Tia-Mellow is a brand new alias from an already established artist with a cult underground following for his stylishly deep and ambient laced techno. Mellow formally studies music and sound design while living in London. He also works full time as a bartender, so has juggled lots of different things and made plenty of sacrifices to realise a dream of writing this new record. He is someone who is drawn to the imperfections of analogue music and the vinyl format, and that shows in the grainy textures and frayed edges of this beautiful record.

Mellow was written over the last five months while Tia spent time in Italy and London. If finds him distill a wealth of ideas into supremely absorbing and deeply atmospheric sounds. It was written using a mix of plug-ins and a Roland TR8S drum machine and shows a real development of his trademark style with plenty of new moods and shades explored.

Right from the off, this album pulls you in with its mellow magic and beautiful ambiance. The title track buried r&b vocals in rubbery kicks and oceans of analogue warmth, then Incertezza unravels with deeply buried drums gently moving you onwards through a cavern of glassy sounds, gently synth waves and angelic vocal sounds.

The Reason of Love features MC Doppia C and is a deep and dubby rhythm that awakens the soul with its ambient pads and shimmering voices. Mellow Happiness then lurches on broken beats, with sombre piano chords, finger clicks and pitched up vocals making for a heartwarming sound world. Dub Wars with Louis Options is a darker track with menacing energy down low in the bass, and cosmic keys floating way up top.

Veronica gets you horizontal thanks to it along legged drums, thoughtful piano chords and arching synths, and after the more propulsive grooves and microbial synth sounds of Anything, again featuring some perfect pitch dup vocals, Lovely closes out in heavy fashion, with tumbling kicks and hits, aching vocals and a romantic mood that leaves you wanting more.

This is an accomplished and coherent record that explores new downtempo moods and grooves in stylish fashion.