After a slew of singles over the last year, Galimatias is back with another cut titled “South."
Like much of his work, “South” is a seductive ballad, and on this track in particular, Galimatias’ crooning, manipulated voice rides over a bouncy, funk-driven bassline as he interweaves metaphors about the ocean.
The Denmark-born, L.A.-based artist shared the song's creation process with Complex over email. “Though it took me about a month to finish ‘South,’ the idea came together pretty fast,” he said. “I was messing around with the two prominent chords and added the drum groove. But when I made the bassline that's when I knew the track was gonna amount to something. I feel like that one slap bass note kinda made the song. It definitely wouldn’t be the same without it.”
While making the song, Galimatias was inspired by early ‘00s Pharrell, Justin Timberlake, and D’Angelo. “I started working on vocals and let the vibe of the track direct the lyrical narrative. The music felt very sensual and intimate so that's how I wrote it too.”
He continued, “I actually spent a couple of days making a chorus, and it turned out pretty good. But it just didn’t feel right for the structure of the track so I kinda scrapped it. But then I was like: I don’t want to just toss it away, I can use it in here somehow. So that's actually what you hear as the very outro. Be it very subdued and filtered, that was once a chorus. For me, it’s always like a puzzle to create a song. And sometimes you gotta kill your darlings to make the pieces fit.”
Galimatias is currently part of Soundcloud’s #SCFirst campaign, which celebrates and promotes creators. Galimatias' ad can be seen in Union Station station subway in New York City.
