Working on the album was an opportunity for me to explore how I translate Yoni’s artistic vision into something refined that can be experienced on its own terms. Every piece of art aims to stand on its own, but it always exists within the context of the larger body of work.

Yoni and I have been working and thinking about music together for several years now. The transition from recording individual songs to working on an entire album happened organically.

As a fan of Yoni’s work from his previous album, Geographical History, I approached the task with the upmost reverence.

What is my part within someone else’s work?

It was clear to me that the songs engage in an internal dialogue and trace the artist’s story over the past few years. A story that is at times oddly specific and hazy, but always direct, honest, and uncompromising.

I wanted to break down the layers that make up the songs and reassemble them. The goal was to create clarity, to blow fresh air into the songs, to let the elements that make them up breathe and blossom.

At the heart of the album lies Yoni’s playing. A gifted guitarist capable of taming this wild beast, yet also willing to let it break free, to be completely unrestrained, to scream, to sing, to cry. In fact, the guitar is everything on this album; it expresses every emotion that cannot be put into words, every musical expression that doesn’t resonate through any other instrument.
It is the melody, the harmony, the percussion, the silence, and the noise. The entire album resonates from the guitar; it is the listener’s perspective on the world.

As a result of this approach, a listener who decides to listen to the album from start to finish may expect to experience a mixture of flurry, confusion and agitation during their listening.
At times, they will feel a terrible sense of claustrophobia, as if they’ve been crammed into the guitar and their entire body is folded and constricted. At times, they’ll feel as though the guitar is the entire universe, and the sound emanating from the strings fills everything, making it possible to get lost within this infinite soundscape.
Perhaps they’ll feel the wood of the guitar caressing their cheeks, attuned to all their needs and desires. Or maybe they’ll feel as if that same wood is striking them on the head, leaving them dazed and confused.

Yoni’s singing adopts the same attitude. His vocal cords vibrate alongside the guitar strings, and his voice serves as resonator. The same density and spaciousness that the guitar provides are projected through his voice alongside every passing note in the mix.

I’ve had the privilege of working with friends during the many recording sessions we had for this album. Roee and Ido helped us gain perspective on what we’re actually doing; each of them joined at a different stage of the project and added another layer to the musical language through the keyboard. Bar and Ophir were our sounding boards and contributed subtle, essential timbre to the songs so they could reveal themselves to the listeners in all their glory.

The fact that we came back, polished the songs, re-recorded them, and added new tracks as we went along gave the project a sense of vitality. Everything was always in motion; we felt like we were working toward something. At first, we didn’t even know it was going to be an album at all, or that it would have ten songs.

I was delighted to discover that the different tracks work together as a whole and that we managed to create a cohesive soundscape that is simultaneously diverse, eclectic, and surprising. I’m proud to be a part of one of the chapters in Yoni’s musical story, and I hope we’ll get to write many more chapters together with the same artistic energy and creative joy.

Listen to the album here

or here