Berlin-based, Chicago-native producer Ayjay Nils is previously unfamiliar to me.  Microdosing is his new six-track EP.

The release opens with us being greeted by a distant, sun-bleached synth pad texture playing a nostalgic, shoegaze progression.  From there, a beat drops and the album reveals itself to be some variety of bass music or dub, with a distinctly analogue flavour to its many layers of rustic synthesizer tone and cut-up samples of breakbeat and jazz drumming.

Around the West Coast of the US where I grew up, this style is often called 'future bass', a more lush and artful variety of halftime, hip hop-derived grooves with tuned 808s at the centre of its compositions, and LFO'd bass wobbles as per dubstep, but typically less distorted and aggressive than modern dubstep.  Smooth pads, arps/trills and dreamy lounge chord progressions often seem derived from R&B, classic deep house or liquid drum & bass.

All in all, a genre I've enjoyed quite a lot, and this is recording is a particularly intricate and lovely example of it, that could be said to be an 'intelligent' variation of the style, as it contains far less repetition than typical club music, and crams a lot of micro edits, details and ideas in a short time span, in a progressive fashion.  I might compare it 'out' take on breakbeat music to Meat Beat Manifesto, with haunting dystopian atmospheres taking hold in many places.

In other moments, though, the warmth of the sunshine and a feeling of being outdoors is palpable, and it is truly joyful.  This kind of music could only emerge from a culture of outdoor parties held by people appreciative of nature.  "Birds" is a wonderful cinematic instrumental, centered around a drone, which recalls the fuzzy warmth of Boards of Canada's ambient interlude tunes, and artists such as Fennesz, who brought out the human soul and feeling from electronic timbres.  This one has no beat, and serves to make the recording more well-rounded.

The final track "Harpsichord can fuck too" utilizes complex sequences of samples from the titular instrument, and begins to remind me of the 'folktronica' sound of artists like The Books and Four Tet.  This style is essentially that combined with a bit of West Coast 808 flavor.

It is common for bass music releases like this to be short EPs, with brief 1-3 minute tracks.  However, these are combined to form tremendous momentum when used by DJs.  This six-track release is over in a flash, but could be played and re-played many times over in a variety of contexts.  Any fan of downtempo, dub or IDM should find this release a gem. To check it out for yourself