At the age of 15, Israeli artist Gidon Schoken took up the guitar and started playing in bands, exploring everything from post-rock to hardcore, punk, and even noise. At the age of 18 however he joined the army, and after fulfilling his mandatory service, he started studying music production, gradually moving into his current solo career.
Gidon continued playing guitar in bands but in the past few years he’s moved solely to electronic music, at first only performing beats with an MPC, before moving on to a Maschine. This past year he’s started creating full tracks.
“I felt a bit limited with staying only in the beat realm”, Schoken says. The electronic scene in Israel, particularly Tel Aviv, where Schoken is based, is growing really quickly, and Gidon now creates trip-hop/down-tempo tracks which take their influences from the likes of Massive Attack, Lorn, John Hopkins, and Nosajthing. He blends as many different genres into one as he possibly can, with the goal of making electronic music sound not just acoustic, but also more human.
‘Sunn’, Schoken’s most recent track, is huge and compelling. One of several which will be included in his upcoming EP, ‘Immerse’, Schoken says that ‘Sunn’ in particular is about getting stuck in behavioural loops. Sometimes we don’t realise that we’re going through these loops but we gradually learn to move through them and release ourselves. The song features lyrics and vocals by Afik Doari, a singer with a unique voice, and the video is directed by Stephan Stelman. Focusing on a girl sitting at a dining table, we see that she’s lost herself for a few moments, stuck in the same loop of eating dinner with her parents. Through this she’s seen to be going in to her own little world, learning about herself along the way.
You can find out more about Gidon Schocken from his official website.
