Eli Keszler
Stadium


4.0
excellent

Review

by YourDarkAffected USER (21 Reviews)
October 18th, 2018 | 20 replies


Release Date: 2018 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Eli Keszler's latest work focuses on crafting a world of movement that only fully reveals itself on repeat listens.

The best thing you can know going into percussionist Eli Keszler’s Stadium is that it works like a Kurosawa film. Movement is a constant, so even when the story stands still, the rain pours, torches burn, and the wind howls before the dust eventually settles. However brief their visit, every touch of muted trumpet, tiptoeing bass, and flourishing harp is the coming and going of realized characters, and each ricocheting, poly-rhythmic drum and clanging cymbal beneath the pitter-patter of wood blocks is the ambient nature these characters inhabit.

And like your twelfth Seven Samurai (1954) or Rashomon (1950) viewing, repeat listens are for letting your ears wander to the other corners of Stadium’s near palpable soundscape and being rewarded for the focused attention. Every time I spin this, I’m amazed by the sheer space occupied, just as much as I am with the space unoccupied, and can only regard this album as a masterclass in maximizing the attention and force of only a few instruments through mixing.

So, forget avant-jazz and forget experimental. If this album can be satisfactorily characterized by any of the near-useless genre terms that have both graced and cursed music journalism, it’s that this is world music: Holistic, evolving, inhabiting, living. Painted on a canvas overlooking Manhattan, Keszler gives this album’s instruments the eclectic color and energy to match the city that never sleeps. At times, in fact, it feels like such controlled chaos of beats amidst a dizzying array of sounds could only have been crafted by an artist transcribing the sounds directly outside his window. Otherwise, how else could this thing sound so damn real?



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user ratings (42)
3.9
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Hi. I finally found an album to bring me back after a 4 year break.

YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Link to bandcamp https://shelterpress.bandcamp.com/album/stadium

klap
Emeritus
October 18th 2018


12410 Comments


ayyyy you're back

YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Yo whaddup Klap

Calc
October 18th 2018


17459 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

*intrigued

luci
October 18th 2018


12844 Comments


not bad at all

YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

What happened to your d?

luci
October 18th 2018


12844 Comments


got castrated

YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

ripd

TwigTW
October 18th 2018


3939 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

It's wild how laid-back this is considering how manic the drumming gets.

Zeneren
October 18th 2018


1088 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

such a sensual masterpiece

robin
October 18th 2018


4596 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

eli's fucking done it again



also why is the artwork just the artwork to that first tim hecker record

YourDarkAffected
October 18th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

"also why is the artwork just the artwork to that first tim hecker record"

[2]

Winesburgohio
Staff Reviewer
November 1st 2018


4178 Comments


wonderful ass review damn

YourDarkAffected
November 4th 2018


1870 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

Thank you, sir!

Phlegm
November 6th 2018


7250 Comments


wat a good time

Winesburgohio
Staff Reviewer
November 7th 2018


4178 Comments


cum visit me in [redacted]

Relinquished
December 20th 2018


48973 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

needs more attention

Orb
December 29th 2018


9493 Comments


Sounds magical. Smashing review!!!

Digging: Mitochondrion - VITRISEPTOME

oltnabrick
March 4th 2019


40765 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

!!!





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