In an era when music is primarily distributed digitally, the distinction between an EP and a mini-album can be significant. An EP could easily be a throwaway project—a place to store songs that didn't quite fit a proper full-length thematically or sonically. A mini-LP, though, connotes the same wholeness and completion as any given album, just shorter. At seven tracks and 24 minutes, Jennifer Lee's (aka TOKiMONSTA) Fovere is just that: a brief, rounded project that does not ask very much of its listener. With its quick runtime and tight structure, it is neither groundbreaking nor entirely lacking inspiration. Though prone to drift into the background, Fovere is certain, reliable, and mostly enjoyable.
A disciple of Flying Lotus (and the first woman signed to his Brainfeeder label), Lee began her career as an L.A. beatmaker, content to get lost in her own universe of kicks, samples, and smooth instrumentals. On 2013's Ultra-released Half Shadows, she largely maintained her warped ethos, but added vocalists (like Kool Keith) to the tracks. Then on 2014's mini-LP Desiderium, Lee began crafting songs with room for singers to perform. With that transition, her music gained some space, but lost the hip-hop-indebtedness of earlier work. The project was not particularly memorable, nor was it terribly distinct from that of other producers creating club-ready tracks that were still cool enough for solo listening. Not even a then-unheralded Anderson .Paak made much of a lasting impression.
Fovere finds Lee continuing her transition away from DJ and toward bona-fide producer status. Whereas Desiderium had three guest vocalists on its seven tracks, Fovere has five. (Lee samples her own "Hemisphere" with Gavin Turek on opener "I'm Waiting," too, making it more like six out of seven.) Nevertheless, their lyrics are largely ignorable. A suddenly empowered .Paak, the exception to the rule, turns in a commanding performance on "Put It Down" (which also features KRNE), but everyone else is just an agreeable element in a pop-ready electronic track.
There is hardly a daring track on Fovere. "Put It Down" is its most impressive, but neatly fits Lee's previously laid framework, simply a couple notches up on the intensity scale, complete with Skrillex-ian drops. "Penny" is a potentially strong ballad hamstrung by nonsensical songwriting. Closer "Wound Up" cues up some house sounds, a genre in which Lee sounds more like a visitor than an innovator. Even if it's lacking highs (or lows), Fovere is strong enough to be pleasant. It doesn't ask to be grappled with nor taken at much more than face value, but it finds Jennifer Lee further cementing herself as a viable pop composer.
