Iman Omari

L.A. singer/producer Iman Omari has been slow-brewing his spacey, heavily textured R&B dreamscapes at the radar's edge for a couple of years now, building upon 2011's Energy EP with a slew of increasingly searching rough works, remixes and collaborative projects. New album (VIBE)rations lays many of Omari's more enthralling aural leanings down beautifully behind a drawn-out, romantically lustful, though ultimately frustrated, lover's plea. Each reverberating concoction washes over you with a trippy combination of warm, blanketing astral tones, thick, anchoring bass lines and clackety, unconventional percussive hits, with acoustic guitar and horn touches sprinkled in unassumingly to further sweeten the hallucinatory brew. The singer's uniquely affected vocals enhance this sonic effect, while rapping partner MoRuf and Toronto soul siren Shi Wisdom stir up the record's running dream sequence with a few stand-out contributions of their own. Save for a poor studio mix that strips away a bit of the record's clear audio potency, (VIBE)rations is a wonderfully constructed piece of left-field soul offering a perfect glimpse into Omari's unique, creative world.