Have you ever listened to a new song by an artist you hadn’t heard of before and feel more like an artist yourself by association? The discovery of such gems somehow makes oneself purer, closer to the source of greatness. Well, Gabriel Gifford’s sophomore EP ‘Daffodils in Transit’ is a beautiful representation of the pure joy that accompanies such discovery.

Birthed during the bounds of the pandemic, Gifford breaks down barriers and creates a highly collaborative, carefully curated body of work. He has truly mastered the art of production, a tool that creates the foundation for other artists to flourish while highlighting his own technical capabilities. Not only is Gifford a talented producer, he is also an instrumentalist. Those two talents blend together in this project to create an explosion of sounds that touch the listeners inner ear. Eliciting emotion is the only act that we can ask of artists and this EP is packed with peaks and valleys that remind us of that simple exhilaration.

The EP begins with an instrumental track titled ‘13th Floor’ that’s reminiscent of the smoke that wafts through a downtown jazz club, combined with a bassline that almost forces you to move, to express what you’ve been holding inside. This tune sets the stage for the rest of the project.

The first step into this exploration is quickly followed with ‘Better Than Before’ featuring Sans Soucis whose voice is so sultry it feels like listening to velvet. The delicate instrumental backdrop that serves as Soucis’ stage ebbs and flows around her voice. The chorus bursting at the seams like a rhythmic waterfall.

The thing about Gifford is that he artfully weaves the influences of his surroundings into every single note that he combines into the final output. The feeling of Berlin is omnipresent in ‘Cold Too’ where Gifford skillfully weaves us through a sonic voyage akin to one that may be heard within the walls of Berghain, without setting a single foot outside the comfort of home.

The standout number from the project features Lizzie Reid, ‘All That I Needed’ takes a darker tone, as if one was descending into a cocoon, suspended in a moment in time, an experience that we all share now after this past year - yet Gifford expertly turns that experience into a sound. The track climaxes around the three minute mark where the beat washes over us, leaving us wanting more. The musical wandering that we’ve embarked on comes to an end at the conclusion of this song but it is only the beginning for Gifford, who will no doubt return with an even deeper odyssey of self, production and what it means to create something with the spark of others.