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12"
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OP 008EP
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Founder/label manager for the Anticipate and Microcosm labels, Ezekiel Honig concentrates on his idiosyncratic brand of emotively warm electronic-acoustic music. Using the loop as more of a tool than a rule, Honig paints outside the lines, nestling into a comfortable, shared space between muted techno, melodic, event-driven ambient, textural downtempo and slow-motion house. Drawing on the rich history of musique concrète, Honig looks to incorporate a material nature into his music by imbuing it with a host of field recording/found-sound sources in the search for a balance between digital software innovation and the physicality of the world around us.
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CD
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TYPE 088CD
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Describing the music of Ezekiel Honig is never easy. It's related to techno, but the pulsing 4/4 beats are pushed so far into the background that they simply become another texture in the sprawling ambience. And that doesn't mean to say the music is "ambient" either -- the structures are far deeper than the musical wallpaper that achieves that label right now. New York-based Honig's Type debut Folding In On Itself doesn't make his music any easier to describe but does a lot to clarify the mood. This is deeply melancholy music, and while it doesn't revel in sadness, it conveys a sense that the things we grew up with and see disappear can never be recaptured. Memory and the corruption or distortion thereof is at the core the record, and like the cover which is made up of hazy family snaps of a changing Manhattan, Honig has tried to capture a sense of entropy in his quickly disintegrating city. Using a palette of locally-recorded environmental samples, decayed acoustic instruments and the unusual, clattering percussion that has become his signature, Folding In On Itself is probably Honig's most measured and defining record. Elements of his previous work are still present, heard most obviously on the breakthrough Surfaces Of A Broken Marching Band (ANTICIP 006CD), but every tiny part has been trimmed and honed with a selfless attention to detail. From the lilting, processed horns and clipped percussion on "Subverting The Memory Of Your Surroundings" to the noisy, slowly decomposing piano of "Drafting Foresight," there is a sense that Honig has a distinct story to tell, and that every track on the album is a unique part of the same object. Far from a random collection of tracks, "Folding In On Itself" is an introverted collection of musings on change and loss, and is as softly-spoken and moving as anything on Type to date. Handle with care.
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LP
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TYPE 088LP
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LP version. Describing the music of Ezekiel Honig is never easy. It's related to techno, but the pulsing 4/4 beats are pushed so far into the background that they simply become another texture in the sprawling ambience. And that doesn't mean to say the music is "ambient" either -- the structures are far deeper than the musical wallpaper that achieves that label right now. New York-based Honig's Type debut Folding In On Itself doesn't make his music any easier to describe but does a lot to clarify the mood. This is deeply melancholy music, and while it doesn't revel in sadness, it conveys a sense that the things we grew up with and see disappear can never be recaptured. Memory and the corruption or distortion thereof is at the core the record, and like the cover which is made up of hazy family snaps of a changing Manhattan, Honig has tried to capture a sense of entropy in his quickly disintegrating city. Using a palette of locally-recorded environmental samples, decayed acoustic instruments and the unusual, clattering percussion that has become his signature, Folding In On Itself is probably Honig's most measured and defining record. Elements of his previous work are still present, heard most obviously on the breakthrough Surfaces Of A Broken Marching Band (ANTICIP 006CD), but every tiny part has been trimmed and honed with a selfless attention to detail. From the lilting, processed horns and clipped percussion on "Subverting The Memory Of Your Surroundings" to the noisy, slowly decomposing piano of "Drafting Foresight," there is a sense that Honig has a distinct story to tell, and that every track on the album is a unique part of the same object. Far from a random collection of tracks, Folding In On Itself is an introverted collection of musings on change and loss, and is as softly-spoken and moving as anything on Type to date. Handle with care.
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CD
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ANTICIP 006CD
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Anticipate label head Ezekiel Honig makes his initial appearance for the imprint, with his first album since 2006's Scattered Practices (released on Microcosm Music). In addition to working on the release at hand, Ezekiel has been concentrating on moving Anticipate through its first two years of existence, and Surfaces Of A Broken Marching Band is as much a statement on the label as a whole as it is a reflection of his current working process. Further developing his musique concrète-influenced compositional procedure of giving emphasis to the sounds of everyday life, Honig constructs his music out of an almost incidental assembly of materials, editing and processing them into a whole, which adopts the shards as if they always belonged. The low hum of a pad and ground-skimming percussion noise play off brightly distended piano chords, thick, wheezing horns, and widespread constellations of re-pitched guitar. Playing with looping and lateral progressions alike, Honig subtly hints at his background, while utilizing a broader palette of instrumentation than on his past releases. Softly chugging 4/4 rhythms barely nod towards muted slow-motion techno, while reworked structures retain his characteristically warm, textured sound. In this manner, he delves into electro-acoustics with a sensibility that includes elements of clearly-defined genres, while allowing those definitions to quickly dissipate. These varied approaches and sources allow for the building of a constant tension between an intrinsic affinity for humid melodies and darker tonal shades, congealing into tracks which feel simultaneously minimal and dense. This music is imbued with an intimacy created by opening the spectrum to include sounds from crowded parties in cavernous spaces, subway stations, the interiors of an airliner, and other geographic departures. When in the context of music which feels so close-up, these sounds create a contrast to the at-homeness which Honig usually plays on, and this proximity gives them more weight, as the harmonics of melodic fragments and location-based recordings rummage through and across each other. As the title suggests, the album is visualized as a loosely-composed band that has fallen apart and been puzzled back together, with careful attention paid to the background details, which are brought as much to the forefront as any instrumental piece. Rather than a rhythm section taking a strict lead, it seemingly plays backbeat as it brushes up against the rattle of metal, wood and plastic from which it happens to be constructed. In this manner, Honig inspects the surfaces that were previously hidden -- the sounds that required breaking in order to exist. Guests include: Mark Templeton, Thomas Hildebrand, Craig Colorusso.
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