Punish, Honey

‘Punish, Honey’ the follow up to Vessel’s critically acclaimed debut album ‘Order of Noise’ finds the always unpredictable Bristol based producer continuing to challenge himself and listeners alike. Wishing to move away from working with archetypal electronic sounds, with ‘Punish, Honey’ Vessel sought to create something that felt more organic even if the sounds themselves didn’t always feel inherently organic. That lessening interest in electronic sounds was concurrent with a burgeoning interest in natural sounds, in particular, how the physical body has a direct effect on the nature of the sound, whether it be harsh or pure, messy, violent, seductive, or strange. Using sheets of metal as percussion, sawing up bikes to make flutes and creating harmonic guitars all by his own hand, Vessel created his own set of crude instrumentation exclusively for this record. Combined with an interest in notions of national identity, Vessel asking himself the question ‘What does ‘Englishness’ in music really mean?’ ‘Punish, Honey’ is an uncompromising and dizzying experience. Traversing the queasy glam stomp pf ‘Red Sex’, the chugging, cinematic soundscapes of ‘Anima’ and the medieval industrial tones of ‘Euoi’, ‘Punish, Honey’ is the by-product of an artist striving to create his own unique lane.

For his second Tri Angle LP, Bristol producer Sebastian Gainsborough's made a noise-specific techno record beholden to his remarkably generative skills with sound manipulation. His reliance on homespun methods of fabricating instruments gives Punish, Honey a distinctively raw and tactile identity.

On his early EPs and debut album Order of Noise, Vessel's Seb Gainsborough showed he was willing to forsake the obvious path as he challenged stylistic conventions and expectations about where he'd go next.

An album that begins with 12 seconds of almost unbearably tense silence, clashing, arrhythmic drum hits, drilling and industrial noise will inevitably be called uncompromising, but Vessel's austere, often challenging Punish, Honey is also sensual

Album review: Vessel - Punish, Honey. Chugs along eerily into the heart of darkness...

Aside from the title track, there are pieces here called “Febrile,” “Red Sex,” “Drowned in Water and Light,” “Kin to Coal.” You might not be surprised to learn, then, that this is not a set of jaunty singalongs. But neither is it the techno the young Bristol producer has become known for, either.