Loud Sounds 27
Cover photo: Justin the Lover
"Loud Sounds" are some of the best new tracks we've found. We are coming back with the 27th installment of the series.
Justin the Lover – Backflipbackflip

Justin the Lover's new single starts like a sonic equivalent of someone dribbling a basketball right on your head (with you enjoying it). Then things get even crazier. Some ethnic samples kick in only to dissapear quickly, to be replaced by a swarm of percussive sounds hitting you like ruthless robotic killer bees. One of the most fun and daring footwork singles you'll hear this year.

Justin the Lover
The track was inspired by a really wild kirtan that I participated in. I had never been to one before and I was struck by the pounding energy and pulsing repetition of the chanting so I decided to dive into that idea and play around a bit.

I also wanted to play between the ideas of minimalism and maximalism as the track moves and glides through a repetitious vocal loop. Furthermore, I wanted this to be a track that got people into their bodies and out of their minds. I incorporated some direct elements that reminded me of the kirtan – a field recording of a crowd chanting, some toms that I sequenced to sound like a tabla, and kicks that embodied the pulsing feeling of the room. The vocal loop is meant to serve as a metronome or mantra as it weaves through the chaos.

Ultimately, the track became a push and pull between this chaotic crescendo of energy and maintaining that energy as everything gets stripped down again. It was the first track that I worked on for the record and it really set the tone for everything else! Also! My dog gets hype when I play this song so it's a grand slam in my book.
Lost Dream – Shelter

Ok, now you probably need to calm down after Justin the Lover's track. And Shelter from Atlanta-based producer Lost Dream might be the answer. It's a simple piece of ambient music featuring, you guessed it, calming pads that change their sound as the track progresses and modulated white noise that sounds like ocean waves, thunder and rain (quite convincingly). But it WORKS.

"The track Shelter is meant to make the listener feel safe and warm. A last little bit of calm and peacefulness before venturing back out into the cold," explains the producer.