Amerigo Gazaway is a producer originally from Nashville, now based in Berkeley. Over the years, he’s become best known for his mashup projects, putting artists into imaginary jam sessions, such as Lauryn Hill and Nina Simone, or Yasiin Bey and Marvin Gaye. However, this entire time, Gazaway has also been producing original material as well, such as No Free Beats: An Original Soundtrack, released last October. He now comes out with an original instrumental release just in time for the warmer weather, Endless Summer.

Taking inspiration from the famous surfing documentary of the same name, the idea behind Endless Summer is that if you had the means to travel the globe, you could always be chasing summer and soaking up the sun and having fun. Outside of a couple of vocal clips that help provide structure to the project, namely at the beginning and end, there isn’t much of a connection to the documentary beyond that. Gazaway isn’t sampling surf records or anything like that. What he is doing is providing a soundtrack to the summer, with warm, laidback funky beats. It’s heavy on the R&B and funk influences, and he leaves enough space to the beats to make them sound wide open, like you could be cruising up and down the coast, letting the music blast out your car windows as you soak up the scenery. The beats are also funky enough to get people moving, ideal for getting people to start dancing at the beginning of the evening, before you get things really cooking later on. All in all, it’s just a fun album to listen to, put together by a veteran producer who knows just how to dial in on those summer vibes.

Gazaway doesn’t get enough credit for his original material like this, but Endless Summer shows once again that he’s no one trick pony. These are sophisticated beats that make for a great soundtrack for the warm months ahead.