Satori’s new single ‘The Gin Song’ isn’t exactly what you would expect from the Crosstown Rebel’s artist, but rest assured that it’s exactly what you need.
And it’s just one track amongst many gems that make up his latest Dreamin’ Colours album that dropped today. The nine-track album contains a wide range of musical styles and influences that somehow all manage to remain markedly in Satori’s laidback, ethereal, and worldly sound.
The resulting nine tracks that make up the Dreamin’ Colours album stand as a direct contrast to so much of what is happening in the electronic music space; where the need to pigeonhole and quantify musical genres and tastes often hampers the boundaries the artists claim to be pushing.
Where many of Satori’s contemporaries see the music and the process of creating it as a means to an end, Satori’s album exemplifies his unique approach to production expressed most clearly in his own words:
What made you want to create a track like ‘The Gin Song’ that is so outside of your usual sound palette?
For me it doesn’t feel like an unusual sound, this sound is my inspiration. I love blues and grooves, in particular Mali desert blues like Tinariwen. And this guitar hook brought me to that feeling, and I love to fuse the organic guitar sounds with these electronic arpeggiators.
How much has ‘The Gin Song’ changed since when you first started road testing it and the version that’s released?
It never really starts as a track but merely as sample loop, baselines, and synths, then I start jamming with this in my live set.
After playing around with all these shapes and sounds I stumble on the right arrangement and that’s when it starts forming a track.
Where did you find this sample and how did you react when you first heard it?
This is the magic of Spotify!
I was just traveling from gig to gig and suddenly I heard this guitar hook and it caught my attention right away. It’s that blues and Lo Fi feeling that really pulled me into this right away.
Tell me your favorite memory that you already have attached to ‘The Gin Song’?
My favorite memory of this track is also the first time I finally got the arrangement of it like it was in my head, it completely clicked.
This happened during my first show after the pandemic.
It was the Zero boat party in New York which is legendary, 1200 people on a roof deck sailing around Manhattan during sunset, and the reactions of the people to this song were amazing.
This makes it by far my favorite moment!
What was the hardest part about making ‘The Gin Song’? What was the easiest?
To be honest, it was not hard at all, this was one of those situations where everything just came together immediately.
I found the right sounds, samples and the right flow quite naturally. The last time I had this was when I did the remix for Syria.
It almost feels like pure luck when it all falls together at once when normally it’s quite a bit of work and a track can take months, but this one is special for sure.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
