Studying Absence by Hemlock Ernst + Icky Reels

Hemlock Ernst:
This record came together because of a feature I did for the Beans album 'Venga'. I didn't know it at the time but the song, "Anti-Star System", and the album, were produced by Icky Reels. After we did the song and the record came out, Beans hit me back and said he thought I should do a full project with Icky. He thought that I really needed to challenge myself, that it would bring something out in me. Beans and his group Anti-Pop Consortium were and are heroes of mine. 'Tragic Epilogue' by APC is one of the most influential records in my life. To get that kind of attention and push from Beans was huge, but I didn't know how I felt about the idea at the time. I saw it as exactly that, a challenge. With Hemlock I tend to work over soul and jazz break type beats. Icky Reels' production was a far more industrial and acidic landscape. I knew this would be more of a cerebral process, breaking down the beats, challenging the rhythms, finding the voices. But I decided to accept the challenge.

Suffice to say, this is the most dense and challenging record I've been a part of making. I was able to go places with my voice I've never committed to tape. I am changing character and flow multiple times in some songs. And as far as the writing, in the beginning I didn't know if I could find the emotion in the machine of his sound, but his production actually made me dig deeper. Icky's music pushed me to uncover stories and memories that I hadn't thought about for decades. Made me question myself and look at my whole life splayed out in front of me. I'm talking about things I've never talked about and that's a great feeling to break new ground at 40, with two decades of work behind me. Some of my favorite lines I've ever written are included in this record. And that's an amazing feeling as an artist, digging in and finding the treasure of the self so you can give it to everyone else.

Icky Reels:
Absence is where we go to study ourselves
Oblong antennae pressed against living dirt and glass
Rippled pink with the howling amplified
Outside before beckoned in, existing under the torn umbrella
Blinks two times and cranes across the mirrored surface

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Hemlock Ernst is Samuel T. Herring. Born and raised in rural North Carolina, he has spent the last 25 years questioning the human experience through the intimate dissection of his own life. On the page, stage, record and road—he is still looking.

Icky Reels is a songwriter/producer that grew up in Cleveland but now resides elsewhere, under a catalpa tree with his family, cats, and records.

Cleveland to WNY

Producer and Songwriter

"Supersonic swirls, wild beats spinning madly, warped voices and tings, the Top 10 pop tunes run amok... beautiful jagged music..." -Foxy Digitalis

"Distinct production techniques... scattered dream sequences sparking into and out of focus... an engaging, mind-altering exploratory sojourn." -Igloo Magazine