In “Reflection Station”, Tay Iwar Turns to Stark Introspection

You’re in a bar that looks like a relic from the 80s. The walls are made of sturdy brown wood. A few revelers chop it up on the dance floor somewhere in the background. As you swivel in your bar-side chair, the smell of rum and whiskey fills your nose and soft strobe lights dapple your skin. Your mind is a quiet storm. Which is to say a flurry of disparate thoughts vibrates within your mind. That’s the feeling Tay Iwar’s just-released EP Reflection Station evokes. Since his early days, he has slowly perfected the act of crafting conceptual projects that shine at eliciting a particular emotion from the listener. His last solo project, the seven-tracked Summer Breeze evokes visions of driving through an idyllic small town with your lover on a balmy summer day; a gentle breeze whooshing as you careen through the road. 

An artist like Tay Iwar is a critic’s delight. His projects are  crafted with a particular intention in mind, this gives the critic, or even the casual listener, lots of threads to pull on. Reflection Station inhabits his characteristic soulful register: the melodies are supple and poignant; songs unspool with a slow, lived-in rhythm; and the project’s themes often take refuge in matters of the heart. But unlike Summer Breeze, his last project, which like the bulk of his discography, exists in that soft liminal space between Indie Pop and RnB, Reflection Station mostly finds him straddling Reggae or Reggae-influenced sounds and the subtle brand of Afrobeats that typically features in his collaborations with Wizkid. The entire project, however, exists in a transcendentally cozy space and this gentle mix of Reggae and Afrobeats heightens the contemplative atmosphere of the project. 

The human mind is at once wholly familiar and utterly mysterious. As conscious beings, we recognize ourselves as being distinct from the vast otherness that is the rest of the world. But we’re oftentimes only vaguely aware of the thoughts that occupy our minds. Tuning out of the patter of everyday life and turning inwards, by way of meditation, for example, reveals the beautiful messiness of our internal states. At every single moment, our minds thrum and throb with a multiplicity of thoughts. And while the mind feels like a giant atrium, it’s incredibly hard to keep it still. In Reflection Station, Tay Iwar tries to mirror this effect. His songs typically follow defined themes and narratives. Consider Don’t Lie, the standout song on Summer Breeze finds him interrogating a complicated relationship with a lover. They’re both in love but their actions and inactions cause each other immense pain. He maps and explores this pain with calligraphic precision, singing about drowning this odd mix of pain and numbness in alcohol.

Reflection Station however finds him without this keen sense of narrative focus. He bounces erratically between a slew of themes and topics, oftentimes slinkering to an obscure, aphoristic register. On the titular Reflection Station, the first song on the album, he rifles through a vast assortment of themes. One moment, he’s engaging in hearty self-adulation, the next he’s wielding a metaphor about the horrors of war. This effect of rapidly oscillating between themes makes for a surreal listen. It almost feels like being cocooned in his mental space. But it can also feel disorienting. 

Reflection Station (the song) is especially illustrative. Trying to follow the themes in it can leave one in a tailspin. But in other moments, he finds the perfect balance. In Bad Belle, over a soft Afrobeats production, he straddles professing love to his muse and excoriating his enemies. But somehow, he makes the two seemingly incongruous themes flow seamlessly together. In Floating, over a Reggae beat and a flute that feels straight out of a vintage Japanese film, he expresses his desire for sanctuary in the waves. “Waves” in this song takes on a metaphorical meaning for freedom from the strictures of society. He sometimes trails off into esoteric territory, but this motif of the waves, which is as forceful as it is tangible, anchors the song. On Reflection Station, Tay Iwar trades his characteristic romantic themes for stark introspection. The writing on certain parts of the album feels slightly disorienting—which in a sense is a simulacrum of the human mind—but in the parts where he strikes a balance, the result is pure catharsis.