When it came to creating their debut album, Vienna-born and Manchester-based DJ salute knew it had to be a collaborative labor of love. “I wanted to celebrate the musical community I’ve built over the past 10 years and make excellent pop music for the dance floor,” they tell Apple Music. “The production became just like the album’s aesthetic: bright, glossy, and fun.” Since the release of their first EP, “Lionheart,” in 2013, salute has been building a loyal dance-floor following drawn to their blend of French Touch-inspired melodic sampling, bouncing basslines and uptempo beatmaking. Their debut album TRUE MAGIC is no different, distilling everything from drum ’n’ bass throwbacks to Japanese jazz fusion and UK garage into a euphoric brand of club-ready bangers. “It’s an album to play loud and lose yourself in,” salute says. “It’s the truest representation of exactly where I am right now.” Read on for salute’s in-depth thoughts on TRUE MAGIC, track by track. “start” “The album is structured to soundtrack a race where you’re in the Toyota MR2 from the cover art while a narrating voice chimes in to tell you to start, slow down, or speed up. It’s a theme inspired by my teenage love of watching old car commercials on YouTube and playing games like Need for Speed. This short opening kicks off the race and features a sample from one of my favorite bands, the Japanese fusion group Casiopea, which carries on in the next track.” “saving flowers” (with Rina Sawayama) “I’ve been friends with Rina for a decade now and worked on some production for her first album. I’ve been wanting to get her on a track of mine for a long time and we finally managed to make it happen with ‘saving flowers.’ With Rina being Japanese, it felt like a perfect fit to have her singing over a sample from one of Japan’s most iconic bands, Casiopea. It’s just a beautiful way to honor our friendship.” “reason” (with Karma Kid) “Karma Kid is one of my best friends and he is also the executive producer on the album. There’s a French Touch feel that runs through the record and for ‘reason,’ we wanted to make something that tapped into that late-’90s/early-2000s sound, in the vein of ‘Thrill Me’ by Junior Jack. This was only the second song we made on the album and it came together really quickly—it’s still one of my favorites.” “lift off!” (with Disclosure) “I was asked to remix the track ‘Looking for Love’ from Disclosure’s last album [2023’s Alchemy] and since they liked what I did, we wanted to find a way to work together on an original tune. I managed to hang out with Guy [Lawrence] when I was in LA and there we began a bunch of ideas, including ‘lift off!’ We have a very similar musical taste and, as a lifelong Disclosure fan, it was just super fun to watch him work so effortlessly on this track.” “maybe it’s u” (with Sam Gellaitry) “I’ve loved watching Sam Gellaitry grow into an incredible artist over the years and I have a lot of respect for his talent. We ended up on the same bill at Way Out West festival in Sweden and when we were backstage, I played this beat on my phone to him and asked him to sing over it. Not many people know that he’s an incredible singer, so it’s an honor to have him doing the vocals on this track. We ended up writing it super fast in only three hours when we were both later in LA together.” “go!” (with Nakamura Minami) “When I was in Japan on tour, I played a bunch of Nakamura Minami’s tracks and she got wind of it, so we soon connected and decided to find a song to work on together. I love her vocal energy and sent her a beat to record over, but what she sent back was such an incredibly layered performance, I knew I had to change my part to do it justice. What you hear on the final version is a completely new instrumental with that same amazing vocal.” “true magic, bonus round” “This interlude is a bit like when you’re playing Mario Kart and in the last round everything suddenly speeds up—it’s the part of the race where things get intense. I used to produce drum ’n’ bass when I was a teenager, and this is a throwback to that genre, produced through the prism of the artist that I am now.” “one of those nights” (with Empress Of) “I had never met Empress Of but she was on my list of people I wanted to work with on the album. Thankfully, Karma Kid had a connection with her, so we managed to meet for a session in LA. We hit it off immediately and became so excited about this beat as soon as we started making it. That session also produced the ideas for the track ‘system.’” “move faster…” “‘move faster…’ is the big club tune on the album, a track that represents the kind of music I love playing in my DJ sets. I actually tested out the first version of this track at my debut Boiler Room show in 2022 and people responded really well. It all centers on a jazz-fusion song [Michael Shrieve’s ‘Transfer Station Blue’] from the mid ’80s that I’ve sampled and sped up over this beat.” “system” “French Touch is such a flexible sound, ranging from the kinds of music Justice makes to Thomas Bangalter’s productions. ‘system’ is very much inspired by the latter, trying to make a two-bar melodic loop as interesting as possible while layering it with loads of huge chords. It was written with Empress Of and [UK house producer] Luxury and is always one of my favorites from the record to play during DJ sets.” “softly” (feat. Léa Sen) “This is the part of the album where I take my foot off the pedal and move into a softer zone, since everything before has been so big and dramatic. This is one of the most subtle songs I’ve ever made, since I wanted to let Léa’s emotive and beautiful vocals shine through. All I did was layer synths over the beat, and it makes the track feel so different from everything else on TRUE MAGIC.” “luv stuck” (with piri) “I’ve been a fan of piri’s music for ages and wanted to make something sticky and sweet for her voice, since our sounds gel so well. She is an amazing songwriter and wrote this track so quickly, delivering a vocal that perfectly complements the instrumental. It’s such clear singing and catchy writing, I think people will really gravitate towards this tune.” “perfect” (with LEILAH) “LEILAH has been a really important part of my career and we have worked on a number of my tracks together. She is an amazing songwriter and we made this track initially to play out at clubs and festivals. I was getting such a good reaction from the song though, I made the last-minute decision to include it on the album after tweaking the beat to make it fit better with the other songs. I’m so glad I did because I think it summarizes everything I’ve learned about production during the making of this record.” “drive” (with LEILAH) “‘drive’ was the first track we wrote for the album, and it’s the only 2-step song on it. It was initially going to be the intro but once we started making the other tracks, we realized it would make the perfect closer, since it sounds like driving off into the sunset. LEILAH kills it, and her voice carries so much emotion.”