TRACK: Broken Marching Band

WHO: Ezekiel Honig

WHAT: Musique concrète electro-pop so soft it wouldn't hold two bricks together let alone a wall of sound.

THE HYPE: "Ezekiel Honig's latest album is a gloriously captivating excursion through deep rhythmic structures, cataclysmic audio sequences and soft, melodic vibrations." - Cyclic Defrost

WE SAY: New York (New York) resident Ezekiel Honig is a very busy boy; very busy. Not only is he the founder and manager of the Anticipate and Microcosm record labels, he also composes and performs a fabulously bonkers (I've been told that the polite word is "idiosyncratic") type of ambient, chilled electronica that takes influence from the pioneering work of Pierre Schaeffer.

For those of you scratching your head in a Laurel & Hardy fashion, Schaeffer virtually invented musique concrète: the process of using "acousmatic sound as a compositional resource" (thanks Wikipedia). This all kicked off in the late Forties when microphones and magnetic tape became readily available and has divided critics ever since. Some commentators argue it's not music at all; just jumbled up sounds that have no meaning. Some commentators argue that the process of combining pre-existing sounds into a composition is as valid as writing down crotchets and quavers on a sheet of double staves and then blowing them out of a trumpet. In the end, it's up to you though.

Whilst its onomatopoeic title may give you a slight inkling of Honig's aesthetic concerns, Broken Marching Band is nevertheless a truly startling track. Honig's blending of everyday ("found") sounds, like milling crowds, falling wood, and assorted creaks and moans, with a heartbeat bass, delicate sequencing and loops, and thick, ballsy, brassy synths is nothing short of breathtaking. It's like listening to the movie soundtracks of Brad Fiedel, Vangelis and John Carpenter whilst walking around your local city centre on a late night shopping Thursday as builders contruct a full-size replica of the Mary Rose. And that takes some crafting, believe me.

So why is Broken Marching Band a Times Online Track of the Day? Because it's an ambient, hypnotic, ethereal hallucination that mystifies as much as it mollifies, leaving the listener both exceptionally tranquil, yet pro-actively contemplative and as eager to take the thing apart as a dog that's just been given a squeaky rubber bone for Christmas, that's why.

IF YOU ONLY NEED TO KNOW ONE THING: Honig has stated that he "would almost certainly not be making music if we only had conventional instruments at our disposal "because it was electronic music that piqued his interest and only through "the ease of accessibility of music software" was he was able to start creating his cinematic soundscapes. I guess not everyone was forced to learn the recorder at little school after all.

WHERE CAN I GET MY HANDS ON IT: You can listen to Broken Marching Band on Honig's MySpace page, and download it for free at rcrdlbl.com. It's also on the Surfaces of a Broken Marching Band album, which is available in both physical and digital forms.

FIND MORE: www.myspace.com/ezekielhonigmusic | www.rcrdlbl.com

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of 2009
• The 100 Worst Movies of 2009
• The 100 Best Films of the Decade