“I didn’t see the album as being particularly summery for the most part when I wrote it. A lot of it feels happy and emotional, but I guess I do write my happiest music in the weirdest circumstances,” says salute about True Magic, his latest LP. Even though he completed it in the cold winter weather, it is true that the record has a happy quality that instantly transports us to brighter, hotter, more care-free days.
Maybe that’s also because he rented a countryside house to work on it, a perfect place to avoid distractions and stay focused. “Being able to go for morning runs in a forest with amazingly fresh air definitely helped,” he says. Collaborating with a wide array of artists including Disclosure, Rina Sawayama, Empress Of, and Sam Gellaitry, among others, salute has crafted a beautiful album that we’ve had on repeat since it released last month.
Congratulations on the release of True Magic! How does it feel to publish a new album? Are you nervous about it?
More than anything, I’m relieved. The seven months between the completion and release of the album were such a drag, so I’m just glad it’s out there now. It’s been lovely seeing people connect with it in different ways.
Your style is obviously inspired by club culture and your early career as a DJ. How did this time affect not only your personal style in greater detail, but also, how did it help hone your voice?
I was making music way before I could go to clubs, so my view of dance music was limited to whatever was available online at the time. I was making all sorts of tunes –everything from instrumental hip-hop to post-dubstep & juke–, and I think DJing helped me figure out what exactly it was I wanted to be producing and what I enjoyed playing the most. Seeing my favourite DJs perform also helped me discover new music that would go on to influence my own production. People like Joris Voorn for example, or Motor City Drum Ensemble.
You worked with a wide variety of artists on the album including Rina Sawayama, Empress Of, or Nakamura Minami. What was it like working with so many voices, and how did their input affect the various songs you collaborated on?
Everyone brought something completely different to the album, which is so exciting to me. Most of the collaborators are friends of mine, so making these tunes together was so much fun and didn’t feel like much effort at all. Making music with friends is probably one of the most healing things you can do.
How did collaborating with so many artists affect the overall vision for the album? Did you ever fear your own voice or vision were compromised because of the polyphonic nature of the record?
There is a red thread that runs through the album I think. One of the things I like about the record is that the production still very much sounds like me regardless of who is on it. I think the instrumentals mainly act as a tool to bring all of the features into the True Magic world, and all the guests enhance the vision itself.
You rented a countryside house to work on the album. I’m curious how/if that setting inspired the summer feeling of saving flowers, and or any other tracks on the album?
That writing session for saving flowers was actually in the middle of the winter, around January. It was quite chilly and miserable. We had the heaters blasting while making the beat for that song. Funnily enough, I didn’t see the album as being particularly summery for the most part when I wrote it. A lot of it feels happy and emotional, but I guess I do write my happiest music in the weirdest circumstances. I’ve said this before, but I seem to write my most joyful music when the environment doesn’t really call for it at all. I also finished the album in the winter and timing wise, that felt right.
How did working in the countryside differ from working in a studio or maybe the city, and how did that also affect the vibe of the record?
It mainly meant there was little around to distract me. I deleted social media from my phone and focused on being properly present. Although I’m not sure how much it affected the vibe of the record, I can definitely say it helped give me enough clarity to make the best music I possibly could at the time. In addition, being able to go for morning runs in a forest with amazingly fresh air definitely helped.
You have mentioned that you went into a bit of a rabbit hole searching through old commercials to find inspiration for the sound and title of the album. Can you expand on, or speak about some examples of commercials you watched, and what were some of the leaps you made from video to video?
My parents used to record a lot of American TV shows VHS in the ‘80s and ‘90s and play them back to my brothers and I when we were kids. Some of the adverts in the breaks between series were really fun to watch and I quickly became a bit obsessed with the more bizarre ones that would sometimes pop up. I also sometimes caught glimpses of weird Adult Swim stuff when my older brother watched, it feels proper nostalgic. Around the age of sixteen I was trawling YouTube and found a compilation of old Japanese adverts for electronics like hi-fi soundsystems and video game consoles, then went on to watch old car ads around the time I started playing games like Need For Speed or Gran Turismo. The ad for the 1987 Toyota FXV-II is a good one for example.
The title of this album is True Magic. You have said that it is based on “driving an old JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) car in a race called True Magic” and how “this highly visual concept helped propel the sonics of the album forward and give the album a sense of driving momentum.” What drew you to this style in particular?
A lot of the music on the album contains references to movement and tempo—the visual aspect is mainly a continuation of what I previously tried to achieve around five years ago when I dropped tracks like Fortress or Brandy Dub. I used to search the internet for old JDMs racing/drifting/adverts containing them, chop them up to accompany the music I was making. True Magic is an extension of that in a way, directly putting myself into that world.
