Break It Down

Where it comes from

Break It Down comes from the same time as Spacewalk. If I hadn’t gone for a story on that album, it would probably have ended up on it. It didn’t fit, so I put it out by itself. Spacewalk was also stuck on a sample clearance at the time, and I didn’t want months of silence, so this one went first.

Writing and production

Everything is built around one beat loop. The second I found it, I knew it had the kind of bounce that makes a track. The only lyric is the sample looping over and over, which gives it that earwormy classic-house drive. It’s simple, and it bangs.

Mixing and mastering

It almost didn’t happen. I was still using Logic’s mastering assistant, and the first bounces sounded awful: the sharp lead synth in the chorus cut through the mix in the worst way, and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I was close to shelving it.

Then I tried Ozone 11 for the first time, and it saved the song. It pulled everything together and made it sound like a real, finished record. I’ve used it ever since.

Release

It had been eight months since Imagination, and that felt way too long. So it came out on 1 April 2025, as a way of saying I’m still here, and that I can do more than the first two albums showed.