Just back in May of this year, we were treated to Mr. Hong’s long days.short years, and EP of instrumental hip hop reflecting on his college years. Now he’s come back at the end of the year to drop another short EP, Three Days Off.

If his last EP was about his college years, it makes sense for the Berkeley artist to come back with another EP to reflect on what his life is like as he transitions out of college and into the workforce. Judging from the music on Three Days Off, things must be going fairly well, because he’s written the most beautiful and developed music of his short career. Bringing in a few friends to contribute, such as mie on piano, city girl on bass, drums, and piano, vietra on vocals, and dvdkm on guitar, the EP also has much more of a “live” feel to it than previous projects. The music wavers between a post-rock and jazz influence, with downtempo instrumental hip hop being the glue that holds everything together. The compositions themselves might not catch your attention the first time through, as the music does have this very soothing quality to it, but these songs have some excellent melodies and song structure that builds and delivers some instrumental music that sticks with you long after the EP is over. At times it might feel peaceful, and other times it might feel more contemplative, but overall it has a very warm and calm feel to it. It sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a sunny Sunday afternoon.

If Mr. Hong wants to continue checking in with listeners to soundtrack his life, I’d certainly be happy with it. It’s still a relatively young career, but each release so far has been better than the last.