Venturing into the meanders of Eli Keszler's already extensive discography means dealing with a constant sense of amazement, losing the center of gravity and finding it again astride a sudden rhythmic outline, coming out of nowhere. It means finding yourself at the beginning of a long improvised journey and then abandoning yourself to placid ambient scenes, taking the path of the most subversive jazz and then returning with all the noise necessary towards beloved electroacoustic frames.
So what to expect from a self-titled album, released after almost twenty years of career? Once again the percussionist, composer and sound artist based in New York, he makes another unexpected swerve to the side, and while directing his inspiration towards the jazzier forms of his creativity, he covers them with a hitherto unprecedented cinematic aura. Noir as per the best Lynchian derivation, full of vocal contributions to push his efforts towards unusual “pop” forms, “Eli Keszler” turns out to be a dark, smoky affair, with impeccable atmospheric textures, structured with a curious narrative attitude. Because behind the curtain lies a soul waiting to be discovered.
To the evanescence of several previous works Keszler here equips himself with a smoke machine, gives full vent to his more cinematic side, describing spaces of elegant decadence (the acid drifts of “Wild Wild West”, barely infused with guitars wing Chris Isaak), also proposing unusual dreamlike escapes, towards a mystery to be deciphered (“When I Sleep”, the voice barely intelligible under the drum wires and the blankets of 404). Everything acquires body, even when it comes to ghosts, to interior perceptions: with the help of his expertise in percussion, even the most disturbing moments take on a new concreteness, a thickness that gives form to nightmares, to the deepest darkness.
Above an ostinato with features drum'n'bass “Ever Shrinking World” gives voice to an obsession that gradually becomes more oppressive, the fruit of an alienation that takes hold of the protagonist without any waste of effort. If the noise arrives, it is still faced as a new vision, a direction that can be followed: over slow Bristolian beats, a little Goldfrapp a little Hooverphonic, “Low Love” is the condensation of an anguish to be dominated, a threat tempered thanks to a wall of strings.
Between suns that don't burn (the electroacoustic experiment of “Sun”) and potential cosmic openings (the opening of “Stay”), Sofie Royer's voice is the center of gravity that even when absent conditions the progress of the entire album. Suspended in a middle kingdom that looks to both Julee Cruise and Victoria Legrand, the interpreter perfectly explains the sense of restlessness hidden in the songs, the ambiguity of scenarios that do not desire solutions, but rather to be left free to represent themselves, to show off their complexity. And so Eli Keszler governs his creative torments, providing him with all the doubt and propulsion he needs, displaying a refined compositional sensitivity in the process. How to give new life to noir, also telling a little about yourself.
10/01/2026
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
