Fifteen Questions with Ezekiel Honig

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Ezekiel Honig Shares his Creative Process

There is no egg and chicken paradox for Ezekiel Honig – idea and execution can not be separated, the process feeding itself. In his world of explorative slow motion beats and textural harmonies, creativity is always discovery, “because we should be making something that didn’t already exist.”

Part 1

Name: Ezekiel Honig
Occupation: Sound artist, visual artist
Nationality: American
Current release: Ezekiel Honig’s new live album Broken Time Can Go In Many Directions is out via 12k. Conceptually, it is closely tied to studio predecessor Unmapping The Distance Keeps Getting Closer, also available from 12k. On the topic of sound, we also recommend his new book (avialbale through bandcamp) Bumping Into a Chair While Humming: Sounds of the Everyday, Listening, and the Potential of the Personal.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I can’t say exactly where the impulse comes from, but simply put, I make music because it makes me feel whole. 

I love sound and playing with it. I love the process and solving creative problems. I love finding a way towards something that could go in infinite directions and making choices along the way. 

I want to share it with others, but I need the fulfillment that the making offers. For me it is a type of meditation – recording and editing sounds, arranging, organizing sound, mixing and refining the sound. Mixing can be seen as more technical, but is part and parcel of the creative process, and I think is highlighted even more so if you’re making “electronic” music. 

In terms of inspiration, it can be anything that triggers an idea, or at least an idea of an idea – a moment walking down the street, certain spaces, art, music, film, thoughts that come up when you’re not paying attention or in a twilight state. That’s the mystery of it all. 

Music can certainly inspire. Even music I don’t like can spark something because it is still sound. There’s a lot in there, regardless of whether the complete package resonates for me. 

Visual art in particular makes me want to work on sound. I think that’s a large part of why I started making paintings and collage, as a means of at least attempting to translate sound in a visual way, although that is such an abstract process and not a 1:1 relationship. 

Looking at certain types of images makes me excited about music, and sometimes I need to make images to get me excited about making music. It’s different paths, but is very connected.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a ‘visualisation’ of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I never have a clear idea of what a “finished” song will be. 

It’s always a process of discovery, but usually based on a starting point of a concept, an idea, a single sound. It can be like a blueprint of sorts, but a very undefined one, perhaps a phrase that allows me to start somewhere and see what happens, and how that phrase is ultimately defined by the sounds and the process itself. 

For example, I might start with something like, “I want to make a track that has a somber horn melody, with a shuffly, syncopated rhythm.” (This shard of an idea was the impetus for “Broken Marching Band,” a track from 2008 … and probably some others.) 

Another example, “Taking It Apart”, from the Unmapping The Distance Keeps Getting Closer album, began with outdoor sounds, pianos, object block percussion. Those words can mean any number of things in terms of where a track goes, but it helps to begin somewhere, some sort of guide.

I use the word discovery because I know what I want to hear when I hear it, but it’s difficult to overtly define it beforehand, or how to get there. Clearly I gravitate towards certain sounds, textures, moods, but there is a lot of variation within those personal, creative leanings, and there’s always new angles to it. 

If it was a rote straight-forward process it wouldn’t be as interesting for me. Creativity is inherently discovery because we should be making something that didn’t already exist.

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do ‘research’ or create ‘early versions’?

I find that a big part of how I work is having time to think through what I want to make, and spending some time “doing nothing”. 

I always need to remind myself that allowing this period of considering ideas, letting inspiration happen, listening – not having hands on the computer, or recording sounds – is part of the process, an important part of the process. It isn’t for a set duration of time, but simply a means of letting things develop in my head, doing the work before the work.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I don’t really have a ritual. It comes down to feeling inspired about a particular idea, and having the time to work on it, or approximating some form of discipline where I tell myself that I will just play with sounds, phrases and see where it leads. 

Often I find the “doing” creates the inspiration. By working through ideas and finding new ones I can happen on something that I wasn’t expecting or trying to do, and those are the types of moments I want to engineer, or instigate more often. 

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

I definitely feel in control, but by means of being flexible and following where the sounds lead me. I think it’s important (at least for me) to remain open to what the track wants to be, while acknowledging that I am the one who decides that. It’s crucial to let inspiration and change take hold when they are there. 

For example, if you’re working on something and think it’s going in a certain direction, and then you accidentally hit a different note, or hear something new in a sound that you hadn’t heard before, do you ignore it because it’s not where you thought things were going? 

I hope that you follow that path and see where it goes, because happy accidents are valuable.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

I definitely think of studio time, and to an extent, performance time as well, as a form of active meditation. It creates a state where my mind is calm through focus. The focus is moving – trying to solve creative problems, figuring out what a piece of music  or art is, how it will form itself – but it is still a focus that distracts the mind from everything else for that moment. 

In some ways, creating envelops completely, even while experiences and influences affect what one is doing. Ideally it is both things – utilizing the totality of one’s being, considering all of the things that affect you, while allowing for the scaling down of that totality to this one moment and this one thing that you’re working on – this piece of sound or painting or video, etc.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you’re satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practice?

Changing perspective and letting things sit is an important part of the process for me, and I recommend it for everyone. I’ve written before about stepping away (even for ten minutes, but usually for days) to listen with a different set of ears, different experiences, different ways of listening. This is also bound up with the concept of finishing, which is its own conundrum. 

I step away, come back to it, repeat, repeat, repeat. Similar to developing a piece, I don’t know exactly what I want to hear, but I know it when I hear it. I think figuring out what finishing is, for you, is a muscle that needs to be developed – one’s idea of what finishing sounds like (or looks like, or feels like). 

It gets easier with time and practice, but ultimately is very personal, because it relates to your relationship with your art, when you’re willing to walk away from it and say that it’s “done”, and what you want to communicate into the world. (Light plug for my book, Bumping Into a Chair While Humming: Sounds of the Everyday, Listening, and the Potential of the Personal where I wrote about this ; ) 

I like to think of the larger work as a consistently moving thing, which any individual track is part of, which then allows less pressure on an individual song, because it’s part of that larger work. It’s about the whole, as it becomes more whole.

How do you think the meaning, or effect of an individual piece is enhanced, clarified or possibly contrasted by the EPs, or albums it is part of? Does each piece, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?

It’s definitely a balance. When I’m at the point that things are starting to congeal into something that could be an EP or album, I’m scrutinizing the sequence of tracks and what might be missing from the overall story. 

Sometimes a track might feel like it has less weight on its own, but adds something to the overall work because of how it affects the pieces around it. It’s not about consistency as much as how one track progresses into another. Sometimes a track might be a means of getting from A to B, which is totally okay because what matters is how all of it fits together and how that complete thing feels. 

To build an emotional arc requires lots of moments, and not every moment can be, or is meant to be, a star or a highlight. Similar to a film or book, each moment should be there for a reason, but if all of it had the same qualities, played the same role in the overall work, or felt too similar, it would be boring and not have enough ebb and flow, or development.

Part 2

What’s your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?

For me, mixing is part and parcel of the process. Even if the sounds begin outside of the computer, I am composing/arranging/writing inside the computer, so there is light mixing along the way, regardless, just to make things sound “good enough” while working on them, and determining how sounds can fit together.  

For music that is so rooted in sound as a concept, not tied to any specific instruments, there is inherently a need to pay attention to how sounds are mixed together, as part of the composition process, not a separate stage after writing/composing. What frequency range sound A occupies and how sound B is compressed affect the whole track and whether those sounds work together, so I have a difficult time separating that from the rest of it. 

If I wrote a piece for piano (in a traditional sense, with musical notation), the writing/composing, playing/recording, and mixing would be separate stages, but that isn’t what I’m doing. I work by ear and instinct and happen to use technology in the process.

Mastering is super-important as well, which I do see as a separate stage in the process, because it literally is. I prefer someone other than myself to do the mastering, the final touch on the whole, that different perspective that can step back and consider the complete work in a different way.  

Music and the accompanying artwork are often closely related. Can you talk about this a little bit for your current project and the relationship that images and sounds have for you in general?

The union of image and sound is crucial for me. In terms of art for a release, the process changes based on the situation and whether I’m making the art/design or someone else is, but it’s always important. 

For the album on 12k, Marcus Fischer made the art, and it was easy for me to trust him with it because I’ve known him for years and love his work across mediums. I thought it would be interesting to send him a painting I made on paper, for this purpose, with the intention that he could tear it up and use however he saw fit (or not use at all) for the collage he made for the cover.

He did use it, but made something completely new that only has shards of what I sent him, which was the idea. He then reworked that image for the live release, Broken Time Can Go In Many Directions, because there is a sonic connection between them, while still being completely different and separate.

I did something similar with the cover art for Falling Close to Memory, an album I released on Anticipate in 2021.

It includes vocals by Trevor De Nógla, and he also makes visual art, so I thought it would be interesting to collaborate on the cover together. He sent me a bunch of work that I could use as part of the art, whatever direction that took. 

I took one piece on paper and cut it up into shapes and played with different arrangements, using the chance operation of dropping them on the canvas, on top of a more solid piece of paper and paint. Once I saw something I wanted to keep, I glued them and used encaustic over the top to give it more of a textured feel. That’s the cover art for the record, but also, I have the physical thing still, simply as art.

Other times I’ve tried to make versions of covers for a music release by creating a painting, as an object to accompany a digital release, to concretize it somehow. This is all to say that the connection of sound and visual is important to me conceptually, even if someone only sees a thumbnail of it, or not at all. 

The process matters.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I wouldn’t say I feel emptiness, but it’s definitely an interesting time. There is both a sense that it’s okay to take a moment and step back and not immediately jump into working on something new, and a sense of “let’s start working on something new immediately”. 

I take time to reflect and think about what I might want to work on next, look at notes that I’ve written over the years about songs or albums I want to make. I try to initiate inspiration in a way that doesn’t involve time constraints or pressure to get something done. I try.

I often think about how it might feel daunting to consider a larger piece of work (like an album, or something more) but you get there incrementally. You work on one thing, and then another, and it starts to aggregate and congeal into something. It changes and develops. Especially after finishing something, it helps me to think smaller, more one foot in front of the other, which also leaves a lot of space for playing and experimenting. 

Often, the best inspiration for me, especially in the in-between state, is simply recording sounds – outside while walking around or inside messing around with objects. It is unplanned, open, playful, and unpredictable. This usually yields inspiration.

I would love to know a little about the feedback you’ve received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about or the impact it had on them – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”

I always think it’s interesting to hear someone else’s perspective because they can be so varied. Some ideas resonate more for me than others, but that is how it should be, and I never think anyone is incorrect, because I don’t intend for someone to listen in one specific, regimented way. 

I love that music is such a personal experience. It’s a personal experience for me to make it and a personal experience for anyone who listens. I would never tell someone how they should perceive something, so there is no wrong way to do it. I’m just happy when people pay attention, actually listen, and if they are affected in some way, that’s great. 

I have heard people say they like listening in the background while making dinner or that it touched their lives in some specific way while they were going through something, and a lot in between. It’s all meaningful and valid, and appreciated.

Generally, I think when people listen carefully, they are better for it. I’m not talking about my work; I mean anything. It makes the world a better place if more people are improving their personal experience of that world in a healthy way. I think that is our best chance, if more individuals are better versions of themselves. 

Listening carefully, to music, to the world, to other people, is one way to get there.