15 September 2025 | Photo: Mete Kaan Ozdilek
Pleizel places narrative continuity at the heart of her debut EP
From Istanbul’s electronic landscape, Pleizel steps into an international conversation with her EP “Primal Touch”, released on Max Cooper’s Mesh imprint. Known for pairing sound with a distinctive visual identity, Mesh provides a fitting home for a project that navigates the borderlines of IDM and techno with both precision and atmosphere.
Primal Touch unfolds less like a collection of tracks and more like a single thread moving through shifting textures. “Celestial Embrace” sets the tone with pads that expand and recede, carrying a subtle tension beneath their warmth. “Liana” introduces motion through glitch-edged textures and climbing harmonies, while “Midnight Horses” keeps its pace urgent and restless. Closing piece “Affinity Bond” breaks the structure open with fragmented vocals and irregular pulses, rounding out the EP with a sense of unresolved openness.
On stage, Pleizel extends these pieces into something more immersive. Her live sets give the tracks sharper edges, unfolding as journeys rather than sequences, often aligning with the visual dimension that Mesh champions in its curation. These performances underline her role not only as a studio producer but also as an artist attentive to the physical and visual presence of sound.
A balance of control and immediacy runs through Pleizel’s work. Even her recent remix of “A Sense of Getting Closer” for “On Being Remixes” reflects this approach: turning an ambient piece toward the dancefloor without erasing its original fabric. It is a method that keeps her signature present while leaving space for others’ voices.
