Eje Eje "Mezze"
Following his work with Şatellites and a growing catalogue of solo releases exploring psychedelic groove, Middle Eastern traditions, organic hip hop and global rhythms, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Eje Eje returns with Mezze, a five-track EP inspired by the simple ritual of gathering, sharing food and listening deeply.
Named after the tradition of serving small dishes designed to be enjoyed together, Mezze grew from regular trips into nature with a close friend, where music, conversation and home-made food became inseparable. Drawing inspiration from old Turkish, Arabic and regional recordings played around what they affectionately called a ‘Turkish campfire’, due to the food they brought and shared, the EP offers five concise musical sketches, each exploring a different flavour while belonging to the same table.
If Eje Eje’s previous work has always thrived on unexpected musical collisions, Mezze distils that approach into its most intimate form yet. Rather than treating traditions as separate worlds, the record allows Turkish psychedelia, Gulf rhythms, Greek melodies, Saharan influences and laid-back hip hop to coexist naturally, creating something that feels less like fusion than a personal musical language.
For Eje Eje, the music is never about faithfully recreating traditions. Instead, it reflects the way he has always collected records, absorbing sounds from wherever they resonate before reshaping them into something unmistakably his own. “I see no reason not to combine musical worlds,’ he says. “That’s how I listen to music, so that’s how I make music.”
That philosophy extends beyond the influences themselves. While much contemporary production strives for bigger arrangements and constant stimulation, Mezze deliberately embraces restraint. The tempos remain unhurried, the grooves spacious and the arrangements economical, leaving drums, bass and melody room to breathe. Quarter-tone guitar, electric bağlama, oud and vintage keyboards replace dense layers of production, creating a record that achieves more by doing less.
The opening ‘Beija Flor’, named after the hummingbird, combines Gulf-inspired percussion with West African pentatonic ideas and desert psychedelia, while ‘Yemen Eye’ follows with slow-motion breakbeats inspired by traditional village celebration music, reimagining communal dance traditions through a relaxed, organic hip hop lens.
The celebratory ‘Pickled Pine Cones’, featuring longtime friend Romano on Farfisa organ, shifts towards the warmth of a Mediterranean afternoon, where Turkish psychedelia meets the spirit of a Greek taverna. Driven by bright electric guitar and Romano’s exuberant one-take Farfisa solo – a performance Eje Eje simply describes as ‘genius’ – it becomes the EP’s most uplifting moment. Its title, and the jar of pickled pine cones pictured on the sleeve, also carry a deeply personal significance, reconnecting childhood memories of gathering pine cones with a discovery he made years later in Istanbul, where something familiar suddenly appeared in an entirely different context.
‘Phantom Love’ draws closest to the classic sound of 1970s Turkish psychedelia. A slow, shuffling breakbeat gradually develops into an almost marching groove, with chiming bells and intertwining electric bağlama creating one of the EP’s most hypnotic hooks. Almost two minutes in, the arrangement dissolves into an atmospheric passage where a mysterious treated vocal drifts through the mix, reflecting the song’s central idea: the lingering ache of a love that could never fully exist.
Closing piece ‘Rising Fire From The Liver’, borrowing its title from traditional Chinese medicine, gently raises the tempo through Brazilian percussion, mantra-like repetition and hypnotic psychedelic grooves that gradually build towards something closer to a ceremony than a song.
Almost entirely recorded by Eje Eje himself across his home studio and a small number of additional recording spaces, Mezze features guest appearances from Romano alongside drummers Lotan Yaish (bandmate in Şatellites) and Guy Ben Ami (of Boom Pam), with mixing by longtime collaborator Shuzin.
Yet beyond its instrumentation and influences, Mezze is ultimately an invitation to slow down. Conceived during a time of constant information, endless distraction and increasingly automated creativity, the EP offers twenty minutes of space simply to sit, listen and breathe. ‘I hope people take a deep breath,’ says Eje Eje. ‘Just pause for twenty minutes. Then come back to the world with a little more strength.’