Eli Keszler (LuckyMe, 2025)
Amusingly, the first Eli Keszler album that I ever heard was 2011’s Cold Pin, which was centered around a complex percussion installation that used motors and microcontrollers to attack strings and metal squares, so my expectations regarding the rest of his career were definitely quite different than the trajectory that it ultimately took (film soundtracks, a Grammy nomination, etc.). I always enjoy Keszler’s drumming, of course, but some of his chameleonic reinventions definitely appeal to me more strongly than others. This self-titled album (billed as “a freewheeling, Lynchian song-cycle”) is an especially cool one, as Keszler enlisted Stones Throw artist/DJ/electro-pop diva Sofie Royer as the vocalist for a handful of killer noir-jazz gems. The rest of the album is a bit more eclectic and varied, but some of those other directions are compelling too (and there is often some virtuosic drumming to be found as well).
The opening “Wild Wild West” is perhaps the album’s most perfect channeling of Lynchian vibes, as its sultry shuffling rhythm, breathy torch song vocals, twangy surf-noir guitars, and psychotropically buzzing synth bass instantly evoke a slow, sexy dance at Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse. There are also some cool dubby percussion touches, but they are icing on an already perfect cake, as Keszler and Royer slay on pure atmosphere alone. I wish the whole album stayed in that vein (it does not), but the closing “Drip Drip Drip” is at least an absolutely killer (if more macabre) companion piece.
Notably, the percussion is a bit more inventive and industrial-inspired in “Drip Drip Drip,” but the best bits are generally the mood, the guitars, and Royer, which is not what I would have expected from an album by a percussionist. That said, Keszler does allow himself to go a bit wild on the kit for the piece’s second half, which illustrates a central feature of this album: unusual and unpredictable song structures. Keszler described the album’s creative arc as “I aimed to take a feeling and let the music move freely across mediums, materials, and genres,” though there is also a crucial unifying theme of “everything coated in a sheen of despair and grandeur.”
The remainder of the pieces are an eclectic mixed bag of different experiments and moods. For example, there is another excellent Royer showcase in “Speak For Me,” but it abandons Twin Peaks for an aesthetic best described as “a more libidinous Portishead.” Elsewhere, Keszler goes entirely solo with the unsettling and otherworldly “Sun,” which combines discordant submerged synths and clattering broken beat drums to form a very weird and seasick-sounding strain of futuristic dub. “Ever Shrinking World” is yet another solo banger, approximating an improbable and industrial-damaged collision of Rhythm & Sound and Bark Psychosis (and the skittering drums are quite nice as well). Keszler also channels some other cool influences with varying degrees of success, as “When I Sleep” sounds like an hot improv session between a shoegaze-inspired ambient artist and a free jazz drummer, while “Low Love” feels like blurred and hypnagogic pop à la Julee Cruise (until the machine gun drums kick in, anyway).
Part of me admittedly wishes this album was a bit less stylistically fluid and that Keszler had instead just set out to craft a hot batch of killer singles with Royer, as the two definitely locked onto a winning vision with “Wild Wild West” and “Drip Drip Drip.” I suspect that Keszler is too creatively restless to be satisfied with just composing a bunch of cool singles though, as this album is teeming with disparate other ideas that he was keen on exploring. As such, this album is best appreciated as a kind of imaginary soundtrack set in the neon-soaked world of a city in the small hours after all the wholesome people have gone home: sex, melancholy, and desperation mingled with occasional glimpses of beauty or clarity.
Unlike traditional songs, most of these pieces abandon the expected “verse, chorus, repeat” formula to take unexpected yet cool detours, which is kind of how film soundtracks work: if the scene changes after two minutes, the score changes with it. That stylistic instability can certainly be frustrating when Keszler abandons a promising theme for something else, but it works pretty well in an album-sized dose, as there is a compelling arc here and the various interludes and jazzy flourishes keep things fresh and pleasantly unpredictable between the major highlights.
Listen here.
