Ezekiel Honig
Surfaces of a Broken Marching Band
(10.2008, Anticipate)
File Under = Moody Electronics
I think it is pretty safe to say that Anticipate Recordings is on the short list of my very favorite record labels. Since it’s inception in early 2007, the label has passed along a steady stream of utterly immaculate and pristinely artful releases that have built up an aesthetic of organic beauty embedded in spare electronic soundscapes. Credit for this meticulous curation has to fall upon label-head Ezekiel Honig and it seemed only a matter of time before Honig added his own work to the Anticipate catalog. Surfaces of a Broken Marching Band follows the Anticipate mission with masterful precision as Honig beds muted electronic beats with a variety of found sounds and samples. The result is a frigid pulse tinged with austerity like a deserted industrial space station whose mechanical remains shuffle around nervously. However, Honig doesn’t leave us to wallow without relief, a couple tracks like “Displacement,” which appears in the middle of the album lets the light in just long enough to maintain sanity. Surfaces of a Broken Marching Band is defined by its textures. While the beats and synths glide by smoothly, Honig’s sound samples feel like they have dragged through the trenches of some long forgotten war. Like audio shrapnel, Honig lets these recordings mangle his tracks into a sound collage that is both darkly penetrating and uniquely satisfying. With Surfaces, Honig reveals himself as the master of the Anticipate aesthetic and that is just about the best thing we could ask for.
-Mr. Thistle
Ezekiel Honig on Myspace
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