Ivan Ave is an artist from Norway who initially made a splash back in 2014 when he signed with Jakarta Records and released an EP called Low Jams, produced by mndsgn. After a great run on Jakarta, he left for Mutual Intentions in 2020 and released the full-length album Double Goodbyes. Now he’s back with a new project, Mid-Season EP.

For Mid-Season, Ave pushes himself further in the direction he began to go on Double Goodbyes. For the project, Ave is self-producing, but he also gets a couple of assists from mndsgn. and Sasac to round out the sound. The sound in question is some laid back West Coast hip hop and R&B, just smooth as can be. Even his delivery is so smooth on the mic, if you didn’t know he was from Norway, you might have guessed he was from Southern California. It’s also interesting the way this project is sequenced, where you get some rhymes from Ave on the first two tracks, which connect to his previous work throughout the 2010s, but then when you get to “Mid,” Ave takes the fork in the road and veers towards a Prince ballad. Now, Ave doesn’t have the range of someone like Prince on the track, but he does have a nice singing voice with a little bit of a rasp to it, and he has a good understanding of how to be clever with his melodic choices to get the most out of his voice. This is to say that he does a great job of creating a melody that sticks with you and works within the song, so you don’t really notice or care that he doesn’t have a “big” singing voice. The whole EP is just cool and confident, the way you’d expect from someone who’s been around as long as Ivan Ave has.

Mid-Season EP is a nice warm up to bigger projects coming soon from Ivan Ave. It’s smooth, confident, and full of great grooves, nice rhymes, and soulful singing.