Zaia delivers a soft honesty in his second EP, ‘VERY ALONE’. His sound has a buoyancy that plays against the journalistic self-discovery he details track to track in a mellow interplay. His Atlanta background comes through in the eccentric clubbiness of his sound, the production on his tunes unpredictable, and playful. You’ve got to love an EP that has boozy summer guitar lines alongside tracks with a driving bass that would fit in nicely on the Detroit house circuit. 

We start at ‘DEMONS’: smooth tempting, within a tense production. It reminds me of tobi lou at a dinner with Ye Ali. The woman hex in question here feels brought to life in the bizarre lilt of its accompanying video. Zaia has a unique way of talking about interconnectivity and cosmic signals. In the genre-spinning ‘JUMO’ you really get a sense of a hyper-digital kind of love where radios are muted and people feel inescapable: “I can’t hear the music over all the fire and smoke”. Zaia delves into the pressure of being oversaturated by people and experiences. Chicago lyricist Valee is on the tune with him and delivers his honey-quiet brand of rap that suits Zaia’s sound well.  

Lead track ‘INNERSTATE’ stands slightly apart from the rest of the record in terms of its pop sound, with a whole lot of synth and airiness. The message behind the song, “looking forward, ignoring the lanes”.  There’s a bass break towards the end that I love. Definitely watch the video for this song, it’s a movie.  

‘SHADE’ starts off with a sample that made me feel like I was listening to something in the early 2000s, with Missy Elliot vibes. The instrumentation is full, frog plucked bass and lots of drum. On ‘IN MY OWN WAY’ the lyricism falls into an earnestness that could have more dynamism for my preference. Though Zaia’s falsetto is so pleasing to the ear that I still like the track, which leads cleverly into heavy-hitting tune ‘ON GOD’. This song is refreshing, it reminds me of rapper-producer BEAM’s EP 95 in its gospel trap bravado. It’s my personal highlight, exploring the ruthlessness of cut connections, “looking for the one but I know, gonna push away her love and never call”.

‘WINGZ’ takes us in another direction with acoustic guitar scales and what seems like a spiritual shift from the previous song: “don’t matter what you do, there’s a toll left to pay”. He’s on a mission, seeing the negative influences around him while he needs to keep his head up and keep straight ahead.   

The EP ends with ‘WONDER’, Zaia questioning if he’ll ever get to see spaceships fly, reminiscing over past loves and regrets over decisions he made from simply being too young to know better. He’s at his strongest when he’s hyperbolic and surreal, “what about AI, robots, whole world 'bout to get dangerous?”