Honzo – Melancholia

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“Is poetry, perhaps, a disease of humanity, as the pearl is the morbid matter of the diseased oyster?” – Heinrich Heine

By its sole member, Honzo is described as the wicked twin of his other undertaking D. Carbone. While both examine noise and techno’s common ground, Honzo’s output is his brother’s introvert counterpart.
The theme of the other half was inspected on D. Carbone meets Honzo in a Bipolar Disorder. Honzo’s following mini-album Das Unheimliche explored the spectres of Freudian thoughts. Psychology is again the topic on the release in question, third vinyl release for young imprint Arboretum. The EP reflects over the state of “Melancholia”, a mental disposition that through its history at times has been associated with evil but more frequently as a tendency of the creative mind. As Heine asks, is poetry – and thereby art – an ailment of its creator?
Illness or not, when shifting to the recipients’ perspective, what is described truly as art is highly individual, and the term “art” usually designates a rarity within life’s larger perspective much like finding a pearl in an oyster is most uncommon.

Heard on Melancholia are interpretations of Honzo’s subconscious visions of life. The intense compositions are made up of drones, noises and distorted beats moving in and out of the frame.
On opener Orientalism said elements blend with hi-hat brushes, brassy synth pads, sci-fi noises and distant human voices evoking Islam’s “adhan” (call to prayer). The theme contemplates over alienation caused by Western accounts of Orientalism, soaked in “hüzün” (the Turkish term for melancholia).
On A2, a rework of Moral Masochism is provided by the mysterious Shadows outfit, starting with a distorted guitar over a slow and gritty rhythmic backbone which gradually turns into a chaotic high-intensity acid jam on the EP’s most dance floor suitable cut.
On the flipside, Lovesickness presents a broken kick rhythm periodically flipped by toms and accompanied by a disorienting hi-hat rhythm, ghostly strings and sporadic human moans – all resulting in a tribal mood, recalling a ceremony, perhaps a quest for a saviour from the blue temper?
B2 presents the Moral Masochism original. Again, a distorted guitar plays over a slow rhythm, but compared to the remix, the original’s intensity is introverted, contemplating over melancholia’s effect of deriving gratification from self-inflicted moral humiliation.
Ambient closer Emptiness explores a cold state with such an encapsulating airiness that it feels like a close account of another person’s mood down to the impression of their breath. Arpeggiated synth noises appear from a distance representing increasing pressure from the outside world without ever suppressing the state of mind. As a result, Emptiness sums up the state of melancholia experienced as a mood rather than the effect of a cause.

Not only does Melancholia ponder over a depressed mental state, the title also describes the feeling – something which in itself implies the brighter occupation of catharsis for audience and artist alike.
For the Arboretum imprint, Melancholia builds on from efforts by Drøp, Øe and co-founder Mogano, and it adds to the label’s occupation with natural organisms as reflected in the name itself and in fellow-founder Andrea Familari FAX’s artwork which in this instance is based on a macro photography of a dry wild-flower deconstructed, multilayered and textured through a generative graphic software.