Jay Feeniks is a relatively new vocalist from Los Angeles who recently found a collaborator in producer Beautiful Disco, himself also relatively unknown. Fortunately, they both found each other and Paxico Records, who have now packaged their first four singles as an EP, Not Same.

When you first press play on the first track, “All I Ask,” it won’t take long to understand what these two are all about. Beautiful Disco is laying down some smooth modern R&B beats with a nice bounce to them, and Feeniks is hopping on the mic and singing some romantic lyrics with a nice voice and a touch of autotune. It’s nothing new, but it’s done well, and you can certainly imagine music like this getting placed on a show like Insecure. It just sounds that “L.A.” Beautiful Disco has a really nice touch to his beats, and great sense for creating hooks that will stick in your head. He also knows how to create some heat and set the mood with his beats as well. On the mic, Feeniks has a nice voice, and he has a decent sense of melody, but he never quite hits his stride. This isn’t to say that he does anything bad on this EP, but just to say that there is room for growth as he pushes himself to the next level. There are lots of generic romantic sentiments on these songs, but nothing in particular lands or stands out. The same goes for his choruses. Everything’s totally fine, and he has a good voice, but we’re just lacking some specificity to the lyrics and a chorus that you can really sing along to so that this music get go over the top and really stick with you.

Not Same is a good introduction to Jay Feeniks and Beautiful Disco. It’s not perfect, but it has a lot of promise as they put together some really solid modern R&B.