Digital Cover: Sam Gellaitry
Photographer: Vicky Grout
VF VOL II is a glimpse inside Sam Gellaitry’s colorful world.
For the past few years, Scotland-bred producer Sam Gellaitry has been riding the wave of consistent success since his breakout Escapism EP in 2015. From a young age, the rising star has been experimenting with eclectic sounds as if it was second nature. “I've been making music. I've been sampling music since I was 10 and then composing music since I was 12. So six years before that [Escapism EP] release came out was when I started actually composing stuff, which is really weird because that was eight years ago.” He never stops composing, and amidst the release of his colorful mixtape, VF VOL II, we caught up with Sam Gellaitry in the studio already prepping for the next project.
The Scotland-born producer is always thinking about his next step. “It’s kind of an addiction,” he says. “I just do it, even when I was working on the mixtape, I was working on stuff that wasn’t on the mixtape. It keeps it fresh. Just constantly making new stuff. I’m more addicted to actually making something but I wish I was addicted to finishing tracks. Cause I’d have a thousand tracks but they’re usually ideas that don’t see the light of day.” However, one demo within his arsenal did make it out of the vault. On his latest mixtape, Sam shares the demo version of “Picture in my mind,” the finished version now features internet chanteuse, PinkPantheress.
Photographer: Vicky Grout
The original demo pulls inspiration from tropical house elements and has the feeling of being an overall dance track. “I put the demo because that's literally how it was before she got involved. I had to rearrange the structure, not the time signature cause it's still 4/4, but the structure of the track. So the one that we put out, the key is one step lower. It's kind of got a vast chorus structure as well. Just a unique way to kinda let people into the process of it. I think it's a good way to show people how much she transformed it as well. Just the journey of the track in itself.”
Sam's iconic sound underwent its own evolution over time; early on in his career he mostly stuck to creating high-energy dance instrumentals but has recently pivoted to songwriting and adding his own vocals to tracks. This came with years of trial and error along with experimentation. However, artists with an expansive background in production transitioning to laying their own vocals on their work isn’t a new concept. We’ve seen it before from artists like Toro Y Moi, James Blake, and even Tame Impala, who Sam credits as inspiration for wanting to sing. “That was just the stuff that I was gravitating towards. Probably subconsciously knowing that there's a lot of focus on the production as well as the vocal. I was getting into a lot of like Young Thug and more melodic singing stuff as well. It's kinda a combination of those things. I just wanted to keep quiet until I was at the right stage mentally to kind of put myself out there in that kind of expression.”
Each track comes from the pure enjoyment and passion of his craft and his undoubted love for making music. Sam’s sound isn’t confined to a specific time period, nor does it ride on the wave of a specific trend. On this project, each track is cohesive with one another but is still strong enough to live on its own outside of this mixtape. From the catchy melodies to his feel-good production, Sam’s sound has the ability to stand the test of time and will be referenced for years to come. “That's what I've always strived for. That's another reason why I did vocal stuff actually because having the asset of being able to put vocals on things gives me more freedom with the production. Cause essentially, I couldn't just put the beat out ‘Picture in my mind’ and be satisfied. I started making music because of French house, it was more dance centered and a lot of it did have vocals on it to be fair. When you think about Daft Punk going from Homework to Discovery, I feel like that's kind of what I've done. Cuz like Homework is, was very much sound and beat and like how it feels and like Discovery was more how can we make pop songs that last forever kind of thing. And what they did was reference disco, which lasted at least 20 years in terms of relevancy. I think that’s what I’m trying to do. That's the benefit of doing vocals is that you can go to territories, which you can't really do if you just had that as an instrumental.”
That liberating feeling of experimentation and discovery is present throughout this mixtape with Sam becoming more confident in using his voice, evident on tracks like the melancholy “HEARTBEAT” that has his falsetto wrapped around a warm, 80s-sounding production. “It took a while to even frame my voice in a stylistic way. I'm finding my voice more with this project.”
Being someone who is always ready for a new project, we ask about the reasoning for continuing the View Finder being Volume 1, which was released two years ago. “I wanted to put out a project that does not have any set cohesive genre whatsoever. The reason why I wanted to keep it as a mixtape series was that I didn't wanna put out just Volume One and that's it cause that's like admitting defeat. I wanted to keep it going and just have that outlet where if I have a collection of tracks and they're not really meant to fit on my album. For my album, I want to be more systematic. My plan is to do like a funk album and then a trap kind album and have them all in one place for the full-length albums. But for this, it's more freedom. It's more like an experiment. I wanna see how people respond to a project, which kinda doesn't have a consistent genre throughout it. I want to go against the mold in terms of a project.” Sam has a hand in everything when it comes to his artistry right down to the visuals and album art. “Another thing about it as well is it's like a circle kind of a full circle from the first project because the first project was about me having a collection of tracks. It was called PHOSPHINE. Which is when you press your eyes and you see all these visions. So that was what I was doing. Like, I was pressing down on my vision and then I was like tripping out my own head about it. And that's what came out of that project.”
Photographer: Vicky Grout
Throughout our conversation, he refers to VF VOL II as not the most cohesive. However, upon my listen through this mixtape, it feels like the perfect in-between treat for Sam’s listeners to enjoy. From start to finish it's beautifully paced with a more aggressive dance first half with tracks like “NO SIGNS” and “EUPHORIA,” then eventually transitioning to a more slow finish with “NEW WAVE” as the grand finale. As if it was replicating a night out with your friends — a strong start with a slow finish — ending by reminiscing about a lost love. “I made all these tracks in two or three years. ‘Euphoria’ is the oldest one. They were all intended to be singles. They were all not meant to be in a project. Then they all slotted in naturally. I wasn't putting any pressure on my vision whatsoever. It just landed in place. And it has that kind of playfulness to it. The fact my voice is throughout it, that’s another key thing about my foundation. If you play “HEARTBEAT,” which is like a slow eighties track, and then you compare it to like “NO SIGNS”, which is like, genre-less kind of a grainy sound. They shouldn't be on the same project together. But they're at opposite ends of the project. So there is kind of a journey aspect. I quite like an instant high and a calm down after it. And that's why new wave at the end, because it talks about the party life and it talks about needing help from that. So it's kind of like the sobering up end track.”
A unique aspect of Sam's music creation process is that he is synesthetic, meaning he sees colors when he listens to music. On the cover of the mixtape, on the bottom left each track is color coded and blends together on the giant orb on the front. “See how there's a big green chunk. Right? That's because these songs stay in the exact same key. So there's a five-track run of songs, which are in E-flat minor, which is actually one of my favorite keys, if not my favorite. One thing I'm conscious of is that I want everyone to experience it in their own way, I didn't really want it to be like: this is it. I kind of did it subtly with the art and the track titles.”
Sam Gellaitry is one of the artists we're lucky enough to witness in our generation. The passion he has for music is evident in the way he describes his craft. From the smallest details that might go unnoticed by the average listener to utilizing his expansive musical background, he makes sure that his work is a reflection of himself and his desire for persistence and longevity. As we get lost in the colorful and playful world of VF Vol II, we’ll be patiently waiting for what he has in store for us with his highly anticipated album.