I reckon we should be mentioning Rakei in the same breath as Hiatus Kaiyote or The Weeknd, but does anybody know who he is? Actually kind of a lot of people, if his FB likes or Soundcloud followers are anything to go by. It’s weird though: Rakei’s sudden surge of fame began with a guest vocal for housey / UK upstarts Disclosure and so he has a huge number of fans in places other than Australia and a rather startlingly low profile here in Oz; though that’s changing.

All of this feeds into his latest project, the slyly titled Dan Kye. Stepping out of his neo-soul smoothness, Rakei has decided he doesn’t need Disclosure for dance grooves, offering up four self-produced slices of deep and funky house on a new EP, Joy, Ease, Lightness. That mysterious horde of fans don’t seem to have discovered his side project yet, though if they like Disclosure, I’m guessing Dan Kye will be a cinch for them. They’ll probably find out, too, because instead of putting the EP out on the Brisbane micro-label Soul Has No Tempo, Joy, Ease, Lightness is shipping through the still cultish but rather well-established Rhythm Section International.

Now that you know everything about it except how it is, I probably better say a few words, huh? The type of house Kye is going for is funky and a pretty muscular funk too. On opener Change the melodic elements mostly sit in the background, letting the beats and bass crowd your ears. This is funky house primarily, punctuated by samples of beefy men shouting their appreciation. When Rakei’s vocal finally kicks in properly it’s a beautiful contrast, his tight Jeff Buckley vibrato is like a cool blast of air conditioner across the dancefloor. It’s interesting to think how much you could change these tracks by altering the positions of different sounds in the mix. Push all those beats into the background and this could be from the dancier end of Cloak, but here we are, perfectly at home in the club. I nearly laughed out loud when I first heard Like You Wanna, where Rakei heads straight down the middle between funky house and soul and -of course- ends up sounding just like James Brown. Most of the track plays out like an endless drum-break, just demanding Brown's signature dance moves.

Rakei is clearly still very much attached to his guru, new-age mystic Eckhart Tolle. The Oprah favourite whose wisdom informed much of Cloak here gets his own track, Tolle: it’s appropriately dubby and hypnotic but powered by a sweet bassline and a tambourine. Eckhart gets pride of place with a big ol’ sample in the intro.

Just a short step away from where Rakei has taken listeners previously, Dan Kye is still a really refreshing and unexpected contrast. It’s not like he was short of styles to pursue but when you’re really good at everything you choose to do, why not? It’s been a great year for Jordan Rakei and, for once, that seems, slowly but surely, to be attracting the legions of fans it deserves. Are you one of them?

- Chris Cobcroft.