Oliver Heldens Spent 6 Years Working On His Next Single

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NEXUS LOUNGE MIAMI 2022

Oliver Heldens, also known by his moniker HI-LO, joined us during Miami Music Week at the Nexus Radio Pop-Up Studio.. He shared the process and timeline of making music, what it’s like to work on two very different projects sound-wise at once, and just how hectic his schedule at Miami Music Week can be.

Signed initially to Spinning Records in 2013, Heldens quickly made a name for himself with his well-received smash single ‘Gecko .’Just two years later, he found his record label ‘Heldeep’ as a way of up-and-coming housing producers on the scene. He has released several successful mixtapes and singles since, under his name and his alias HI-LO, and is often credited as a pioneer of the “future house” genre.

One of the most notable takeaways from our interview was learning about his music’s life cycle. He shared with us that many of the tracks he’s releasing in the present day have their roots as far back as 2016, including some of the ways in his current Miami Music Week setlist and even a new, upcoming single.

This unreleased single has strings by Nile Rogers, a sample from Kiss’s ‘I Was Made For Lovin’ You,’ and vocals by House Gospel Choir. Heldens credited the track’s long developmental stage to the string of artists he tried to partner on the song with—recalling the process of shuffling through different top lines with “more than a dozen” artists to find the perfect sound. He believes this track is one of his best, stating, “this was just one of my best instrumentals that I’d ever done.”

Additionally, he shared what it’s like to perform to different crowds at Miami Music Week. His mainstage set at Ultra, which requires an hour-long setlist, is typically made up of his most well-known, mainstream hits, while his other sets allow him more space to experiment with new sounds and unreleased tracks. As a result, there is quite a dichotomy between the manicured, prepared-in-advance mainstage set and the last-minute rush to complete new tracks, making them ready-to-play.

"The thing with something like Ultra Miami, especially on the main stage, it's just one hour, and it's all going to be live-streamed, so that's a set that I prepare more beforehand. But then, of course, there's also trying to make lots of new edits, new mashups, remixes for the other parties."

In the Take-5 portion of our interview, he meditated on being a person who’s more drawn to the melodic aspects of a song rather than the lyrics, how depending on which project he’s working on, Oliver Heldens or HI-LO, he finds self-comparison in very different artists and influences, and that if we’re lucky, most people should experience love in their life at least once.

All this and much more in our full interview with Oliver Heldens at the Nexus Lounge Miami.

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NEXUS LOUNGE MIAMI 2022

"The thing with something like Ultra Miami, especially on the main stage, it's just one hour, and it's all going to be live-streamed, so that's a set that I prepare more beforehand. But then, of course, there's also trying to make lots of new edits, new mashups, remixes for the other parties."