New York-based composer and percussionist Eli Keszler will release his self-titled album via LUCKYME on 2nd May. Having garnered critical acclaim for his past solo records, the Grammy® Nominated artist’s latest is a freewheeling, Lynchian song-cycle in which his virtuosic performances traverse a living landscape of abstract electronic sound. The album breathes, creaks and sighs through its twelve tracks, with noirish jazz torch songs giving way to skittering drums and cinematic, dubbed-out textures, the lyrics whispered and cried by near-inaudible, distant voices.
Featuring guest appearances from singer Sofie Royer and saxophonist Sam Gendel, Keszler realised he could take an erratic, granular language of percussion and apply it to something entirely distant in association. “The result is a reverent, almost religious feeling,” he explains, “a music of stasis built from tiny fragments.” Setting out to make an album of songs, he wanted to pursue a similar approach: recontextualization and recombination, exploring what happens when all the colours and moods that resonate collide. “I aimed to take a feeling and let the music move freely across mediums, materials, and genres—allowing it to go wherever it wanted while staying out of its way, gently guiding the process.”
For Keszler, this fluidity often emerges from a place of personal turmoil, or a moment of transformation, and he knew he wanted to capture it. “A genderless character started to take shape —contemporary and familiar, appearing in various forms across culture” he explains.
Out of this came nocturnal music, a blend of internal voices, coalescing into something nameless. Echoes of words
stretching into string clusters, guitar slides, melodic textures, whispered voices, walking basslines, underground chords, fast granular drums, and multi-directional rhythms. Everything coated in a sheen of despair and grandeur.
