Nuša Javorič aka mai. chops samples over drums with exceptional taste and skill. Her beats fill up the stereo spread. Space is rarely a concern for this sampling wicken from Slovenia. Her cuts go for straight color. Her high-pitched vocal leads will snatch your soul for a second, rising above rich clips of choral and string arrangements. She has an impressive body of work on Soundcloud alone, and a small handful of singles on compilations including Inner Ocean Records' Women of the World Compilation.

Generally, she's exposing every second of a sample and setting them on top of big drums. When the strings get to sliding in synch with a quick slamming beat, the groove is seductive and impossible to ignore. Still, mai. softens the tone at times and does utilize some reverberating negative space, as on "midnight" or the indecently low fidelity, stoned-out movement "Mist". The drums are cut from cloth so durable yet soft. Peep the snare in "maybe", a collaboration, rare for this producer, withＡＲ援憶ぐ. These percussion samples strike that rare balance; they're so smooth yet rough and grainy.

This hip-hop gets back to the core elements of the boom-bap sound while still pushing the distinct emotional presentation of contemporary lo-fi.

FOLLOW mai.: Soundcloud / Facebook