After collaborating with massive international artists such as Charli XCX, 5 Seconds of Summer, Lana Del Rey and Lauryn Hill, and Australian artists Montaigne, Daniel Johns and Luke Steele (Empire of the Sun), it’s finally time for this electronic Melbourne duo – Jarrad Rogers and Angeline Armstrong of Beachwood – to step up to the plate.
Marbles
Jarrad Rogers and Angeline Armstrong, the dynamic duo of Beachwood have released an infusing melancholic and mellowed track called ‘Marbles’. It is a slow pacing track which delves into a electronic head space that shares an emotive conversational exchange between the two vocalist. The gender distinction between Rogers and Armstrong is remarkably dynamic to showcase their melodic vocals.
The use of auto-tune provides a sharp blend to convey a convicting emotive response between Rogers and Armstrong. The bass and drum drops are exquisitely well put to push out the song’s hooks when Armstrong and Rogers lament, ‘I’ve lost my mind, I’ve lost my marbles’. You can imagine a live crowd getting into it.
Speaking about the meaning behind the song, Rogers recounts,
“Sometimes, caught up in the moment, we find ourselves saying and acting like someone we don’t even recognise – someone who is not at all the person we want to be deep down – that sort of inner struggle just seems to be a part of human nature. It was cool to work together on a song that found a way to really capture that universal feeling of letting someone you love down, of ‘losing your mind, your grip on things, your marbles.’”
God Only Knows
Armstrong explains their take on The Beach Boys,
“God Only Knows is such a sweet, romantic sounding song – but when you dig deeper and pay attention to the lyrics, it’s quite bittersweet and dark – there’s a real desperation and longing in it. That same longing and bittersweet feeling exists in both of our new tracks: hidden beneath pulsating pop beats and big progressive sounds, there’s the raw voice of a desperate longing for a relationship that won’t spoil or break. I think that taps into something very personal for all of us, no matter how deeply buried.”
Beachwood gives a fine and unique rendition of ‘God Only Knows’ – one the most iconic songs by The Beach Boys. The beginning foresees Armstrong’s eerie Jazz scatting which foreground the song’s opening line, ‘I may not always love you’ and this takes away the romantic feel of the original. As the song digs deeper Beachwood surprises you how they choose to explore the bittersweet side of the song’s subjectivity. This is can be heard through Armstrong’s raw vocals and contorting synthesised beats. The song’s ending is uniquely Beachwood as the instrumentals morphs into a trance hop spectacle which nods to the Beach Boy’s rendition of being a dreamy escape.
The decision to release the two songs side by side was one that felt natural to Beachwood because both tracks seemed to speak and connect to each other as Armstrong reflects,
“It’s always nice to give people more. As artists we’re always so hungry to release our music faster than is sometimes possible – it feels really good to just let go and hand these two over to the world all at once. We wanted to do something a little different – there’s a big focus on releasing one single at a time these days, but we felt that there was a bit of a story here in releasing both together. We love re-imagining songs, especially ones as amazing as God Only Knows.”
Marbles and God Only Knows were both released on October 25th, both through BMG.
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