A little over a year ago, emcee Open Mike Eagle dropped his most ambitious album to date, Brick Body Kids Still Daydream, a concept album exploring the Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago. Now, after working on a show for Comedy Central and doing some wrestling, we get a new EP from Eagle called What Happens When I Try To Relax.

Over the course of his career, Open Mike Eagle has followed a general pattern of releasing a big album and then following up with a smaller stakes EP, so it makes sense that before he reloads and tries to match the major artistic achievement of Brick Body Kids, he can just give us a collection of six songs that we can enjoy on face value. That’s exactly what we get with WHWITTR. That doesn’t mean these are songs to be written off by any means, far from it. With production from Nedarb, M. Rodriguez-Lopez & Estela, Jordan Katz, Mono/Poly, and Dead Boy Yo, we get beats that are right in OME’s wheelhouse, with a mix of smooth R&B and eerie sci-fi synth-pop filtered through a hip hop lens. This puts Eagle in the best position to succeed, and he certainly goes to work on these six songs, whether he’s working through some anxieties, using the identification of the ‘93 Bulls to relay a piece of his childhood, or just giving props to friends and collaborators, all delivered with his trademark wry sense of humor and gentle crooning rap style.

When you deliver an album as grand as Brick Body Kids, it helps to take a step back before you move forward on another big project. That’s what Open Mike Eagle has done with What Happens When I Try To Relax. He’s taken a step back, just wrote to some beats he was feeling, and had fun with it. The good news is that when you’ve worked and attained the skill levels of Open Mike Eagle, a fun EP like this is still better than most music you’ll hear this year.