Premiere: Borrowed Beams of Light, ‘Bad Actor’

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Borrowed Beams of Light

You’d reckon that as a high school English teacher by day, Adam Brock would have a firm grip on the classics. His work as a singer-songwriter — under the name Borrowed Beams of Light — dabbles in the classics, too. He shapes the orchestral sounds of ’60s and ’70s power-pop, psychedelia and folk into high-mileage vehicles for his adroit lyricism.

“Bad Actor” is the new single from Borrowed Beams’ third album, “Do It Again.” With its cascading chorus and background vocals, the song marches to a distinctly ’60s beat as the songwriter engages in some soul-searching about relationships. “It’s a song about marriage really, but I think it works for anybody who’s allowed another person to really know them deep down, like all the way to the bottom down,” Brock says. “I have a wonderful marriage, but what prompted this song is that state you enter sometimes, in a gnarly argument, where you just step outside yourself and watch your performance: a bad actor, mangling all these pre-rehearsed lines, chewing up the scenery.”

“Do It Again,” which is out April 3 via WarHen Records and Infinite Repeats, is Borrowed Beams of Light’s first album since 2013. The ensuing years found Brock, once a veteran of East Coast DIY music circles, relocating to L.A. from Charlottesville, Va. Brock co-produced the album with Rob Dobson, who engineered, mixed and mastered “Do It Again.”

||| Stream: “Bad Actor”

||| Also: Stream “Wordbuilding”

||| Previously: “Run Around the Sun”