Eje Eje // Mezze

On Mezze, Eje Eje compresses his borderless musical vocabulary into five short pieces that feel less like genre exercises than variations around a shared table. The solo project of Şatellites member Itamar Kluger, Eje Eje has long moved easily between Turkish psychedelia, Middle Eastern traditions, hip-hop-informed rhythm, and global groove; here, that instinct becomes unusually intimate and economical. Inspired by trips into nature spent sharing food, conversation, and old Turkish and Arabic records, Mezze favors space over spectacle, letting drums, bass, quarter-tone guitar, electric bağlama, oud, and vintage keyboards carry the weight. “Beija Flor” threads Gulf percussion through West African pentatonic ideas and desert psych, while “Yemen Eye” turns communal dance music into a loose, slow-motion breakbeat. “Pickled Pine Cones” is the record’s brightest turn, with Romano’s Farfisa flashing across Mediterranean guitar lines, before “Phantom Love” sinks into a more classic 1970s Turkish psychedelic haze. The closing “Rising Fire From The Liver” folds Brazilian percussion and mantra-like repetition into a patient, ceremonial build. What gives Mezze its shape is restraint. The tempos stay relaxed, the arrangements remain open, and no influence is treated as an exotic centerpiece. Instead, Eje Eje makes these traditions converse naturally, turning a wide record collection and deep rhythmic curiosity into something personal, unforced, and quietly transportive.