Serge Geyzel :: The Way To Go (Pulse State)

An album that rewards close listening

Serge Geyzel drops a real head-turner with The Way To Go. Born in Saratov, Russia, Geyzel dedicated 12 years to classical piano before relocating to Israel in 1999, where he immersed himself in the jazz scene at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. His path into electronic music came later, when he began experimenting with software and sound design, eventually moving to Berlin in 2014. Since then, he’s been releasing on labels like Science Cult, Zodiak Commune Records, Specimen Records, New Flesh Records, EC Underground, and Touched Revolutions, blending early 2000s electronica with electro, dark ambient, and broken rhythms. His work pulls from his classical and jazz training without being overt about it — the harmonic sensibility and rhythmic complexity are embedded in the structure rather than worn on the surface.

The Way To Go arrives on Pulse State, a label run by Martin Boulton (of Touched Music) and Matt Hampshire. Like Touched, Pulse State operates with a charitable ethos, and the curation is careful. The album was mastered by exm, a regular collaborator in the Touched ecosystem, and the result is an album that rewards close listening.

The style here leans toward breaks — slowed-down drum and bass rhythms that sit somewhere between the frenetic energy of jungle and the more meditative pacing of downtempo. Breakbeat culture has always been about tempo manipulation. Producers like Photek and Source Direct in the mid-90s built entire tracks around the tension between speed and space, pushing drum patterns to the edge of complexity while still leaving room to breathe.By the early 2000s, artists like Amon Tobin and Prefuse 73 were pulling breaks into more abstract, sample-heavy territory, blending jazz and IDM influences into the framework. Geyzel‘s approach sits in that lineage, but with a melodic emphasis that feels closer to something like Roni Size‘s more melodic work or even the atmospheric breaks of Paradox. He plays a lot with tempo, moving from fast to slow within the same track and shifting BPM in ways that feel intentional rather than arbitrary.

Good drums, solid rhythms, and beautiful melodies ::

This 11-tracker is jam-packed with good drums, solid rhythms, and beautiful melodies. The melodies play an important role here, and they’re all catchy. Some are just bizarre at times, like the track “Soulwalls & Bridges,” which throws you off balance before pulling you back in. It’s a nice balance — the breaks keep things moving, but the melodies give you something to latch onto. A lot of breaks-focused music can lean too heavily on the drums, but Geyzel makes sure the melodic content holds its own.

The fiercest track is the last one: “You Gave Me Nothing And Took It Away.” It has the best of both worlds: heavy drums, melodic weight, and a sense of finality that works as a closer. But even at his softest, Geyzel is pretty tough. There’s a density to the production that never fully lets up, even when the tempo drops or the melodies soften. His classical training shows up in the way motifs are pared down to their essentials, and his jazz background shows up in the harmonic motion, things are toyed with rather than spelled out. Rhythmic surprises arrive like small, inevitable revelations.

This is an album you must listen to closely in order to process all that it offers. It’s not background music. It’s intentional, detailed, and structured in a way that feels both loose and precise. For a label like Pulse State, which shares Touched Music‘s commitment to quality and charity, The Way To Go is a strong addition to the catalog.

The Way To Go is available on Pulse State. [Bandcamp]