Hidden Beams - Animals single
Release date: January 8th 2021
Artist Information
- Label: self-released
- Genre: Alternative Rock
- Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
- Influences: Syd Barrett, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Henry Threadgill
- Sounds like: Weyes Blood, Pavo Pavo, Palm
Biography
“I felt like the opportunity to connect with others through music was missing from my life,” shares experimental progressive-rock composer Carlos Argon of his sonic laboratory project, Hidden Beams.
Carlos has released many albums, performed and recorded around the world, but Hidden Beams remains his outlet to channel his boldly adventurous musicality into a format that is broadly resonant. “I feel this way people have better access to the beauty and the healing I am trying to share,” he explains. Hidden Beams shines brightly with its upcoming single, “Animals.”
Signpost influences to the Hidden Beams aesthetic include a melding of the avant-garde and the pop-rock garde. Key artists in this mélange include Syd Barrett, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Henry Threadgill, alongside The Beatles, The Cure, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix, among others. Hidden Beams compositions are constructed from found sounds, improvisations, and composed sections. “Regardless of experimentation, the focus is always on creating healing, soothing and, sometimes, jarring songs. These songs serve as windows into confusion and acceptance, realization, and insight,” Carlos notes.
If there is a mission statement for the project it is that Hidden Beams is a metaphor for the invisible forces that shape our lives, these span polarities that drive us such as love and hate, healing and harming, and other’s energies that spur us into light or dip us into darkness.
New single, Animals, boasts an action-packed arrangement that cycles through atmospheric and urgent passages with both poise and potency. The song’s musical motifs feature lyrical piano melodic statements, meditative ambient layers, dense orchestrations with stately strings, an explosive dream break, and dreamy vocals. It’s a thrilling ride, like an epic dark fairytale that recalls the theatricality of progressive rock opuses such as Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” or Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”
Conceptually, Animals oozes a lysergic searching mysticism. The opening lines read: Are they here or are we on our own/Couldn't tell you how or why I know/No/know. This is the timeless existential quandary of: are we alone in the universe?“The song is interspersed with questions of place, meaning and dreams,” Carlos reveals.
The song’s magical aura comes to vibrant life with its accompanying video, featuring visual artist Yoshi Sodeoka’s moving mystical painting video experience. Against surrealistic shapeshifting images with washes of bright color, Carlos performs a highly conceptual, choreographed modern dance laced with symbolic incantations and metaphoric spells. “My movements took inspiration from Bauhaus ballet to Butoh, from Kathak to Zulu,” Carlos says. “I filmed my movements in isolation due to the pandemic and sent them off to be warped and sculptured on Yoshi’s psychedelic digital canvas.”
Carlos self-produced “Animals,” and recorded the basics from his home studio enlisting, drummer James Knoerl for the dexterous drumming. He tracked the low end with producer / engineer / bassist Jeremy McDonald. Carlos lavishly embellished his orchestrations with additional string arrangements by composer Fraser A Campbell, and then reconvened with producer / engineer Eli Crews (tUnE-yArDs, Son Lux and Sean Lennon) for the final mixing and engineering. “Animals” was mastered at Abbey Roads studios by Christian Wright (Radiohead, Ed Sheeran, Franz Ferdinand, Blur, and the Oscar-winning score for Gravity).
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