The duo’s fourth collaboration seems to sample “Lights,” one of Goulding’s first hits
Four Tet makes magic with Ellie Goulding. On Monday, the DJ-producer released his new song “In My Dreams,” which spawned from “magical” voice recordings from the British singer-songwriter.
“At the end of last year, Ellie texted me with a couple of voice notes for a song idea,” Four Tet said about the song in a press release. “Words and melodies she was singing into her phone and she asked me if I could use them to make something.”
The outcome was “In My Dreams,” which opens with bells and chimes reminiscent of Goulding’s hit “Lights” before Goulding’s vocals enter the track. (Four Tet played the song at Tomorrowland earlier this year.)
“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 the track Baby happened a few years ago),” he says about their collaboration from 2020. “I found other sounds 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,” he added. “I guess the first take is often the most magical.”
“In My Dreams” marks the third time Four Tet and Goulding have joined forces. The DJ shared a remix of Goulding’s song “Easy Lover” featuring Big Sean in 2023, which earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Remixed Recording. She also joined the producer on 2020’s “Baby.”
The new song also follows Goulding’s reunion with DJ Calvin Harris on singles “Free” and “Miracle.” She released her most recent album, Higher Than Heaven, in 2023. “When you have that connection with someone, you miss it. It’s hard to just put that aside,” she told Rolling Stone of Harris in 2023. “And so we knew from the first song that we made together that we had something and then that was ‘I Need Your Love,’ and ‘Outside’ a couple years later.”
As for Four Tet, the DJ released album Three earlier this year. “Nearly 30 years into his career, Four Tet seems to be finding new terrain within well-established sounds, many of which he pioneered,” read a Rolling Stone review of the project. “The result is a pleasantly surprising addition to the canon of electronic music.”
