The release of EZ3kiel's new album comes over 20 years after the group's formation in 1992. While few groups can boast such a long life together, the most notable thing about EZ3kiel is their constant desire to make their music evolve over the years and their refusal to stand still. This goes to show how important creativity is to longevity.
LUX (recorded at the Alma Studio in La Riche near Tours in France), EZ3kiel's tenth album, emphatically proves that point with ease. The one thing these 10 new songs have in common is that they all grab you at the first listen. Labelling EZ3kiel's music has always been a vain task with tags ranging from post-rock, ambient or dub to electronic or classical. That it is so tough to categorize their sounds demonstrates the group's desire to take influences from the whole musical sphere to create their own unique universe rather than focus on any one specific genre.
And the universe portrayed by LUX is rich, brimming over with details and easy to get lost in. LUX can be both welcoming and warm ("L'oeil du cyclone"), more disturbing ("Lux"), even melancholy ("Never over") and often hypnotic ("Dead in Valhalla", "Stereochrome"). EZ3kiel use all their ability to convey atmosphere and emotion through these ten songs. The group also invited talented artists to guest on the record such as Pierre Mottron ("Anonymous") and Laetitia Sheriff ("Eclipse") on vocals and Pierre Bloch on violin for two songs.
LUX is a perfectly coherent album as whole and yet it also depicts a universe with opposing forces. On this record, the group enjoyed twinning mechanical and organic elements to give firmly hybrid and pluridisciplinary results.
Because rather than just bringing musicians together to form a whole, EZ3kiel's aim is to create a broader overall artistic vision which works simultaneously on musical, stage-based, visual, technological and interactive levels. LUX's release shouldn't really be seen as an end in itself then, but as an introduction. It is a starting point for a new creative space which will evolve over time through performance and meeting an audience.
EZ3kiel:
Johann Guillon: guitar, programming, keyboards, EBow.
Stephane Babiaud: drums, vibraphone, percussion, keyboards, vocals.
Sylvain Joubert: bass, guitar, keyboards.
Yann Nguema: visuals, technology, machines
