Vanilla is a producer from the UK that has been releasing music for the last ten years. In April of last year, he closed out a trilogy of solo instrumental albums with Into the Dream. To start the next phase of his career, he joined up with Cold Busted Records to release an EP as part of their Jet Set series, Pointbreak.

The EP was recorded in Japan, but the feel of this project is much more Brazilian as Vanilla brings in heavy doses of samba and bossa nova along with smooth jazz to spice up this instrumental hip hop project. Organ and electric piano are the dominant melodic elements driving the EP, and the whole thing just sounds incredibly warm and breezy, like the end of a magical summer day when you had nothing to do but enjoy yourself. In the middle of a particularly stressful winter, it makes for a beautiful escape. And for a project that is only four songs long and comes in around nine-and-a-half minutes, that escape feels much longer. That’s because Vanilla does such an excellent job of not just putting a couple of beats together, but really taking the time to develop these grooves and give them melody and motion, creating something that feels a lot more immersive than just a simple beat tape. As a result, you get a project that sounds equally good on headphones or on a stereo, anywhere you want to go to disappear from the world for a quick moment and find your happy place.

Vanilla has given us a lot grander projects in the past, and I’m sure more are coming in the future. That said, he makes a short little project like Pointbreak resonate a lot more than you would expect, just by taking the time to treat this project with the care it deserves. By doing so, he’s given us a wonderful little jazzy oasis this winter.