Primordial Soup

If, as scientists suggest, the primordial soup is the thick gloop from which all life sprang, then the suggestion here must surely be that the Middle East is an endlessly fertile seedbed for musical exploration. Eje Eje is the side project of multi-instrumentalist Itamar Kluger, better known as founder of Israeli sextet, the Şatellites. Here – as on his solo debut, 2023’s Five Seasons – Kluger plays almost everything himself, while extending Şatellites’ preoccupation with Turkish and North African grooves from the 60s and 70s. With 12 concise tracks clocking in at a breezy 36 minutes, many of the pieces feel like sketches or library music jingles – but there’s no shortage of ideas. Tangled, flange-heavy saz, rasping reeds and wonky microtonal keyboard spell out sinuous melodies over deep, 21st century vamps touching on funk and heavy soul with a taste of dub’s cavernous thunder. It’s all slick, but somehow lacking substance.