telegraph wires, calling to mind Robert Fripp’s collaborations with Brian Eno, or the glacial drift of Cluster’s experimental soundscapes. It’s profoundly cinematic, yet never ornamental.

If Beckmann’s earlier releases (Stomp The Devil, Me and The Devil, Dealey Plaza Blues) reached back into mythic Americana—the open road, outlaw ballads, acid-washed folk visions—his more recent work tilts toward the abstract, replacing narrative with mood. This is music that understands how memory works: fractured, impressionistic, prone to bleed between truth and hallucination. The Mortal Prophets operate in that liminal space where you’re not sure if you’re dreaming, or just remembering wrong. 

Vocally, when Beckmann steps to the mic, it’s with a delivery equal parts Leonard Cohen confession and Bowie-esque theater—half-smirk, half-sermon. Lyrically, he trades in arcane symbols and sly allusions: 19th-century mystics rub shoulders with dive-bar drifters, and romantic longing flickers like neon through a rain-soaked windshield. He’s not afraid of obliqueness; in fact, he seems to revel in it. Where many contemporary songwriters flatten their work into algorithm-friendly hooks, Beckmann builds labyrinths. 

Part of The Mortal Prophets’ magnetism lies in its refusal to settle. One album might summon the humid ghost-blues of Junior Kimbrough refracted through a loop pedal; the next might drift into synth-heavy dream pop worthy of an early-’90s 4AD release. Beckmann’s collaborators—rotating players drawn from both avant-garde and roots backgrounds—expand that sonic palette, giving the project an almost shapeshifting quality. 
In a cultural moment where genre boundaries are largely performative, Beckmann treats them as haunted ruins worth spelunking through. His songs feel like dispatches from parallel histories of American music—histories where psychedelia never died, where blues never got sanitized, and where experimentalism didn’t have to hide in academic halls. 

The Mortal Prophets may never break into the Billboard mainstream, but that’s hardly the point. Their appeal is in the slow burn, the intimacy of discovery. Beckmann’s work isn’t built for quick consumption; it’s built for listeners willing to linger, to decode, to wander down the long corridors he constructs. In an era obsessed with speed and surface, The Mortal Prophets offer the opposite: a deep dive into the echo chamber of the self, scored by a man who seems to know exactly how to make the walls sing.

Mortal Prophets

Pinned to spotlight

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