Eli Keszler - Eli Keszler (2025) [Hi-Res]

All the flowers go Eli Keszler on this quietly incredible self-titled magnum opus, threading a jazz noir and etheric electronic fusion needle of inspiration from Lynch to Barry Adamson via Mark Hollis and Laurel Halo, layered with chef’s kiss studio wares comparable to Josh Eustis and Portishead - in others words pretty fucking essential, world-building stuff.

As a revered avant percussionist turned live drummer for 0PN and Grammy-nominated film scorer, Eli Keszer has steadily risen to prominence over the past two decades by virtue of a visionary sound vaulted by a mix of adroit physical tactility and sublime electro-acoustic architecture. His early self-released turns on R.E.L in the late ‘00s only hinted at ideas that would be expanded for PAN at start of the 2010s and come to bloom on 2018’s stunning ’Stadium’ for Shelter Press, and we’ve long held a suspicion he could go much further. ‘Eli Keszler’ nows pays up on that hunch with an astonishing consolidation and unfurling of his lush hyper-prism along lines of Lynchian lust and Portishead-esque downbeats, all puckered with his ravishing turns of phrase and ability to shift perspective with a cinematographer’s suss.

From almost any angle it’s a deeply impressive sound, and practically certain to grab the heart of anyone who holds a torch for strains of classic neo-noir film music, and who understands its nuanced flux of roots and branches from jazz to concrète and trip-pop. Aided and abetted on these distinctively furtive missions into the imagination by saxophonist Sam Gendel and singer Sofie Royer, Keszler arguably blurs distinctions of bandleader, performer, producer, director and dramaturgist as all his circles bleed dark red and blue velvety in a dozen pieces that tile up to a heavily absorbing hour in their company.

Landing in the wake of two ‘Live’ LPs and OSTs ‘Harka’ and ‘The Scary of Sixty-First’, it’s not hard to hear the language of music for moving image finely underlining this superb new suite. Factored by Keszler’s preternatural feel for sublime tension and oneiric proprioception, the results are simply exquisite from top to bottom, arcing from the Portishead at Barry Adamson’s flex of ‘Wild Wild West’, introducing Sofie Royer’s huskily gilded tone, to her Jonnine-via-Beth Gibbons turn on ‘Drip Drip Drip’, whilst the main man’s dusted tekkerz are at heightened effect on the masterful strokes of ‘When I Sleep’ and like a dream jam between Mark Hollis and Josh Eustis in the hall-of-mirrors-like designs to ‘Ever Shrinking Worlds’.

We could just as easily point to highlights in Sofie Royer’s channelling of Julee Cruise on the bruise toned jazz-blooz of ‘Low Life’ and ‘Speak For Me at the album’s core, or to Keszler’s stick work in deadly effect on the subtly cyber-dubbed dimensions of ’Sun’ recalling suspects of Alex Zhang-Hungtai (my days, imagine if they made music together?!) or ‘We Don’t Need the Weather’, but it’s definitely one best imbibed in whole, and probably solo, for instant and enduring effect. Bravo, this is outstanding work.

Tracklist:
01-01 Eli Keszler - Wild Wild West (feat. Sofie Royer) [4:24]
01-02 Eli Keszler - When I Sleep [5:34]
01-03 Eli Keszler - Ever Shrinking World [5:58]
01-04 Eli Keszler - I [1:02]
01-05 Eli Keszler - Low Love (feat. Sofie Royer) [3:44]
01-06 Eli Keszler - Speak For Me (feat. Sofie Royer) [4:47]
01-07 Eli Keszler - II [1:53]
01-08 Eli Keszler - Sun [5:00]
01-09 Eli Keszler - Stay (feat. Sofie Royer) [6:18]
01-10 Eli Keszler - III (feat. Sam Gendel) [2:30]
01-11 Eli Keszler - We Don't Need The Weather [7:05]
01-12 Eli Keszler - Drip Drip Drip (feat. Sofie Royer) [5:32]