Rejoicer is a producer from Tel Aviv who made his debut on Stones Throw last fall when he released the album Energy Dreams, which saw him fitting in nicely alongside labelmates like mndsgn. Now he returns to expand upon his sound with another EP, Heavy Smoke.

If you’re not familiar with Rejoicer, Heavy Smoke isn’t a bad place to start. He exists in a little bit of an in between space, finding a place to mix in parts of downtempo hip hop, experimental electronic music, psychedelic rock, prog rock, jazz fusion, and indie rock. This might sound like a lot at first, but rest assured that Rejoicer never tries to do too much at once, and he uses a gentle touch with his compositions. In this matter, he does remind me a little of DJ Nobody, and the sonic soundscapes that he’s able to put together. For this project, Rejoicer enlists the help of live musicians to provide bass, synthesizer, violin, guitar, and piano, as well as live vocals from iogi on the title track, all of which help give the EP a full and varied sound. What makes the EP work at it’s core though, is the way in which Rejoicer is able to arrange and producer these tracks that are rich and beautiful and peaceful, while also remaining very challenging and complex and always in motion. While you can definitely put on this EP and just chill out to it, there is so much happening just below the surface that it really encourages some active listening to really soak it all in. Most importantly, Rejoicer finds a great flow between his compositions, which allows him to bring in all of his different influences and put them in conversation with each other without making any one track too busy or congested.

Rejoicer is a talented producer who makes some really gorgeous instrumental music. Heavy Smoke builds upon the foundation of Energy Dreams, and then takes everything in some really interesting new directions.