EXCLUSIVE WORLD PREMIERE: “Dark Tides” by Honey Beard
Canada-based, award-winning synth and electronic duo Gaz Conlon and Tom Bell, also known as HONEY BEARD, recently released their sophomore record, Oneiros, thru RetroReverbRecords. Contemporary and evolutionary synthpop for adults featuring lush cinematic arps, hard-thumping beats, emotive vocals and progressive songwriting structures, Oneiros is the latest installment of a long conceptual narrative that began in 2016. In the midst of the pandemic in 2020, Honey Beard first released the enigmatic track and visuals for Black Skies which also appears in Oneiros. Black Skies is the first half of a twin sister songs in Oneiros, with Dark Tides as the follow-up sequel which we have the honor to premiere the complimenting visuals for. In his own words, Gaz describes the band’s sentiments in the creation of their new music video (created and directed by DME Photography) and how it circles back to the on-going themes throughout all Honey Beard records, including Oneiros.
“ Dark Tides bares a theme repeated many times over in each Honey Beard release. But for Oneiros, both Dark Tides and Black Skies are the condensed representation of the themes of anguish, dread, sorrow and despair which can be found in other Honey Beard tracks such as Hummingbird, Momento Mori, Dancing Alone, and Electromorphosis. Dark Tides paints an image of the two natural forces we wake up to every day which also define the universe from our fleshy eye, the bottomless sky and the unending land beneath. In the music video, Dark Tides evokes being in between these defining wonders, the pressures of what each represent to someone and how they squeeze the protagonist’s existence into a fine line that cannot be seen and only defined by the very pressures destroying it. Dark Tides, in the literal sense makes dark stormy waters a metaphor for the dread and foreboding a person may feel, pushing him out to this horizon (as recalled in the track, Like A Fire). It’s a prelude to how Black Skies, a metaphor for depression and self-harm, manifests to bare down upon the mind, subjugating it and obliterating it; Ultimately it’s a sense of despair, culminating into a calm surrender.
In the video, another person is a proxy for this despair (as I act as the protagonist in the other videos) as he has lost the love of his life and goes through the same struggle. Some of the imagery is a mirrored effect and creates an artificial horizon — a sense of otherworldliness, almost like a Space Odyssey 2001 ending as reality is folded, over and over again. The shore line and waves are always a certain death and they call to me and to the protagonist like the mythological Sirens called to Ulysses — just like Oceanus, the edge of Hades.
Water and fire are a consistent theme in all Honey Beard songs. Water represents destruction and fire represents rebirth. ‘Oneiros’ is basically a decision between two eventualities. After drowning himself, the protagonist does not die but enters a dream state in his coma. He discovers he has a choice to live (Lighthouse) or to continue to die (Slipstream of a Daydream), and the album tries to reconcile over that. And Dark Tides / Black Skies is what brings us to this situation. (I’ve always wondered about folks who take their life, in that split second before dying, if their life flashed before them and given the choice again would would they continue or not). I’ve also been haunted by an image in my head since my late teens that I see in daydreams but have also dreamt many times. In the video, the POV is looking directly out at a massive lake with mountains flanked either side. The water is usually always clear and still (loads of dark greens, dark blues). There is a very small island directly in the centre line of sight, only big enough for some bushes and one tree, just a little out from the land bank, of which is more like soil, the same texture of a mountain or a bog and not a beach or lake. This feels to me like my home, Ireland. The strange thing is that the lake looks like it goes out to a larger sea in the background, but it doesn’t make sense due to the elevation of the mountains. That image has informed my writing. In some dreams it’s pure horror; others it’s lovely. I feel like I’ve died in it or will die.”
Gaz and Tom of Honey Beard will appear along with synthwave juggernaut Michael Oakley (who did the mixing and mastering of Oneiros) in the upcoming ABSYNTH Episode 10 video podcast on Friday Nov 26th, hosted by CZARINA and Thorisson.
Make sure to tune in on twitch.tv/staticrealmsmusic
For more Honey Beard, visit honeybeardband.bandcamp.com
