I

Like a single strand of wafting smoke, Niia's debut album I is entrancing in its sparse, elegantly gliding beauty. Her follow-up to 2014's Generation Blue EP and first release on Atlantic Records takes that release's lush, bassy sound and pares it back to reveal smooth, fully realized songwriting and timeless aesthetics. It's a slow-burning, intimate document that tips its hand towards genres as disparate as the glory days of trip-hop, mid-tempo disco, and misty jazz, while retaining an impressively unified mood evoking modern noir.