Lost And Sound
Lost and Sound is a podcast exploring the most exciting and innovative voices in underground, electronic, and leftfield music worldwide. Hosted by Berlin-based writer Paul Hanford, each episode features in-depth, free-flowing conversations with artists, producers, and pioneers who push music forward in their own unique way.
From legendary innovators to emerging mavericks, Paul dives into the intersection of music, creativity, and life, uncovering deep insights into the artistic process. His relaxed, open-ended approach allows guests to express themselves fully, offering an intimate perspective on the minds shaping contemporary sound.
Originally launched with support from Arts Council England, Lost and Sound has featured groundbreaking artists including Suzanne Ciani, Peaches, Laurent Garnier, Chilly Gonzales, Sleaford Mods, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Coxon, Saint Etienne, Ellen Allien, A Guy Called Gerald, Jean Michel Jarre, Liars, Blixa Bargeld, Hania Rani, Roman Flügel, Róisín Murphy, Jim O’Rourke, Yann Tiersen, Thurston Moore, Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Caterina Barbieri, Rudy Tambala (A.R. Kane), more eaze, Tesfa Williams, Slikback, NikNak, and Alva Noto.
Paul Hanford is a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller whose work bridges music, culture, and human connection. His debut book, Coming to Berlin, is available in all good bookshops.
Lost and Sound is for listeners passionate about electronic music, experimental sound, and the people redefining what music can be.
Lost And Sound
Eli Keszler
Eli Keszler joins me this week to talk about rethinking sound, space, and what it means to create music in an uncertain world. A lifelong percussionist, Eli’s work has often explored the edges of rhythm and texture—dismantling traditional approaches and rebuilding them into something uniquely his own.
Eli isn’t just a percussionist who produces great albums though. A visual arist and a creative mentor who has collaborated with everyone from Oneohtrix Point Never to Laurel Halo to Skrillex. We talk about how his relationship with the studio has shifted over time, how working in film has expanded his compositional approach, and how speed and density in performance can create a strange kind of stillness. His new self-titled album on LuckyMe marks his eleventh solo release and reflects years of process, reflection, and experimentation.
The conversation also opens out into something I‘m currently really interested in asking artists‘ opinions on: how the function of music itself is changing. As digital culture reshapes how we interact, consume, and listen, Eli reflects on the possibility that music might be returning to something more spiritual, more tactile—more connected to personal and communal practice than product. We talk about the idea of a “humanist retreat” from the frictionlessness of tech, and how creative work might serve as a space to resist or reimagine that drift.
Listen to Eli Keszler’s music:
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Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
Want to go deeper? Grab a copy of my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.
And if you’re curious about Cold War-era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.
Hi, paul, here, and welcome to Lost in Sound, the show that goes deep, with artists shaping music and culture from the underground up Now. There aren't many percussionists that carry such a distinctive solo voice as Eli Keszler. But Eli, as you'll go on to hear in a few minutes, is so much more than that. But before we get going, lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio-Techn technica, the global but family-run company that make headphones, microphones, turntables, cartridges, studio quality yet affordable products, because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to audio technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, let's do the show, shall we? Thank you, hello and welcome to episode 176 of Lost in Sound.
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and this is the show where, each week, I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity and about how they're navigating their life through their art. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's good to have you along. I'm speaking to you today from a rather sunny Kreuzberg in Berlin. I'm, as usual, I'm sort of perched on a chair outside a cafe along a street and it's a Friday and there we go. I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a really fantastic one today too. So I had this conversation yesterday and it's a really good one.
Speaker 1:It gets pretty pretty damn deep and that's all down to the eruditeness is that how you say it, erudite, whatever of my guest, Eli Keszler, composer, percussionist, visual artist and one of the most distinctive voices to come out of New York. In the last 15 or so years. He's collaborated with the likes of 10 tricks, point never, skrillex and laurel halo. He's contributed to soundtracks including uncut gems and pet shop days, and eli's latest release, his 11th solo album would you believe it? It's self-titled and it's out on lucky me, and it's a thing of beauty. It's more song based than his other work and across the 12 tracks he leans into something a lot more looser than you might expect and there's guest vocals from people like Sophie Royer and Sam Gendel, and it's got this thing that I've always really loved about his music, which seems to be this combination of being incredibly fast and very slow all at the same time. He's a deep guy and he has some really interesting perspectives on art and creativity.
Speaker 1:So we spoke about what it means to create solo as a drummer, how he brings together the roles of composer and visual artist all together. And we do sort of go into this intermittently, on and off running theme of the show that I'm interested in pursuing this year, which is really like asking people what they feel the role of music and art is in the world right now. Like you don't need me to say that things globally feel like they're falling apart. They feel insane and I'm interested to know, like, what role music and art has in that. And and eli has some really interesting perspectives on that um, before we get going, if you like the show and you haven't already, please give it a subscribe, give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. If you got five or ten minutes to do so, it's super appreciated. And yeah, um, so we had this chat, as I said, yesterday, which was july the 10th, 2025, and this is what happened when I met eli kesler how are things with you? Um, how are you doing right now?
Speaker 2:uh, pretty good man. Uh it's been, uh it's been busy. I'm working on a score for a film and, um, doing a bunch of projects and a lot in New York, which has been good, and not doing a lot of traveling over the summer, which is a nice change of pace. Actually, it's a lot of studio projects and things like this, so I'm not having to get on too many flights or long car rides, you know, outside of going to the beach or whatever.
Speaker 1:So it's been pretty good, nice one. Do you feel like generally more at home in the studio just getting on with projects than than the kind of more the touring life and the jumping around life?
Speaker 2:I can get into both. I mean, I really like making music so by the time I'm on the stage, whatever got me to that point feels pretty worth it. You know, it's kind of water under the bridge, but I do really like the quiet of being in a studio. I've really grown to appreciate that over time. It's funny because I didn't used to feel that way. Honestly, when I was first starting, I kind of dreaded going to the studio. Actually I was like anything to was first starting, I kind of dreaded going to the studio. Actually I was like anything, anything to not be there. I just wanted to be on stage or doing some weird project in a tunnel somewhere or something like that. And now I just like my little you know hole.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you think that's an aging?
Speaker 2:thing, I don't know. I was just thinking that I'd like to say no, but it could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And do you think like I mean, I guess on the opposite end of that is what do you think it was that kept you away from the studio when you were younger?
Speaker 2:I think that I honestly, you know, I don't think I quite knew how to use it in a way for my own work, Like I always had this real commitment.
Speaker 2:I mean I still do have a real commitment to, like you know, acoustic music and the ways that it can extend in various ways.
Speaker 2:You know. So it's like it's not I use a lot of electronic tools, obviously, ways you know. So it's like it's not I use a lot of electronic tools, obviously, but I've always been interested in like very tactile ways of making things, and so I I think I always saw recording as like as an artifice which of course it is, you know but I wasn't quite sure the best way to to use it to express something. It took took me quite a long time, honestly, to figure out a way that felt authentic to my work. And I mean, for a long time I always recorded and worked with recordings, but it would be a lot of times in my home studio or in my basement or whatever it was. And then it wasn't until I kind of got into the process of documenting acoustic sound, like with microphones and all this, that I started to kind of understand the magic for myself, you know. And now it's kind of you know, it's what I spend most of my time doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sort of feels like there's like a little bit of letting go in order to appreciate or get into it there, like you know, you sort of mentioned I might be be wrong here, but you mentioned about like documenting the process of things. I interpret it perhaps like getting into, like the, the getting inside processes, rather than trying to rush an end result um, yeah, I think it's about the.
Speaker 2:I think's true, it's about understanding the process for sure, I mean, I think one of the, I mean definitely. I mean I have really strong memories of the first times hearing myself on replay, on recording, and it is a shocking experience, especially, like you know, for people of my generation. I mean, I'm 41. And so I came of age, like you know, my dad had a four track tape recorder. That's what I learned how to work on and you know music was something you made and you know you went to a studio. I caught the very tail end of that thing where if you wanted to hear yourself recorded, you paid a lot of money and went into a studio. And then, you know, things like M boxes and these sort of cheap interfaces started to be available and all of a sudden you could hear it, hear everything. And now if you're a 17 year old musician now, I mean you don't, you have no idea what that even means. So you just are constantly hearing yourself and recording. It's just such a part of it. So I think for me there was really like that experience of looking in the mirror for the first time and being a little scared scared of what I saw and it took me it's really, and there is an art to, to hearing something unfinished and not feeling the need to box it in before it's done to sort of understand that it's. It's frayed, right now it's broken, but you have to let you know. It's like a painting, right. You have to like let it dry, right, you know it's like you don't. You don't just seal it, you know when the paints are still wet, unless you want the paints to get fucked up. That's what recording is like, I think. In some ways you go all right, that's not perfect, but I'm not going to finish that, I'm going to move on and you keep moving on and then it it forms like organically, and I think that that was a real learning process for me.
Speaker 2:And, oddly enough, in certain other domains, like you know, I went to a conservatory and studied score writing.
Speaker 2:So with score writing, because of how just brutally laborious it can be and really it's really quite shockingly slow process, or maybe not shockingly slow I remember when I first was doing it, I had this teacher said to me like cause I was making these pieces and I was jumping, I would write two bars and then jump and I do another idea and he said to me it really stuck with me. You know, it's like Eli, you know those two bars may have taken you like five hours, but that's like three seconds for the audience, you know. So, like there's an inherent understanding of this, when you're writing scores, you go like this is here, this is here. It's like you're mapping out, like it's almost like an architectural thing. You know, but with recording and with sound, it's so tactile that it's sometimes hard to just not try to get into sound design and this kind of thing early in the process. You know, and I think that was a big thing for me too, honestly, yeah, I really love the way you explain that.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm I'm also like a child of the Tascam four track generation as well, and I think I had like a very early experience of being in a band and paying like a local sound engineer in like one of those local studios, uh to, to, you know, help us demos, and then right, you're, basically you're given, at the end of the day, you would be given what they did, their interpretation of, yeah, mix down, and that that is uh, and quite. I think for quite often that's not representative of like what your ideas were. You know what I what, definitely what my ideas were. You know it took a long time of experimenting to actually find how to put those across and not just be snapped by. I guess, like the, the audio version of like a wedding portrait photographer no, no, dissing to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, yeah, you got to do what you got to do, but you know it's it's no, it's it's yeah, absolutely, I mean I think. I think, yeah, this is one of those conversations. It's like a very specific thing to to people that were born in the late 20th century, you know, ish, and it's like, it's like what we just totally it's like and you can hear it now. I mean, the way people play instruments, I mean, you know, in some ways they've never been better. I mean I actually don't think that they're better. That's my. I could talk about that if you want.
Speaker 2:But like there's, there's an incredible like virtuosity and and um, speed and precision. It's like perfected in a way, and I think a lot of that has to do with just their ready availability to being able to hear yourself. You know, like it just wasn't possible really. I mean you could, you could have a tape recorder, maybe you had access to a studio, but most people didn't, you know, and um and uh. So, yeah, it took me.
Speaker 2:It took me quite some time, I think, to understand, to embrace the, the tools really in a way, and like to find a way through it and like part of that, honestly, was just sort of on that same tip, I think. Like you know, once streaming, streaming MP3s and that kind of thing made way to streaming. There's this very odd moment where I mean maybe you've experienced you'd go to a party and you'd be with you know smart people with house filled with like books and beautiful art and like food and nice furniture, and you'd go and sit down at a table to have like a drink or something and they would be like can someone put on some music?
Speaker 2:and they'd go oh, we don't have a stereo, you know, yeah, there was that weird moment where it's like you know, because people, you know people would have a console or like a cd player attached to a sound system or tape or whatever, and then, like all of a sudden, they're not listening to cds. They move, they get rid of it and then they're left with nothing, or like a tiny little bluetooth speaker. I can't, I can't count the number of times I'd go to somebody's house like that and we I'd end up putting like a phone and a cup you know, and it's just massive change, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it was a massive change and I frankly like during that entire period of time. This is probably like my, you know, late 20s ish or something.
Speaker 2:I just was like, why would I make a record under this situation? Like, who's it for? You know, I mean, obviously there's always been the kind of collector, audiophile and, like you know, super music fan that never let go of that and like that, you know, that's wonderful. But like, if you're wanting to reach just like you're, you know, interesting people with your work, it's like, well, they don't even have a fucking speaker, you know, let alone head didn't have. There was no nice headphones, there was none of that at that time.
Speaker 2:It was like the little apple earbuds and an iphone and a in a cup, you know, yeah, and I'm like and just, there's just no way that I could. I just really couldn't think of ways to like make recordings that spoke to that moment honestly. And so, fast forward a few years later, it's like, for better or for worse, you have like the streaming takeover and then you have those. Everyone all of a sudden had like nice Bluetooth headphones and we're kind of walking around all the time either listening to music or to podcasts and it was in a weird way. It's like this kind of quiet audio revolution that happened, you know, and I started to think, well, okay, if I'm going to make music like this is the way music is consumed now. It's consumed while walking, it's while living your life.
Speaker 1:And I tried to make music with that in mind and it opened up a whole lane, at least in my imagination. Really interesting music to be very acknowledging of the climate of how people listen to music, rather than perhaps holding on to this sort of you know, like that, you have to hear it on the, you know on like the thickest vinyl, on the, on the best but best speakers ever. You know, it's like this. That's not necessarily the realistic way that people enjoy music now.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't think it is and like I don't know. I mean, I mean I, I would prefer that you know that'd be my preference and that happens and I'm grateful, I'm incredibly grateful, that people take what I do and listen to it. You know, in the right setting and it's beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:But, like you know, there's just the reality of day-to-day life and you see the way people listening to music and it's like you know, and also you know, um, if I was, uh, if I was 18 years old, and you know, in some five share apartment kind of thing, they're not going to have a beautiful hi-fi vacuum, whatever it was, vacuum cleaner things on the record, whatever they're gonna have, like they're gonna have a fucking pair of headphones, you know, and so like that's you want to reach.
Speaker 2:I don't to me, like you make the work you make and like you know, to some degree you're in control of it and, on the other hand, like it's kind of the muse moving through you and like your history and like everything. Right, it's complicated, but I think a good, my rule of thumb anyways, is like try to communicate to as many people as possible with, within the confines of what of you being your, your authentic self. You know, some people are blessed and they're born, you know, and they're a Bob Dylan and they like speak to everybody and they're also, you know, great respected artists and this and that and other people you know do something way more esoteric and like that's who they are. But I think the bottom line is like the goal is to reach as many people, and so I always try to make stuff with that in mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and so I always try to make stuff with that in mind do, like, do you feel like each of these practices do they run alongside each other for you, or do you do you sort of view, like, like, say, particularly between, like, the visual art and the music as the most two, I guess the two, the two most obvious separations there? Like it, are they separate things for you or is it? Are they connected?
Speaker 2:well, I mean, you know. So I I think going back you know, many years now, like when I first started to be interested in making my own music, um, and making records and, you know, touring and writing and all this. I was at school and I was taking a lot of different information. I was in boston at the time and I was there. There was a really great like local scene of experimental music. There was great like there were lofts all over the city putting on concerts. People were coming from all over the world. They were, you know, very open. It was a really good vibe.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of older people kind of like looking out for younger people and kind of like.
Speaker 2:You know, I was quietly in the corner and I gradually sort of started to talk to people and found that I played and they, you know, included me in things and I was very encouraged. And that was the same with, you know, some of the theaters in Boston. I connected with a lot of people at MIT's radio station and I was able to go and get into free screenings at, like, the Harvard Film Archive and all these great theaters. I saw lots of incredible cinema, experimental cinema, and so it's this very organic thing. And you know, my observation at that time is other kids I knew who were studying music at a school like not so much the art school people that were like already completely free. You know they were trying to figure out how to navigate like contemporary music and like what's going on now with the reality that they like play an instrument really well and have like studied and they're kind of you know, they went to school and they, they bit the apple, so to speak.
Speaker 2:you know, and and I, I, I was a little bit weirded out, to be honest, because almost all of them uniformly quit their instrument, you know, and, um, they were all interested in making like electronic music and their laptop music and they kind of abandoned this thing.
Speaker 2:that they did really well you know, and I always thought that was so odd because it was like they, that was like a superpower almost, you know and and I, I really don't think that the the vehicle for expression, like you know. If I it matters, of course, but it's like it's just a means of getting something inside was a kid, we'd be having a different conversation.
Speaker 2:But I don't think the conversation would be that different in a way, because the work would have gone in different directions, but I would still be outputting something that I think is deeper than the tools you know. And so I tried to. Anyways, I tried to navigate that world through my instrument and not just abandon it, which was quite painful actually, because I was, you know, I spent many years like struggling to figure out what that would mean and through that process, like I more or less had to like disassociate myself from the instrument, I really found that to be the most productive thing. Like I took it apart, I tried it every element independently together, putting things it on top of it, preparing it really just like dismantling it completely. And through that process, like I, it just kind of naturally opened up doors to like experimenting with spaces and I had already been writing scores. So the scores and I ended up kind of you know, just naturally, because I'm doing installations I started making diagrams and kind of layouts, architectural kind of maps for these pieces that were dealing with space. And then all of a sudden I'm like got these beautiful things on paper and they're showing in galleries and it's like I'm working in gallery spaces and through that. I met all these people in the art world and you know this and that.
Speaker 2:So it's just, it's been a quite organic process and quite interconnected and I think that my main, my main philosophy, like I said, is just like following the path I, I I don't wake up in the morning and and think about um, I don't identify myself as a drummer, I don't identify myself as anything. To be honest with you, I am very liberated in that sense. I just I just kind of wake up and I go like, well, this is what I'm going to do today. If I don't foresee this happening, but, like, if I just decided I didn't want to do do this anymore, I would. I would feel some emotional intensity around it, but I would just follow that instinct. You know, I'm very instinctive, you you know, and I think that if you follow your instincts, um, things happen that are interesting and surprising and, you know, hopefully productive, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah because I think instinct is connected to authenticity and authenticity is connected to, like, the artistic expression that you you may not even know what the artistic expression is, but it sounds like I don't mean you, but I mean us, uh, but it sounds like you know what you were saying about, like, deconstructing the, the drum kit, um, and going through this process of like questioning, like the role of instrumentation in a time when people are like, uh, getting rid of, like their instruments and getting laptops, a bit like that James Murphy tune, losing my edge, um, it's. There is something that sort of fund, a very fundamental about, like you know, the creativity being inside you and it's very transferable to different skill sets.
Speaker 2:It is, and you know like I looked. I looked to artists. You know there are many artists that are hugely influential to me and I I kind of did of did a uh survey of the ones that I really loved, and all of them seem to work this way in one way or the other, and I was like, well, I have this impulse to do this, and all the great ones tend to work across multiple mediums, so I'm just going to lean into it. That was sort of my philosophy and I'm really glad I do. I'm also very lucky, like New York City is a very special place in this regard. There's a ton of different communities and many of them overlap going to concerts and artists and musicians and all kinds of things happening together. It's all intermingled socially, and so I think it's a very special place. Like you know, you're in Berlin, right? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like Berlin's, like this too, or London you know, there are these great cities that are. If, if you stay open to it, that kind of thing can happen. Also, you know, I also just because I've always been interested in visual art and I can kind of communicate to artists about music verbally in a way that makes sense to them, I've ended up collaborating a lot with various artists and writing music for their exhibitions and various projects, and so it's been like an interesting process in that regard too that, like you know, I I do work in the art world as a musician, yeah, which is different than being an artist, exactly you know, yeah, definitely, definitely, and these things are always being like reconfigured and uh re-evaluated.
Speaker 1:And I mean, I was very interested looking at your Instagram like noticing that, you know, last month you did this uh, creative visions and personal idioms uh workshop um, and I feel like that kind of connects a little bit with what we're talking about. Just in terms of my impression of seeing the Instagram post, I have no idea what the course was like. You ran this workshop um about, like getting people to be in touch with their creative intentions, and I was wondering, like for you, like, firstly, if you could explain a little bit about that like without wanting to give away, like basically like the secrets of a course that you have to attend to do.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm happy to preach the gospel, you know I well, ok, so you know I've always been really interested in creative processes in general. I mean, probably what I just said would make that fairly obvious, since, like I've had this, I think, fairly unusual trajectory, and you know it's partially just, you know, being in, like being a very verbal person and being kind of in or hyper verbal I wouldn't say I'm verbal, I just talk a lot like being in, you know, kind of exploring these ideas in my own head and like looking back a bit too and being like how did I start here and end here? It is sometimes or end, hopefully not, but like end up at this moment here. I've wondered a lot like how that happened, you know, and I've taught a lot, and like I've just noticed certain tendencies in students and like one of the main ones is that like intentions get quite muddy in the creative process and I think right now there's never been greater tools to be muddier creatively.
Speaker 2:Like going back to what we were saying about, like working on four tracks, right, I mean, they're called four tracks. You had four tracks, right? Yes, you had extreme limitations, you know, and, um, people did amazing things with that machine. You know, for instance I mean if you listen to like alien lanes guided by voices or something that's done, 100 on the four track.
Speaker 1:It's fucking amazing that totally like last week I was speaking with adam witsy from uh stars of the lid, you know, and all their stuff was done on four track and right um, I remember that myself that the decision making that you have to do when you're going to bounce down, you only have four tracks and yeah, but you can bounce down and there's there's there's some sort of sound degradation when you do that um, which is part of the process of it, but you have to make these sort of decisions about yeah, once you've bounced a decision change that again.
Speaker 1:You know it's constant decision making, and so I think.
Speaker 2:I think that we you know the creative tools that most musicians are using uh, encourage the opposite of that, in a way Like something like Ableton, you know, I mean, it's a great tool, I use it, but like you end up, like you know, you go in, you open the session with no idea, zero intention, right, and then you put a sound down, you're looping it. Anything that you loop over and over again eventually will sound interesting. I mean, that's just a beautiful thing about loops, you know, um, and then you know you add an effect, you do this, you do that and you end up with something like fine, you know it's fine, like it's passably fine sounding, but like what, what, what, what is it? And then what do you do with that thing? How does it change over time? Like what's the point of it? Why did you even do that in the first place? You know it. Like there's a million questions, none of which you've answered, because the machine doesn't ask you any of those questions.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think, like you know, older technology, for better and for worse, made you just like make decisions, and you know there's people say this thing. Like you know, I got an actually like a friendly argument, let's say, with Holly Herndon a while ago.
Speaker 1:Who's a massive advocate for the future, future-facing technology?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have, like we've had many spirited discussions about this. I'll just say I'll say it like that, but she I mean, I've known them for a very long time, like since I was like 20 years old, and anyways, like she said this thing that I really got to me, to be honest with you. She said that like the computer is I remember the exact quote it's like something the computer is the ultimate instrument, or the computer is, is the instrument of our time. And I'm like, well, by definition, a computer is not an instrument and the instrument does, does one or a few things. It's specific in what it does.
Speaker 2:A computer can do anything right, so it's something different. Like a computer is like an entity or a companion or like a mainframe. It's like a hub, right, but it's not an instrument. Like a guitar is an instrument. A guitar does guitar things right. A keyboard does keyboard things right. A drum does you know? Whatever A scalpel does is an instrument. So so I think that, like you really have to, in a way, the point of the chorus, like one way of thinking of it, is to try to encourage people to define their own instruments in a way. I don't frame it exactly like that, but it's like you need to now do the opposite that previous generations of artists have done, which is to think, like I can do anything I want, so what do I want to do? It's like the world and there's. There's the technological component of that, and then there's the cultural component of that, which is that, like, people just frankly aren't offended by art anymore.
Speaker 1:Hmm, or even that. Can you explain a bit more about that?
Speaker 2:Well, I just don't think people are very. I just don't think, like you know, in the 1950s or even the 60s, like if you said a curse, even a curse word, right you would, you get banned from all radio. You've never, you know, and now you still get banned from the little beep on the radio station, but no one. That doesn't matter. It doesn't affect the numbers on social media or spotify or whatever. Like it doesn't affect the numbers on social media or Spotify or whatever. Like it doesn't affect the economic bottom line of anything. So there's just that.
Speaker 2:There's just like this sense. It's like you know, it's not even. I'm not even arguing a conservative point here. I'm just saying it's like you can do anything you want artistically and no one will care. You know you can. You can wear like some fucked up sexual, ultra sexual outfit. You can wear like some fucked up sexual, ultra sexual outfit. You can parade around with like bondage gear and like whatever you want naked, drunk, cursing. There's very, very few things that are taboo artistically and I think that, like you know, that's very. It's very hard to make art when there's nothing to push against.
Speaker 1:It's like there's no walls, you know, because there is an element of art that needs that friction, that societal. You know that, yeah, the societal friction, something, something from underneath, something that's perhaps in the zeitgeist but isn't spoken coming through.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's exactly right. It's like a subconscious state, you know, and that obviously still exists. That's 100% there. It's just that, like to tap into that, the means have changed just drastically to get there, like it really used to be, like I mean, just getting your music on to people, the potential to reach people was very, very, very low likelihood, right, I mean it still is. But you, anything that gets put on the internet has the potential to reach the whole world, you know.
Speaker 2:So there, that the whole apparatus and like system of distribution and me, you know, even, like I mean, I really think you know I could go on and on about this, but I think we're going through a pretty huge, like cataclysmic change at the moment. You know, I don't think, I think it's definitely unique in my experience and I think like, yeah, it's a time to think in these kinds of terms for artists, kinds of terms for artists and like in the course, we're looking at um, like our artist manifestos, um, from like the, you know, the 20s and then the 60s and some older ones too, from like victorian and some even older stuff that I found like medieval manifestos on music and things like this, to kind of look at like these moments when it felt essential to stake a claim because there was a structural need required from the artists that wasn't in previous times. You know, and I think if you look at those eras, unfortunately they're quite volatile, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, I figure like futurists.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. It's like you have these moments where it's like, you know, on the verge of fascism, communism, and then you have, um, the, you know, post-war generation of artists, like in europe, you know, making art when you know their culture and society has been literally blown up or destroyed, and so it's like, well, what do you do then, you know, and I, I don't think, thankfully, like you know, depends on how you look at it. I don't think that we're quite there, but I think like it's a time to to think about things in these kinds of terms, and it's more structural terms again.
Speaker 1:So that's the that's the course yes, sounds so fascinating and that does lead on and you might have even answered this, but that leads on to like what I was next gonna ask you, which is like it does feel like we're on the verge of some kind of like you know, like you said big shift. It can feel very doom based at the moment, like you know, various factors, whether it's, like you know, like what's going on in the Middle East, or AI, or the environment or the rise of fascism.
Speaker 1:It feels very much like it can be very overwhelming. And you may have got, you have hinted at this, but I was wondering for you what kind of role art has in in a time when you know we might, we could be forgiven for just packing up our bags and heading for the woods.
Speaker 2:No, I mean no, fair enough. And you know I'm I really struggle with this all the time. I'm a very, I'm a very, very. I wake up, I'm I've worked on being less. I'm very sensitive person. I take in a lot of information from, from people and from things, and so I can be very affected emotionally and so I have to actually like create blocks around things.
Speaker 2:Well, and with certain people in certain situations, cause it's almost too intense to even look at, you know, for me and I look at what's happening and, yeah, no, it's, it's really is very, I mean, there's just no doubt about it. Like I said, this is unlike any time, I think any, almost anyone's. I don't think there's almost anyone alive that's lived in this. Like I think about my grandfather who, who died at 99 in like 2005, and he grew up on lower manhattan and there were horses down there. You know he grew up in a tenement building and when he died, the world.
Speaker 2:You know there's internet, tech, cars and you know all sorts of stuff and you look at that, that that generation is probably the closest to what we're going through, like the pre-electric trucks, pre-electrical grid generation. It's like that big of a change and you know, I think, um, it's the jury's out as to what exactly happens with all of that, but you know, I think, in like, I think that one thing is true is that, you know, I've been, I've been and again, um, going back to this same argument or I had with holly hernd, matt Matt Dryhurst, her partner like was friendly, by the way, but we got a little intense, it sounds like it sounds like there's a kind of like cordial like.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I just I just, I just disagree with them about some things, but it's fine, you know, there I respect them very much, uh. But I, um, I spoke to them and I said, you know, like the whole premise of your argument about ai, the whole premise of ai's effect on music and art, is that art is this fixed thing in it's a that art, art and music is, specifically is art is an object in itself, right, like music, you know, it's such a. It still kind of shakes me sometimes when we talk about music, I mean, I do it all the time you're like, oh, he was such a great musician, he made such amazing records, you know, he made amazing records. Like, well, that's a new concept, right, like you know, bach and mozart, beethoven, they wrote music on paper, but they there's no records of them playing. Of course, that would be wonderful if there was. But the point is, is that, like there's this idea of music being fixed in space and that it even has an author, right, like that's also a fairly recent concept, like music existed forever without authorship? They were just, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I think we're going through a period where I think, almost like, music is going to return back to a state that it was. I mean, this is not good news for professional musicians, I think, unfortunately. But I think we're more and more moving towards a place where, like, art will become a more personal and spiritual practice again, which is, think, what it is. Actually it's just been very much connected with capital and the financial system, because everything is, you know, there are beneficiaries of that, obviously, including myself. I mean, I feel incredibly lucky to squeak by doing what I do, you know. Yeah, I think more or less like we're living through a time where I think art will become a real, it will be for people to practice almost like religion and I think, like you'll see schools emerge and like all sorts of new infrastructures. You can already kind of see this.
Speaker 2:Even in this like program I'm teaching, I mean there's a real sense with the students there that they want to connect with other people, and a lot of them actually I've taught more than one course that they actually stay in touch with each other. It's really nice and they like exchange and collaborate and there's like this sense where, like they're doing it, I mean they want, I'm sure they want to make some of them want to have careers as artists. But there's a. There's a bigger thing there, right, where it's like art and music is way deeper than a recording. Okay, it really is. It's something like it's about as profound a thing as you could imagine, you know, and so I think it's been treated as something that's kind of on the level of a consumer good, more or less, and I think it's being decommodified, which is quite sad. But time marches on, you know, I think.
Speaker 2:I think, um, it'll be drastically different but I, you know, I I think also, I don't know, I don't know how much you go on youtube to like watch news or videos or stuff, but more and more, too, I click on there and I'm getting fed just like weird ai generated versions of like news shows or writers that I like or whatever, and I'm just like I just turn it off because I'm like this is horrible. I don't want to listen to this. I think more and more that the technological world is going to become like pretty uninhabitable by a lot of people, like not everybody. There's definitely going to be people that will be swallowed by the system and we'll just turn into zombies in a in a very upsetting way. But I think, um, for a lot of people there's going to be like a kind of humanist retreat away from it, because I'm just I find myself less and less on my phone personally. I, I I notice just I pick it up and I'm like god, this thing is. It's like the devil. It really kind of is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I mean I wish I was a little bit more able to put my phone oh, it's so hard, me too, man, it's like impossible 100% agree with you.
Speaker 2:You know, I think we all struggle and the fact that, like I'm a very disciplined person, you know, I practice music every day, I go to the gym, I'm careful with what I put in my body, you know, like I can't fucking control myself around that thing. And what does that tell you about it? You know, it's something really dark and so I think that it's going to get darker and darker and that's like there's some good news for that, you know. And, like, the last thing I'll say about this is that like there's I don't know if you've ever um, you've heard the story, but it's quite interesting with the company moleskin, like the notebook company I do have I do have some yeah yeah, so they.
Speaker 2:So you know, right when the internet was kind of like social media was emerging on smartphones, that moleskin was like about to go out of business. They were like suffering. There was no market for like for luxury notebooks. And then, out of nowhere, their business just soared overnight because people saw what the phone was turning them into and was like I want to have something personal and deep and I want to start writing a journal or whatever you know, keeping notes by hand. I don't want to lose that. And now they're like an incredibly successful company because of the technology. So I think that, like I love that anecdote just because it's it's kind of the dualism that I think we all have in us. We're like we want the convenience and the speed, but we also have this like deep spiritual pull towards something else.
Speaker 1:We know, we know, we know what's good for us, I think, fundamentally, but it's the uh, the, the, the, just the, the ridiculous sweet addictive nature of of oh yeah, yeah, pulling us in the other way.
Speaker 1:But I think that was so nicely explained. Yeah, yeah, um, thank you, and it kind of actually encompasses a lot of what I feel about, about that subject as well, or that um, about like the potentiality of like. Yes, well, at least music and art can reconnect with forming something more to do with like the idea of having a being a practice.
Speaker 2:Um, yes, exactly that's the word I use. It's like a practice, right, like people don't really understand that, you know, and like it's interesting because you do have the right. I mean, people are very. I think people have never been more interested in like new age music and things like this, and I think that's that's like there are these little hints at what's coming, you know, and I think you're going to see a rise in like music serving that kind of role in people's lives. I hope I, you know, I hope I hope for more than just kind of um yoga and like gong baths. I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with either of those things, but, like you know, it's like there's a whole world of music and experience, right, obviously, and I don't think that's going to get lost. But I just think you know the writing's on the wall in a way, that things are going to change drastically, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, definitely, yeah, definitely, and like shifting a little bit, like. So I mean, you're about two months into the album being out now and it's self-titled, but you know, you're also like I think it was about 15 or 16 years into like a at least releasing records.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean like the album feels to me.
Speaker 1:I mean, it feels like a kind of, in a way, like a culmination, but I don't want to overstep myself on saying that. But for you, what was the sort of cause?
Speaker 2:there's a sort of assumption if you're going to like, self title an album you're sort of staking a bit of a claim about yeah, what was that for you? I mean, I, I think that's accurate. I mean I think I, I, um, I, uh, yeah, I mean it does feel like the culmination of a, of a, of a, of many years of kind of like dancing around certain ideas and then deciding it's time to do it. And, and you know, there's been a lot of like personal changes in my life and also musical changes. I mean, I've started scoring films in the last six years and I mean there's a lot I could say about that.
Speaker 2:But, like, one of the really wonderful parts of film scoring is that, like you're just thrown in so many different musical situations all the time. And there are people that come to you because they're fans of your music or or they've heard another score you've done. And then there is also the other type of director which is somebody who's like doesn't know exactly what they want musically, but knows, you know they're the producer recommends me or a friend recommends me, and they're not coming to me because of my history as a musician. They're coming to me because I'm a guy who's trustworthy to to score a film and when that happens, sometimes that can be the most exciting thing, because they're they don't. They're not like do your thing, they're like I want this, you know, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like can you do what you did before? Do what you did before. That that bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, like, or they're like I want. I want this specific thing, you know, like I want. Can you write music like in this kind of style, with this feeling? And then, like, the challenge for me is like, cause I you know, because I do have like a history of doing my own music is like, how do I connect with that? How do I find my way through that style?
Speaker 2:And I love that process actually, and I found it to be like extremely rewarding and I think this record is in many ways, the results of that process, of like being put in a lot of different scenarios, being asked to write like music with lyrics and vocals and um, song structures and conventional harmony and all these kinds of things that I like typically have veered away from in my own music, and then discovering like, wow, I actually really like the effect it's having, I like the way it juxtaposes with my, the other material and, um, I like working with lyrics and words and uh, and so when I came to write my own music, like you know, I, instead of just reverting back, like ignoring the the years of work I'd been doing, I said like well, it would be weird for me to not actually use all of that research and and material I developed, and so that's really how this record came about and I think through that process I really like for me anyways found a new world that I can work within. That's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, I mean, like I feel the, the, the, the working in scores, there's a. There's also a very like literal energy of parts of the album to that as well and relating, yeah, in in the cinematicness. I think particularly like a track like wild, wild west has got um, you know, there's a very. It feels like there's a very kind of cheeky lynch, lynchian nod going on there to that. You know like, yeah, what kind of things are we drawing on for that?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I was not really drawn. I mean, you may not believe me here, but it's absolutely the truth. I don't, I wasn't consciously drawing on things, I just was sort of following my ear where it took me. I grew up playing. My dad was a guitar player and I grew up playing tons of surf rock with him, like we do like surf rock instrumentals, and he'd play guitar and I'd play drums and um, and so I have that kind of guitar like just embedded so deep in my memory. It's like just this really deep thing, and and so it naturally comes out and I wrote the lyrics, oddly enough, in Vienna. It's kind of an interesting thing, vinders or something. And yeah, I don't, you know it's difficult for me.
Speaker 2:That question, like drawing from, is a little weird. I don't really know, I don't know where I drew it from, but the feeling I was after there's a real, um sort of industrial darkness to the record. That feels very vivid to me right now and, um, I I wasn't really conceiving, conceiving of it as being related in any way to film, music, the record, but of like, everyone hears it as like a very cinematic. They hear it very cinematically, which I love. That's great. I don't foresee that ever changing, that the music I write will always feel cinematic, because I just hear that way I think very, I follow, like I mean I have formal ideas and this and that, but I'm really following an emotional, the emotional hue of the music and I think when you do that I mean that's really not so different than scoring.
Speaker 1:you know, it's like getting these fine gradations of feeling across you know, and maybe it echoes a little bit back to what we were talking about earlier on, about the kind of intersectionality between the different mediums and how mediums kind of bleed together, you know, um yeah, they do.
Speaker 2:And I also think, like, um, when you start working with lyrics too, like you know, the, the, the lyrics can sometimes um, of course, they, they create images, right and uh, the music can then counter that or double it, or, you know, do a third thing and I think that the other thing that I think's really that I pick up on a lot when I listen to your music is the sort of combination of sort of speed and slowness.
Speaker 1:Um, like there's there's elements of like intense busyness, but there always seems to be this sort of counterbalance where I like. I'm glad you very not, let's say, slow, but like something that, operating on a different wavelength, that they fit together. You know what I mean I.
Speaker 2:I definitely know what you mean. I'm glad you. That's a great I'm I, you know I don't think anyone's ever asked me that I'll do enough, but I, it's something I think about all the time.
Speaker 1:So thank you for the question. Oh no, that's great, okay, um, yeah, yeah I um, yeah, I mean, you know.
Speaker 2:So, going back to like when I first started trying to make my instrument work in the context of like electronic music, I at the time you know there was a lot of great like you know, some of the legendary artists working in drone and minimalism still working, and like I got to play with like Phil Niblock and Tony Conrad, I worked with a lot and these kinds of amazing people and you know I would hear drummers kind of play with drone and like ambient space, ambient music, and it always felt like two layers, like it was like the new drums were here and the music was here on the bottom, or vice versa, um, more that where the drums were just blaring over the top and were taking over. And I was, I tried, I tried a lot of experiments to figure out like how can you sit inside of the texture of very slow music? You know, and I started, I discovered that like, somewhat ironically, like playing with extreme amounts of speed, like almost absurd amounts of speed, creates the feeling of stasis. Right, like you stop hearing. You know, I mean this is actually literally true. Right, like if you take a sine wave and slow it down, you go low enough, you just get beats, you lose pitch, right. And as you speed up it turns into pitch, and the faster you go, the higher it goes right. So like the connection between rhythm and pitch is a literal thing, and that's true on some level even with non-tonal sounds. It's like you stack enough noises, it turns into white noise, right.
Speaker 2:And I started to experiment with that idea and so it was a way for me, because I listened to a lot of very, very slow music, very, very slow Like. I like a lot of down tempo kind of music in general, and I also love composers like Morton Feldman, who's probably maybe amongst my biggest influences, thelonious Monk, who has moments of speed but often plays quite slow, arvo Part I love a lot of very slow music and so to try and make the drums fit into that, I stumbled upon this technique of playing extremely fast and that creates the ability to kind of layer things. It's really a very cool thing. It almost turns into a granular texture on top of the tonal material, and so that allows me to write very slow moving chord progressions and slow moving material and like kind of very melodic and like simple and pure melodies and still have that kind of intense franticness, and so that that's kind of how it, how I think of it.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting. That's like a real hack. Yeah, it's a good hack.
Speaker 2:It also sounds.
Speaker 1:It's sort of like there's something like I think very philosophical about that and you know, but also connected with science as well the yeah, the speed and the slowness, and you know, like I think, you know, I think of when you were saying, I was thinking of like when you, when you see like something in a blender, it stops. You know, the individual, the individuals say you're making a smoothie.
Speaker 2:The individual ingredients just form into one big yeah, there, there's a point where it turns into something else.
Speaker 2:Right, there's a transformative transformation yeah and like and yeah, that's super interesting and like you know, and of course, like speed is a relative thing, like that's the other thing that's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:I mean, mean, that's literally true, right, like relativity, you know, but but also it's, it's, it's also you can experience it even musically like a funny thing that you know often happens is like a band slows down or speeds up, and that's like you look to the drummer, naturally, like, but oftentimes if you listen, it'll be like the bass player or guitarist or whoever kind of speeding up against it and you start to hear, you hear the melody as the point of reference, right, and so, even though the drums are staying the same, they appear to be slowing down, right, so, like time is this very strange and very, you know, on an unapproachably deep topic that like there's all sorts of ways of of messing with it.
Speaker 2:You know, and I often find in my own performances, like when I do a concert, you know, like time just stops at a certain point and I, I, I stop playing after an hour, but I honestly and maybe this is total egomaniacal thinking I don't think think anyone would, really anyone who's there already, let's say would object to me going twice as long, because I think that something happens with this way of making music, where time just kind of changes and it becomes you stop experiencing the kind of the ticking intensity of like minute to minute and it becomes about scale, you know, and there's something really cool about it and I, I mean, I've been working in this way for a really long time and I still don't have any answers about it, so it's it's quite, it's quite deep, you know, in that yeah, yeah, I mean that that.
Speaker 1:I think that's something that also, I find a lot of djs I speak with talk about the sort of the moment of flow state. Yeah, um, it's real where, where, you know, and it's not just about, even about just about the music is about like all of the other elements and how that is, you know, how there's a moment, there's like a biting point, where things lock into place and the audience too.
Speaker 2:in my experience, it's like there's this moment where, like, you can feel everyone tuning in together and like, a good way to instantly test this, if you're a musician, is to, like, take a recording you think is done and play it for five people who you don't know, or don't know what they'll think or who you trust, and you'll hear it completely differently. And it's a really amazing experiment. And it's because, like, we all impact each other's hearing, we're hyper social creatures and like we're infected by the, the collective state, and so, like, if an audience is there and tuning in, it can be really powerful, the way it affects the flow of time and like the feeling in the room, you know, yeah yeah, elo, thank you so much my pleasure paul, love chatting with you yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I'm glad, we glad we finally made it work okay, so that was eli kesler talking with me, paul hanford for the lost and sound podcast, and we had that conversation on july, the 10th, 2025. Thank you so much, eli, for sharing your time and thoughts with me there. And Eli's 11th album, the self-titled Eli Kessler album, is out now on Lucky Me, and, if you've not checked it out yet, it's really really, really fucking good. If you like the show and you haven't already, please do give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on a platform of your choice. It really really really does help. It really lets me know that you're listening and and and also, uh, if you've got any suggestions for artists you would like or things that you think or feel about the show, I'm always really interested to hear your feedback, and it doesn't even need to be good feedback, you know. It's just whatever you think, whatever the fuck you think. If you like what I do and you want to check out more of what I do, you can listen to my BBC radio documentary the man who Smuggled Punk Rock Across the Berlin Wall by heading on over to the BBC Sounds app or on the BBC World Service homepage, and my book Coming to Berlin is still available in good bookshops, independent bookshops, or via the publisher's website, velocity Press. Or via the publisher's website Velocity Press.
Speaker 1:Lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, the global but family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio-quality yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audio-Technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. The music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of lost and sound is by tom giddens, hyperlink, as always in the podcast description. And so yeah, that's it. I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a really, really lovely one and I'll chat to you soon. Thank you.