Ezekiel Honig: People Places & Things
Single Cell

Though People Places & Things chronologically predates Early Morning Migration, Honig's collaboration with Morgan Packard, and the Macrofun Vol. 3 contribution “Transportation Application,” the July 2004 release sounds anything but stale (even if it was issued on Single Cell, the label name briefly adopted before Microcosm). If anything, it shows how quickly Microcosm has established itself as a distinguished outlet for lush electronic minimalism.

Following upon Technology is Lonely, Honig's sophomore outing features eleven languid, at times serene settings of swaying shuffles and alluring melodies. He merges the hazy ambiance of Rhodes melodies and blurry washes with the soft clicks of off-kilter rhythms, many of which suggest they were generated from everyday materials like kitchen utensils and car keys (the album title perhaps alluding to Honig's sound sources). Sometimes, identifiable sounds appear, like the clicks of typewriter keys in “Focused Distraction,” the seeming crunch of a carrot in “Cape Cod Getaway,” and clipped voice snippets in “Green Tea” and “Click & Sleep.” Wedding a descending progression of silken stutter with the percussive clatter of found sounds, “More Human Than Human” adopts a more abstracted feel, as does “Your Face Betrays Your Thoughts” with its granular atmospheres and clacking pulses. Though reverberant billows of soft crackle gently waft over becalmed pulses of soft pads in most songs, “Falling Down” bolsters Honig's customary Rhodes glimmer with funkier-than-usual beats. His music often suggests nothing so much as a mobile nudged slowly by a gentle breeze, its abstract shapes fleetingly coalescing into novel configurations as light reflections scatter prismatically throughout the room.

August 2005