Last month, Minneapolis artist K.Raydio decided that she needed to break a period of relative quiet and just put some music out and get things in motion. She started what she’s calling the “Sync” series with 1:11, a short collection of demos that she wrote, produced, sang, and recorded all by herself. It’s now time for the second installment in the series, 2:22.

While there is a certain rough-around-the-edges quality to a project like this, it’s interesting to see how even in the course of a month, things sound a little more polished. This comes through practice and dedication, and while K.Raydio has been singing for a very long time, producing and recording are much newer skill sets, so it’s to be expected that there might be some bumps along the way, especially from a series of demos. However, when you start to listen to a song like the opening track, “hero,” it’s amazing how quickly you forget all of that and focus on the really intricate and intriguing vocal arrangements that K.Raydio has done, layering and placing vocal lines against each other so that her voice is swimming around you while this incredibly intimate hip hop/R&B song unfolds all around you. She also takes a step forward with the confidence in her production abilities, with instrumental sections taking up the majority of the next couple of tracks, and she manages to maintain interest the whole way through, with some well developed song structure and catchy melodies. It’s clear that she’s absorbed a lot over the years from collaborators like O-D and Psymun and Shrimpnose, but she’s also making music that is completely her own.

I have a feeling in the near future that K.Raydio is going to drop something really special, and we’ll be able to look back on the “Sync” series and talk about how we heard the seedlings before everyone else. 2:22 was such a big step forward, I can’t wait for 3:33.