FRESH JUICE: Trust In U by Lushed

Galway-raised, Dublin-based producer Lushed (Song Du) releases his debut EP with three electrifying tracks.

Words by Michael Savage

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Buy/ Stream here: https://lushed.bandcamp.com/album/trust-in-u

This anticipated release exudes years of personal emotions and experiences that Lushed has condensed together into three euphoric electronic gems, ‘U’, ‘Run’, and ‘Gush’. The creative work is mixed and mastered by Lushed, as a result of his experience in audio engineering. We spoke to Lushed to unravel what this EP’s significance holds for him.

When creating music, people draw inspiration from a myriad of sources and Lushed has surrounded himself with music throughout his life. Growing up in a town that has been enveloped by G-Town Records (label with DJs Shampain and Kettama), Lushed was developing his own Indie/ Electronic style in the vibrant scene by organising raves and DJing at iconic venues like the Róisín Dubh, Blue Note, Electric, and Carbon.

When he moved across the country to Dublin to study, he gained a strong grounding in technical areas of live music by working as a front of house and monitor mixer for clubs, seeing the inner workings of festivals as a stagehand and AV Technician, and studying Sound Engineering. It all seems inevitable that production was the next piece of the puzzle. With all this in mind, where did Lushed look for inspiration for this EP?

“There’s been a mix of inspirations over the past few months. Musically I’ve been rinsing a few artists! Sonne, SWIM and fellow Galway native Froman to name a few. Anything emotive and dancey is right up my street and gets me motivated. But I guess the main inspiration for me is the want to put my music out there and share what I’m creating in my bedroom, I feel like I’ve finally come to the point where I’m not producing absolute shite (believe me there’s been a multitude of this) and trusting my productions/mixing skills more and more each day.”

Lushed will be riding high after the release of his tracks ‘U’ and ‘Gush’ last year received great reception. The first single, ‘U’, wouldn’t have sounded out of place in Ross From Friends’ early repertoire with a four-on-the-floor rhythm made up of bright, warm pads alongside arpeggiators and spacey vocals. This track will fit right into your Euphoria Mix playlist alongside Jasper Tygner, Fred Again.., and DJ Seinfeld for those zoned-out eyes-closed grooves. Nailing the sound was part of it, but what was Lushed most proud of with this EP?

“To be honest I’m proud of it all, when I released the first singles, I wasn’t too sure how people were going to respond or whether it was any good or not. There’s always that self-doubt when releasing music, never mind for the first time. But to my surprise it gained a bit of attention from the likes of Nialler9 & Hot Press. So yeah, I can’t help but be proud of it all!”

The ethereal, dreamy quality of ‘U’ is matched with the third single ‘Gush’. The atmosphere is hypnotic and grandeur, with sweeping chords continuously building to big crescendos evoking comparisons to the production style of George Fitzgerald. A suitable track for a Summer festival where the setting sun falls into night. Considering all the related artists styles above, who are Lushed’s biggest influences?

“Music wise there’s a long list, but the main ones at the moment would include Four Tet, George Daniels (drummer from The 1975 and an amazing producer), Jon Hopkins for sure, his album Music for Psychedelic Therapy is one that really expanded my mind. I’ve also recently gotten into the whole minimalist music catalogue of the 60s like Steve Reich, John Adams & Philip Glass. I find that repetitive, nearly trance-like orchestral music is something I’ll really take on board with future productions.”

The second track on the EP, ‘Run’ uses a dotted bassline and Arabic-style vocals to create a lively dance track. The vocal sample is alluring and adds the perfect emotional depth to the whole EP. With how expressive this track is, we asked what Lushed's creative process was like.

“The creative process was mainly to light a few candles and start chopping breaks and vocal samples. I usually like to start with a quick drum loop and then chop up some vocals around that. The synths and bass usually come once I have an idea of what the vocals chops are going to be. At the moment all my tracks are done in the box, after hearing on a podcast (Tape Notes) that the likes of Burial & Four Tet work mostly in the DAW I thought fuck it, lets get really good at this before I invest time into learning new hardware because that’ll be a whole new learning curve. That being said, I do hope to get some synths soon. On the tracks from ‘Trust in U’ you’ll be mostly hearing plugins from Plugin Alliance, Soundtoys, UAD, Native Instruments & Ableton stock synths, like Wavetable and Analog.”

After this EP, Lushed is more than ready for the leap into releasing and defining his sound as his work gets streamed around Ireland and abroad. As he navigates the Dublin music scene, we wanted to know what he thought of the future of electronic music in Ireland.

“I think on a grassroots level it is popping off. There’s plenty of small collectives around the country which are the lifeline for the nation. But on a larger scale we’ve seen the closure of many iconic venues due to various reasons. As well as that the insurance demands for a club in Ireland is fucked, it’s causing a lot of clubs to shut down. All that being said, I feel like Ireland is slowly but surely opening up to club culture. I think in a few generations Ireland will be a lot more tolerant and have a more central European view on dance culture.”

Keep an eye out for Lushed’s music production journey.