Chicago producer Vapor Eyes has been releasing some of the best instrumental hip hop and electronic music this decade, building up a varied and inventive discography in the process. His last release came just back in April, when he released Where the Dyad Lives, which had everyone learning a little bit of music theory in the process. Now he comes back with a more straightforward release, Smooth FM.

What is Smooth FM? Well, the simple explanation comes from Vapor Eyes himself, who simply says, “Smooth jazz isn’t dead. It just needed to be reinvigorated.” That’s right, on this album, Vapor Eyes is seeking to breath new life into smooth jazz, to chop it up and give it some funkier beats, and maybe introduce a new generation to the golden age of smooth jazz. Here’s the thing – smooth jazz gets a bad rap because a lot of the biggest names associated the with the term, such as Kenny G or Dave Koz, were incredibly cheesy. But when you move past them, and get to artists like Grover Washington Jr. or George Benson, for example, you get to some incredible musicians who could rock a groove like no other, and all of a sudden it makes sense that someone like Vapor Eyes would want to dive into this source material. It makes even more sense we you realize how well this music works when the samples are moving between house and hip hop beats to create this sexy soundscape. What’s especially interesting about a project like this is that this use to be a pretty common practice once upon a time, but somewhere along the way we decided this wasn’t the way. Well, it sounds so good on Smooth FM, he more than makes the case for us all to go back to the well and get back to making the soundtracks for sexy beach vacations. In the meantime, handle Smooth FM with care.

Vapor Eyes continues to build his impressive resume one release at a time. He shifts his style once again on Smooth FM, delivers something both compelling and sexy, and inspires you to dig through the crates for some forgotten early ‘90s beats that don’t get the respect they deserve.