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Blinding
Eyal Maoz
Label: Adhyâropa Records
Released: 2026
Duration: 00:47:10
Views: 51
Tracks
Blinding; TV; Go; Trucks; June 28; Bleak City; Bonna Bonna; Loose; Hinne
Personnel
Album Description
Adhyâropa Records is thrilled to announce Blinding (ÂR00210), the new album by Israeli-born American guitarist and composer Eyal Maoz and his ensemble Edom. Long recognized for genre-bending and synthesis in his compositions, Maoz pushes the envelope further through collaboration with like-minded bassist Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, keyboardist Brian Marsella, and drummer Yuval Lion. The result is an exhilarating blend of progressive jazz, rock, experimental electronic music, and traditional Jewish and Arabic elements. This adroit yet meticulous sonic landscape establishes a strong foundation for Maoz’s message and outrage to be translated.
“I came to know this concept that I called hope and destruction,” Maoz says. It began with Maoz watching the documentary The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. “What resonated with me most was the feeling that the Jewish population saw what was going on, but they still stayed there. They held on to the hope that it would be okay, and they stayed and stayed until it was too late. I have a lot of rage towards that,” Maoz says.
Through angular time changes and gritty instrumentation, Maoz dissects the weaponization of marginalized peoples’ optimism. “In our first album together, Edom, one of the songs is titled ‘Hope and Destruction,’ and that name returns as the title of the second album; the idea is that people hope for things to happen and in the end it doesn’t work out as they hope,” Maoz says. “It can happen to actually anyone anywhere. Doesn’t matter which religion, who you are, or which nationality. I want to put a light on this historical phenomenon: that hope and then destruction can happen.” Blinding uniquely elaborates on this principle, encapsulating the duality of resilience through jarring juxtapositions in sound choice and range.
“I generally always start with melodies which I compose, if I may say, in a way that you may think is the exact opposite of creating great melodies. My method is to record myself on the phone, hum something, like a song or melody that comes to mind. Then I transcribe it, but the tricky part here is that I never correct the detuned “wrong” notes I hum to my phone, so a version full of “wrong” notes ends up on the page. To bring myself to compose a melody, I remove all expectations by telling myself to just hum the worst song I can think of,” Maoz says with a chuckle. To his surprise, some of the melodies that come from this process are indeed truly catchy and original, as evidenced in
Growing up in Israel not only influenced his perspective on authority and protest, but his compositional fingerprint. “I always had Jewish and Middle-Eastern music in my blood,” Maoz says. “For Edom, I wanted the idea of hope and destruction to be ever-present. So I think that our songs will always have a Jewish element, although it’s come to the point that maybe I’m the only one who can identify it.” The deeply sympathetic pairing of these musical tendencies with those of his bandmates is what distinguishes this record.
Keyboardist Brian Marsella and Eyal Maoz have both worked with and been inspired by avant-garde composer John Zorn. “I saw him in Israel before I moved here. My first impression was that here was this wild man stretching musical boundaries to their limit, but I came away thinking well, if he can do it, so can I, in my own way,” Maoz says. This admiration for Zorn’s free-spirited approach to music is evident in every note of Marsella’s contributions. “When I was forming the band, I was looking for someone open-minded and capable of delivering range to our performances. Generally, I am into crazy electronic sounds! I tell my collaborators to be as extreme as they like. Brian is really into that freedom, and he’s not shy to use every sound on the keyboard.”
If Marsella’s keys opened the door to experimental electronic sounds, Yuval Lion’s drums create the structure for the thicket of sounds to thrive in. “He has a very special way of expressing a groove,” Maoz says. “A lot of the soundworld of the band revolves around him. For Edom, he defines the sound.” Indeed, there is a noticeable pop sensibility that joins these vast and varied sounds. With Lion’s contributions, “everything falls into place.”
All of these influences are what makes this project one of many juxtapositions, both symbolically and musically. Nonetheless, they have struck a balance amongst all of these elements to create a cohesive, distinct sound for the group. “Shanir really elevates our songs,” Maoz notes about Edom’s bassist Shanir Blumenkranz. “Throughout the songwriting process, Shanir is known for condensing the overall composition for completion and cohesion. Everything that involved Shanir, including all the Edom albums, credits him as the producer, because without him none of my music would be complete. We work perfectly in sync to create the sound I hear in my head but need a second set of ears to realize.”
“The title track is related once again to the ‘hope and destruction’ idea, that most people, even if something is right in front of their eyes, won’t see it. Titles come to me by free association at the moment of their conception, but the collection of these moments is what makes for a cohesive album statement.”
Though the theme of hope and destruction follows Eyal Maoz’s repertoire, each song is assembled without a plan in mind for the final product. “I just had a blurb of songs and I didn’t even know what to name it, so I named them by the date,” Maoz says, referencing the 5th track, ‘June 28th’ “I didn’t even have time to think about what to title it, so I put that in as a placeholder and it just stuck. It’s fascinating to allow people to invent their own notion of what I mean by the date, or any of the titles for that matter. It’s instrumental music, so there are no wrong answers.”
Indeed, Blinding’s versatility directly mirrors Maoz’s career and artistry. Here, Maoz serves as writer, bandleader, performer, and guitarist, building off his prolific catalog including classical pieces, acoustic music, and even film scores, and his many other projects include Hypercolor, The Lie Detectors, his duet with Eugene Chadbourne, Lemon Juice Quartet, 9 Volt, and more. Maoz demonstrates an inherent drive for creating something new, whether it be collaborations, albums, or tracks, and it shows in the DNA of Blinding.
Album uploaded by Adhyâropa Records
