After a spellbinding Opening Party on Sunday, Kygo is back this week for round 2. The tropical house wizard has invited Matt Sassari, Austin Millz and Frank Walker to be part of this Sunday’s carnival of sunshine, bouncing basslines, piano moments and palm trees. His residency runs every Sunday at Ushuaïa Ibiza until 31st August, the best day parties Ibiza has to offer.
The Norwegian superstar is known for epic live shows, and for hits such as “Without You” featuring HAYLA and “It Ain’t Me” featuring Selena Gomez. He’s also got a magic touch when it comes to remixing. This is what we’re going to explore in Kygo: The Master Remixer.
The craft of remixing has its roots in early ‘70s Jamaica with pioneering producers such as Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry creating instrumental dub versions of ska and reggae songs. 1500 miles north of Jamaica, in the discos of New York City, record producer Tom Moulton was experimenting too. He’d overlap tapes to create extended club mixes to keep people on the dancefloor for longer. Both Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’s and Tom Moulton’s legacies live on in every extended club remix, every dub version and every bold reworking you hear today.
Fast forward forty years to the early 2010s, and Kygo was at the forefront of an exciting wave of artists who were remixing classics and contemporary songs in a new tropical house style and uploading them to SoundCloud. They’d rework the big pop hits, play with their style and production, and create something fresh. This is how Kygo honed his craft as an electronic artist, uploading over 19 remixes to SoundCloud before his original productions were picked up by a major label. Undoubtedly a formative time that led him to become the DJ he is today.
Now, as Kygo continues to bring his tropical house magic to his Sunday residency at Ushuaïa Ibiza, we wanted to share four of our favourite remixes by the man himself.
Lana Del Ray - "Born To Die"
One of his breakthrough remixes was Lana Del Ray’s gothic pop single, “Born To Die”. It was already a huge hit by the time Kygo started experimenting with it, then in 2012 he dropped his version and staked his claim in the remix world.
Dolly Parton - "Jolene"
From one much-loved songstress to another. This time it was the glamorous Dolly Parton. It was her 1973 country mega hit “Jolene” that caught Kygo’s ear back in 2013. This went onto be one of his biggest remixes and sounds just as awesome today as it did when it was released.
Marvin Gaye - "Sexual Healing"
The following year, Kygo waded into ‘80s pop archives in search of the perfect, sultry soul record. What he found was Marvin Gaye’s 1983 smooth hit, “Sexual Healing”. Speaking to The Standard in 2016, Kygo said, “In that Marvin Gaye track, his vocal is just insane. I found him singing an acapella track on YouTube and I just made a whole new instrumental underneath it. That was actually one of those tracks I was too scared to touch: it’s so good, it’s one of those classic tracks you shouldn’t mess with, but then I was just sitting in my room in the evening, so I thought I’d give it a shot… I remember I was really nervous when I uploaded. I didn’t know if people were going to hate it.”
Well, Kygo, the risk was definitely worth it.
Whitney Houston - "Higher Love"
The final one we wanted to share is his tropical house reworking of “Higher Love” by Whitney Houston. The song was originally released by British rock singer songwriter Steven Winwood in 1986, and later covered by Whitney Houston in 1990. However, her version was never actually released as a single. It was a bonus track on the Japanese edition of her third album, I’m Your Baby Tonight.
“It was sent to me through my label and I think it was her estate”, Kygo remembers, speaking on Beats 1 Radio in 2019. “They had this song laying around and it was never officially released. I think they were looking for the right production on it. I got it in my inbox and I had the same reaction as you. Whitney Houston? Is this a joke? I saw the email about if I could make this work and I ran to my studio and tried to produce around this amazing vocal. This is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. This is a collaboration I never thought was gonna happen so I just thought I had to put all my effort into this and make it as good as I can.”
It certainly wasn’t a joke email, and thankfully Kygo took it seriously. His hard work on the production paid off because not only did it top the Billboard Dance Club charts, it was a huge success and Whitney Houston’s highest charting posthumous release. Bravo!
The list goes on. His discography includes remixes of Ellie Goulding, The xx, Passenger, and too many more to mention. You’ll be able to see the master remixer in action every Sunday until 31st August at Ibiza’s best open air venue. So all there is to do now is put on your best Hawaiian shirt, grab a tropical drink and get ready for the perfect summer party.