There’s something elusive about Tay Iwar’s music—like a half-remembered dream or the scent of someone long gone but unforgettable. Since his early SoundCloud days and the breakout serenity of Gemini, Iwar has built a reputation as a sonic cartographer of solitude, charting quiet devastations and subtle joys with velvet touch.
With Reflection Station, he returns not with fireworks, but with fireflies: flickering, poetic, and impossible to ignore.
Reflection Station’s brevity—five tracks, no skips—feels less like an EP and more like a distilled moment in time, stretched gently into a loop.
There’s an unspoken narrative here, stitched together through sly harmonies, smudged synths, and lyrics that feel overheard rather than declared. If Love & Isolation was the sound of emotional exile, Reflection Station is the quiet awakening on the other side—a project steeped in clarity, not conclusion.
The opener and title track, Reflection Station, is all atmosphere and anticipation, like fog clearing on a Lagos morning. Iwar’s voice, drenched in reverb but never drowning, feels at once close and unreachable—as if he’s singing from a rooftop across the street. It’s not just an intro; it’s a portal.
Bad Belle is the EP’s spine and standout—a featherlight middle finger delivered with grace. Over lo-fi percussions and woozy chord progressions, Tay dances around envy and antagonism without breaking a sweat. His falsetto here is both weapon and balm, disarming even as it indicts. He doesn’t shout down the haters; he out-floats them.
On Floating, he trades Afrofusion minimalism for dream-pop daydreaming. It’s what would happen if Blood Orange spent a summer in Abuja: synths that shimmer like heat mirages and a hook that hums with gentle delirium. This is Iwar in full drift mode—romantic, unmoored, and fully in control of the current.
Non-stop is a slow-burn jam that channels the longing of late-night drives with nowhere in particular to go. It’s about motion for motion’s sake, love for love’s sake—a quiet rebellion against transactional affection. There’s a certain understated arrogance here, the kind that says: I know what I’m worth, and I’m willing to wait for you to catch up.
Closing track Survival brings everything full circle. It’s meditative and somber, but never hopeless. The production strips itself bare, placing Tay’s voice front and center as he muses on endurance—not as triumph, but as ritual. It’s a spiritual closer, more prayer than outro.
Reflection Station doesn’t beg for attention. It rewards patience. At a time when maximalism and microwave hits dominate the scene, Iwar continues to operate on his own frequencies, making music that demands both ears and soul. He doesn’t chase trends—he suspends them. This is music to live with, not just listen to.
And in that, Tay Iwar doesn’t just reflect. He refracts.
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