As anyone who’s taken a crack at yoga will tell you, the most essential step is tuning in to your breath. That’s exactly what Tay Iwar has done with ‘YOGA’, the meditative, intimate opener to his Love & Isolation EP.

Fresh off a feature on Wizkid’s massive 2020 record ‘Made in Lagos’, the Nigerian alté singer-songwriter and Soulection protogé explores new sonic territory with this project. Shifting away from some of the gritty Afro-fusion beats and darker tones of 2019’s collaboration with Le Mar, ‘GOLD’, and Soulection release ‘Gemini’, ‘YOGA’ feels warmer, smoother and confidently grounded.

It’s the mark of a mature artist to recognize the value of negative space. While Tay has always had a gift for leaving a tantalizing amount of space in his tracks (see ‘Feels’ from ‘Gemini’), ‘YOGA’ is a mature and masterful expression that stretches the concept of an R&B slow jam. Opening the record with a wash of warm chords, Tay’s production creates a rhythm of focused, contemplative breathing that stays locked under his signature hypnotic vocal melodies, mirroring lyrics that repeat the desire to stay in those first moments of morning calm. When it seems like the tension will break two minutes in, Tay stretches even further, shifting like a ray of sunlight through an almost imperceptible key change to shine on featured singer Aṣa.

This kind of subtlety can easily go unnoticed, and ‘YOGA’ almost seems the inverse of the expansive groove and warm, romantic tone of lead single ‘PEAKING’. But, as Tay has said, he intended the project to be a “perfect self-healing EP post-pandemic,” and self-healing is always a process made better by sitting with it.