Charli xcx really did start a trend when she sent Lorde that voice note about “Girl, so confusing.” While electronic musician Four Tet and singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding probably didn’t have too much to work out on the remix—they’ve collabed twice before with 2020’s “Baby” and 2022’s Grammy-nominated remix of Goulding’s “Easy Lover”—their newest track, “In My Dreams,” also began with a voice message.
“At the end of last year Ellie texted me with a couple of voice notes for a song idea. Words and melodies she was singing into her phone and she asked me if I could use them to make something,” Four Tet shared of creating the track in a statement. “She’s told me in the past she likes to send me vocals that I can just use as sound and turn into whatever I want (which is how our song ‘Baby’ happened a few years ago). I found other noises to go with it and made ‘In My Dreams.’ She added some new vocal parts but we ended up keeping the voice note recordings as the main vocal.”
“I guess the first take is often the most magical,” he continued. “I wanted to make something that was all about juxtaposing harsh aggressive sound with the delicate and intimate.” You can hear the success of that project on the track, which is interestingly discordant at the start before adding softer elements like bells and chimes and eventually folding in Goulding’s lilting vocals.
Four Tet has been teasing the track for fans since last spring, incorporating it into his sets as early as May. While this is a standalone single, his 12th studio album, Three, was also released this past May. You can catch him at the Portola and CRSSD festivals in San Francisco and San Diego respectively later this month. Listen to “In My Dreams” here.