808s n Trance Gates

Are we humans or flags?
Does history justify the present?
Is 'never again' for one people or for all people?
Can you feel the hate?

In his latest project, hoyah חיה confronts hypocrisy with an uncompromising focus on his heritage and the German state he lives in. Sonically, 808s n Trance Gates combines the fluttering Ashkenazi clarinet and mystical Judeo-Arabic folk singing with the no-nonsense impact of a Western drum machine break. Thematically, the single and its visceral accompanying video is challenging the audience to contemplate notions of hate as it rages so fiercely and unchecked across the world — as hoyah himself puts it, 'psychological attempt at re-humanisation'.

hoyah חיה is an ancient Hebrew phrase which means, "to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out." The project, which debuted on BRUK with previous tape album Set + Setting is the work of a Berlin-based experimental electronic musician and visual artist. His cultural background is a mix of Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrachi Judaism, a quickly forgotten branch of the religion with a cultural and social history more positively connected to its Middle Eastern neighbours than the Jewish existence in Europe. This background greatly informs the work Hoyah creates, with a focus on sampling and collage-based production and a repeated exploration of transcendentalism (particularly in reference to Jewish culture).

hoyah defines the hypocrisy 808s n Trance Gates seeks to confront twofold — that Judaism is supposed to be about peace, while the so-called Jewish state (Israel) carry out continued acts of hate and destruction, and that Germany is publicly dedicated to remembering its own history of hate while actively creating policies of hate towards its Palestinian community. hoyah's own experience of Judaism growing up was one in which every person has the right to exist freely and without fear of persecution, hence the name he chose for his musical project.

The music, art and video is informed by hoyah's own Jewish ethnicity, but the aim is universal. Hate, and the understanding of hate, is coloured by every individual's own perspective. As he states himself, "I believe that to transcend our biases towards hate, as I have done with my own relationship of hate towards the Jewish community, we must remember the foundational fact that we are all the same species, living together on a dying Planet."

In this historical moment of violent regurgitation, where the traumas of the holocaust are used by the state of Israel to co-opt Western support for apartheid and warmongering, Germany acts deaf to its own Jewish community, conflating legally-defined antisemitism with criticism for Israel. This has been brought to a head with the new antisemitism resolution in Germany, stating funding can be taken from any person or organisation deemed as being 'antisemitic' on the already-foolish government's terms. As such, this video is a test that has been funded by the Berlin Senate's office. Based on the current definition of antisemitism, should I be stripped of such funding, or would the removal of my funding then itself becomes an act of antisemitism? Can these antisemitic images and critiques of Israel's behaviour be deemed as antisemitic, especially framed in the work of a German-Jewish citizen?

Funded by Musicboard and the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion