With Absentia, the genre-defying composer Igor Keller (the creative force behind Longboat) proves that in an age of algorithmic music, the most radical thing an artist can do is stay human.
Thirty-four albums in, most artists would be coasting. Longboat, the project of composer and multi-instrumentalist Igor Keller, is doing the opposite.
Absentia, his latest release, arrives as one chapter in what can only be described as a genuinely bewildering creative output. Keller recorded eight albums last year alone — two electronic records in March, a batch of four including Absentia across May and early June, and two more tracked in London over the summer. That's not a discography. That's a compulsion. And yet none of it sounds rushed, because for Igor Keller, volume and intentionality have never been mutually exclusive.
The album itself is deceptively straightforward in its instrumentation — guitars, bass, Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos, drums, and voice — anchored by a live band that includes drummer James Squires, bassist Will Moore, pianist Eric Verlinde, and guitarist Ryan Leyva, all of whom are Longboat veterans. Igor Keller prepares extensively before sessions, sending detailed notes and demos to each musician while actively encouraging them to make the parts their own. The result is collaborative without being chaotic, precise without being sterile.
What sets Absentia apart within Keller's catalogue is its relative freedom from concept. Where previous Longboat records have tackled mortality, revenge, January 6th, Cold War politics, and the psychological effects of money, this one breathes differently. As Igor Keller puts it, there's genuine relief in simply getting to tell a smaller story.
Even the album's most unexpected moments feel earned. A last-minute decision to incorporate bongos, pushed for persistently by Squires, ended up defining two separate tracks, "Once It's Gone" and "Style Grenade." That added warmth and dimension that no amount of pre-production planning could have predicted.
At heart, Igor Keller remains a jazz musician, a former saxophonist who has been making pop records since 2011 without ever fully leaving his roots behind. That tension between discipline and instinct, between style and what he calls anti-style, is precisely what gives Longboat its strange, singular pull.
In an era where AI-generated music is encroaching on every corner of the industry, Keller is doubling down on the irreducibly human, converting Longboat songs into live piano arrangements to perform in London pubs, fingers visible on keys, mistakes and all.
Thirty-four albums in. Still the most interesting person in the room.