Ezekiel Honig – A Passage Of Concrete
Ezekiel Honig’s ‘Folding In On Itself‘ is an all-time classic for us, in minimal sound art as it blurred the lines between Ambient, Electro-Acoustic composition and Lo-Fi Techno. In ‘A Passage Of Concrete‘ we have the long overdue follow-up and available on vinyl.
Due to shipping costs and the general monetary extravagance associated with a reflex purchase of overseas vinyl records these days, I had to settle for a digital version. However, on closer immersion into this wonderful sound environment, I fear I may find myself sniffing round the idea of buying it on wax anyway, as I so often do.
‘A Passage Of Concrete‘ is neatly packaged with a beautiful piece of artwork reminiscent of Rothko, and a set of tracks that spread beautiful field recordings atop unsaturated melodic tones coined from piano and horn which ‘glitch’ ever so slightly, as they change direction with the time signature in an angular fashion. This reminds me in part of Jan Jelinek’s Loop Finding Jazz Records which can be no bad thing! The hymnal nature to some of the pieces allow reflection amidst a largely urban set of field recordings Honig recorded in New York city.
This record uses ‘the world as an instrument‘ in a wonderful phrase that aptly describes the way his signature sound is presented. There is not a need to drench the very real, natural sounds of the world in effects as together, they are all the environment you need.
