New York-based producer and texture collector Saffron (formerly Spirit Guide) paints vivid backgrounds and deep cafe situations via crisp, refined house on his debut under this name, a double cassette release “Petra I” and “Petra II”. Saffron’s hybridized genre builds include trip-hop, moody downtempo, sturdy walking-paced house and crunchy IDM with low key cinematics drifting throughout. A multitude of textures protrude from a general coating of slick motion and moods that hover above meticulous bass grooves and piano lines, blending an undisguised sense of proficiency and surface-obsessed sensibilities with sincere and overtly “soulful” tones. This blend of sincerity and aesthetics that throwback to millennial headphone electronica results in a disorienting yet smooth set of erudite beats and rhythms across both “Petra I” and “Petra II” Both of these EPs work as two different timelines that reside crisply as either languid backdrop or effortlessly melodic and rhythmic foreground; main modes of choice are lush, blue chillout house and piano-driven laidback but emotive electronica, shuffling with jazzy moods and downbeat signifiers. “Petra II” is trying to vibrate a different static plane; like trying to drag table by the tablecloth, these 5 tracks are loose and cluttered with samples like blues vocals, sepia toned synth warbles, cinematic flute reverbs and distinctly downbeat sounds of double bass. This kind of look back to early 2000s modes of expression come to fruition on punctuative and groove-heavy “Contra” and reaches sublime apex on the skewed trip-hop melodies of closing track “Catalonia”.