Gerrit
I really love the entire album, but there's this ghostly, somewhat mysterious and nostalgic sound in Navigators that makes me think of David Sylvian's work with Holger Czukay which has been dear to my heart for 30 years, a sound that transports me to a different place and time, early childhood. I'm not a musician and don't know why it works and how I'd recreate this sound, but that's what I love most about this album.
Favorite track: Navigators.
Musician, record producer and author Erik Honoré (born 1966) has contributed as a musician and producer to more than 50 records with artists as diverse as David Sylvian, Eivind Aarset, Arve Henriksen and Brian Eno/Peter Schwalm.
“Heliographs” is, astonishingly, his first solo project, and one can only speculate as to why this is the case. This is a well-integrated and personal debut album that opens up a complete world of sound that the listener can hardly bear to leave behind.
Most of “Heliographs” was recorded in Honoré’s home studio in Oslo, but much of the source material consists of samples that were taken from concerts and live remixes. “I recorded the first tracks in August 2013, and it took a few months before I realised that this could be a solo album. Because even though the elements I had used were drawn from very different places, such as earlier sketches, samples from concerts and also completely new material, there was a musical narrative that began to take shape.”
In the early 2000s Erik Honoré had three books published. According to him, the titles and narrative on “Heliographs” were derived from elements in the first novel he published, “Orakelveggen”. “The album title comes from the opening chapter of the book, which is a fictional account of the development of the very first photograph. The inventor Joseph Niépce called this process heliography, which means sun-writing.”
Many people associate Erik Honoré with the Punkt Festival and Honoré’s collaborative partner Jan Bang. They are both artistic directors, and have known each other and worked together since they were teenagers. “We met through our common interest in artists we later got to know through the Punkt Festival and other collaborations: David Sylvian, Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, and Laurie Anderson,” says Honoré.
In 2005, together with Bang, Honoré established the Punkt Festival in Kristiansand, where concerts that have just taken place are remixed live in another room. The idea is to improvise with sampling. “This turned out to be a completely new, original and effective way of creating music, and the concept has obviously been interesting for both musicians and audiences,” says Honoré. In recent years Punkt Festival spin-offs have taken place in Paris, London, Tallinn, Wroclaw and several cities in Germany.
A long list of Honoré’s regular collaborators from Norwegian improvisational music’s top echelon appear on “Heliographs”, including Ingar Zach (Huntsville, Dans Les Arbres), Eivind Aarset, Jan Bang and Arve Henriksen, in addition to the Dutch violinist Jeffrey Bruinsma from Zapp 4.
What really stands out is vocalist and improviser Sidsel Endresen’s contribution, which becomes something like a running theme throughout the album. On “Heliographs”, Honoré’s sure hand leads us through everything from lovely, undulating, soaring improvisation to jogging, electronic ambient and sample-based chamber music. This is introvert music with a bite, which is at the same time very direct. Highly recommended!
credits
released November 1, 2014
Produced, engineered and mixed by Erik Honoré
Erik Honoré: samples, synthesizers, synth bass,
rhythm programming, field recording
Sidsel Endresen: voice on 1, 3, 8
Ingar Zach: percussion on 2, 3, 6, 7, 8
Jan Bang: samples on 1, 4, rhythm programming on 4
Eivind Aarset: guitar on 4, 7, 9
Jeffrey Bruinsma: violin on 5
Arve Henriksen: trumpet on 7
Samples:
Jo Wang “Between Fingertip and Key” on 3
Okavango “Fountain” on 6, from the album “Okavango” produced by
Erik Honoré
Nils Petter Molvær “Dead Indeed” on 4
Recorded at The Green Room, Oslo and Punkt Studio, Kristiansand
Track 7 recorded live at Punkt 2013, Kristiansand by Johnny
Skalleberg and Asle Karstad
Ingar Zach recorded by Miguel Angel Tolosa at IZ Soundlab, Madrid
Mixed at The Green Room, Oslo
Mastered by Morten Lund at Lunds Lyd, Oslo
After working for many years as a collaborator with artists like Jan Bang, David Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen, Eivind Aarset and Arve Henriksen, Punkt co-founder Erik Honoré released his first solo album "Heliographs” on the Hubro label in 2014.
Beautiful late night, early morning, whenever. Calms, soothes and ultimately enriches the soul. If you haven't heard it yet, also try the album Steve did with Maiya Hershey. Equally gorgeous and good for the soul in these strange days... Kemi Helwa
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