Quiet Dawn is a producer from Paris who has been releasing music since the mid-2010s. His latest release was an EP called Movements which came just about a year ago. Now he is back with a new beat tape, Simple.

Of course, Simple is a deceptive title for a project such as this. At first glance, it might seem “simple”n paper, with just fourteen short tracks of instrumental hip hop beats. These types of releases are a dime a dozen these days and usually very easy to listen to, forget, and then move on. Every so often, however, you come across a project like Simple, and you realize how special this type of release could be if artists like Quiet Dawn put in the work and have variety and develop the tracks and sequence them so there’s a flow. Over the course of fourteen tracks, Quiet Dawn is doing just that, giving you a taste of everything from Dilla-esque downtempo to Latin rhythms to electronica to jazz-funk and more. One of the through lines throughout the project is Quiet Dawn’s reliance on electric piano to provide the melody across the majority of Simple. With so many different styles and rhythms being brought to the plate with each track, it helps give a throughline across the project and make it feel like a really great jam session with some top notch players, even if in reality this is all Quiet Dawn composing and producing everything on the project. When you listen all the way through, what at first seemed like a simple beat tape now reveals itself to be a nice musical journey that you can escape into for a few minutes and really get lost in the musicianship that Quiet Dawn is laying down.

Simple is a great release from Quiet Dawn, who has been subtly building a really strong discography over the last couple of years. What could have been a straightforward instrumental beat tape turned into a really interesting musical endeavor, with a lot of variety, great grooves, and just really smart and passionate work.