Kuna Maze is a French producer now living in Belgium who has been putting out music for about the last five years, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with fellow producer Nikitch. It was only a month ago that he and Nikitch released their first full-length album together, Débuts. Kuna Maze wasn’t done creating, though, because he’s come right back with a new solo EP, Backward EP.

If you’ve been following his career, you know that two of Kuna Maze’s biggest influences are the Low End Theory scene in Los Angeles, and the post-dubstep scene in London. As it turns out, Kuna Maze is also a trained jazz musician, so as he steps out to establish a new phase of his career, he’s actually looking backward to find a way to incorporate his love of jazz and fusion into his love of dance music. Fortunately, there’s a bit a blueprint for this already, but the beauty of music like this is that everyone’s going to bring their own unique flavor to the proceedings, whether it be the styles of electronic music or the styles of jazz being brought to the table. In the case of Kuna Maze, he’s bringing in influences such as Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, but also some Brazilian funk and mixing it with some house, broken beat, and UK Garage. What this means in a practical sense is that you’re getting music with some undeniable grooves that will get your feet shuffling and your hips moving, but you’re also getting some music that features some great melodic hooks and also virtuosic soloing. Kuna Maze is a multi-instrumentalist, and he can get things cooking on bass or electric piano. This is to say that it’s music that you can dance to, but you can also appreciate on a deeper level when you start to listen closely and hear all of the intricate and advanced musicianship involved.

Backward EP is only three songs long, but they are well-developed songs with a lot of space to them, so much so that you can really get lost inside this fourteen minute journey into the realm of jazz and dance music. Kuna Maze continues to grow and gives us some really interesting music with this EP.