Esh is a Boston artist who has in the past worked as part of a duo with producer Arc, and with producer Dox before that. In 2017, he stepped out as a solo artist in the traditional sense for the album Darwin’s Frankenstein. Now he takes that evolution a step further, re-inventing himself as Esh & The Isolations for his latest album, Idiot Fingerz.

Now you might be asking yourself, “Who are The Isolations?” The answer is that Esh is being clever with the name, but also it’s a way to say that he is also handling all of the production duties himself for the first time. However, in listening to the album, you wouldn’t know it. He’s clearly studied a thing or two over the years in working with people like Arc and Dox, and he also holds himself to a high enough standard that he wasn’t going to produce his own album if it wasn’t up to the same level as his previous albums. As to what this albums sounds like, Esh is channeling some ‘80s cyber punk, some new wave/synth pop, some post-punk, and then interpreting that through a modern trap and boom bap lens. This might sound like a lot on paper, but in practice it works really well, and feels like a natural continuation of what was happening on Darwin’s Frankenstein. There’s a punk energy, and an eerie sci-fi tone as Esh discusses concern about the role of technology in society, the trappings of capitalism, and how that shapes issues around identity and seclusion. In other words, this feels like a prescient album listening to it under our current circumstances. It’s not all doom and gloom, though, as Esh also brings in a sarcastic sense of humor and penchant for ball-busting (he is from Boston, after all). What this means in practice is that we get songs like “Costanza Wallet,” which has this MC5-meets-Suicide-meets-Odd Nosdam production to it, while Esh is dropping references to There Will Be Blood while also lamenting, “The best minds of my generation are working retail/stuck in a cubicle reading emails…How much money do you need before that Costanza wallet fucks your back up?”

Idiot Fingerz is Esh’s strongest work to date. It establishes him as a producer to watch out for, crafting a sound that works specifically to what this album is trying to say. It also features some of his smartest and most well-rounded and focused lyrical work, smartly picking apart modern society with a wicked sense of humor.