Eli Keszler is an American percussionist, composer, and visual artist based in New York City.
Keszler has also toured or collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jandek, Loren Connors, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Oneohtrix Point Never, and has released several solo albums since 2008. He has also performed and released music as Pedagogy, with producer Nate Boyce.
He has had exhibitions of his visual work, installations and performances at museums and galleries such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Kitchen, South London Gallery, LUMA Foundation, Tectonics Festival in Reykjavík, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, and Boston Center for the Arts. He and David Grubbs recently debuted a piece at the MIT List Center.
Early life and education
Eli Keszler was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. By the age of eight he was learning drums, and he began composing his own music at age twelve. He began playing in various rock and
hardcore punk bands in his teenage years,
and later graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in
Boston.
Upon graduation he moved to Providence, Rhode Island and then to New York City.
He is
Jewish.
Career
2000s: Early installations and albums
Working as a drummer,
guitarist, and composer in New York, Keszler soon became known for accompanying his music performances with live installations and visual elements, sometimes utilizing drawings, diagrams, screen prints, and writings. His sound installations and visual pieces "often use microprocessor-controlled motors to strike, scrape and vibrate various lengths of
piano wire as well as other materials."
He released his first album,
Livingston, in 2008 on Rare Youth Records, which was followed by
Oxtim in 2010 on
ESP-Disk.
2011-14: Cold Pin and collaborations
Keszler released his album
Cold Pin in 2011, on Pan Records. In the summer of 2011,
Wire Magazine hosted streams of Keszler's live music on their website.
Wire described one track as "a recording of a quintet performing with Keszler's 14 string, 40 x 15 foot mechanical sound installation,
Cold Pin. The installation consists of 'three to five 25 foot long strings with motors, wire, a curved wall, micro-controllers, pick-ups and phono cables'." His ensemble included Ashley Paul on
saxophone, Geoff Mullen on guitar, and others.
In 2012 another of his sound installations was featured in
Pitchfork Media, who wrote that "Keszler deserves recent attention for his large-scale sound art installations, which not only force musical ideas to interact with an acoustic environment but, in turn, for flesh-and-bone musicians to interact with both of them."
He has released a number of solo albums since then, and has toured or collaborated with other such as Ashley Paul, C. Spencer Yeh, Loren Connors, and the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
2014: Alps, Stadium, and tour with Oneohtrix Point Never
In November 2014, Keszler released the collaborative album
Alps, which he recorded with
Oren Ambarchi, an experimental guitarist and composer.
Alps was written as a two-part suite divided into two tracks. Music critic Fred Thomas of
AllMusic gave
Alps 4/5 stars, writing that "these duets merge Ambarchi's symphonic and sometimes storytelling feedback with nonstop blasts of scattershot drumming from Keszler for an attack of noisy improvisation. Keszler's fluid and anxiety-ridden percussion style is a perfect companion for Ambarchi's grizzly guitar stabs and horror movie drones."
2016 saw the release of Last Signs of Speed, Keszler's eighth studio album, through the German label Empty Editions.
In 2018, Keszler released his ninth studio album, Stadium, through Shelter Press to positive reviews. That same year, Keszler was a collaborator on American electronic musician Oneohtrix Point Never's Age Of. He also toured with him among other artists for the album's accompanying performance installation, MYRIAD. In 2019 Keszler released the Empire EP, his final release with Shelter Press.
2021
In July 2021, Keszler released his tenth studio album,
Icons, on LuckyMe.
2022
Keszler provided the musical score for Alex Lee Moyer's film
Alex's War and attended the premier in Austin, Texas with his partner
Anna Khachiyan.
2023
Keszler collaborated with American electronic producer
Skrillex on his album
Quest for Fire for the track "A Street I Know".
Visual art and installation
In conjunction with his performances he has had exhibitions of his visual work installations at the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Kitchen, South London Gallery,
LUMA Foundation, Harpa Hall at the Tectonics Festival in Reykjavík,
Centraal Museum in
Utrecht, Boston Center for the Arts, Barbican - St. Lukes amongst other places. In 2014, he presented a performance/installation with
David Grubbs at the
MIT List Center.
An article on his work was featured in
Modern Painters Magazine, focusing on his drawing, score writing and installation.
Style and influences
"Mr. Keszler’s work presents several paradoxes. A percussionist with roots in punk rock and free improvisation, he fuses chaos and order in his drumming: a burble and clatter akin to what European drummers like Tony Oxley and Han Bennink invented in the late 1960s to distinguish their work from American free jazz...." |
| — The New York Times (2012) |
Keszler is known for incorporating the sounds of diverse genres, including
punk rock,
free jazz, and free improvisation. About his tendencies as a composer, Keszler has stated "Oftentimes, musically I find myself attracted to things that are so slow they seem fast and so fast they seem slow—when you have so many hits that they eventually turn into a long tone."
He explained to
NPR's
All Things Considered, "I like to work with raw material, simple sounds, primitive or very old sounds."
His live performances often are fused with sound installation and visual art, and various guest artists have contributed. The New York Times described Keszler's work as "using rigorously conceived scores to harness the inchoate energy of improvisation and its capacity for surprise."
Discography
Albums
| 2008
! |
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Released: 2008
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Label: Rare Youth Records
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| 2010
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| 2011
! |
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Released: 2011
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Label: Pan Records
|
| 2012
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| 2012
! |
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Released: 2012
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Label: NNA Tapes
|
| 2014
! |
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Released: Nov 11, 2014
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Label: Dancing Wayang
|
| 2016
! |
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Released: Nov 25, 2016
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Label: Empty Editions
|
| 2018
! |
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Released: Oct 12, 2018
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Label: Shelter Press
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| 2021
! |
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Released: June 25, 2021
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Label: LuckyMe
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| 2025
! |
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Released: May 2, 2025
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Label: LuckyMe
|
Soundtracks and scores
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The Scary of Sixty-First (2021)
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Harka (2022)
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Alex's War (2022)
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Pet Shop Days (2023)
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Bad Shabbos (2024)
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www.RachelOrmont.com (2024)
-
Bunnylovr (2025)
Personal life
Keszler has a son with
Anna Khachiyan, born in 2021.
Further reading
- Interviews
- Discographies
See also
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External links
- Audio and video
