Seven Lions. Courtesy of Dove Shore.
Jeff Montalvo is best known to his fans as Seven Lions, a multi-instrumentalist known for fusing pop, trance and dubstep in his productions and the label boss of Ophelia Records. He’s created numerous hits throughout his illustrious career, including “First Time (feat. Dylan Matthew),” “Island (feat. Nevve)” and “Strangers.” Today, Feb. 5, Montalvo releases an EP dubbed Seven Lions: 1999 EP that features old school trance remixes of some of the biggest tracks in his catalog, including his 2016 collaboration with ILLENIUM, Said The Sky and HALIENE, “Rush Over Me.”
The EP also boasts reworks of “Worlds Apart,” “Higher Love” (remixed with help from Jason Ross) and “Days To Come,” as well as extended remixes of “Rush Over Me” and “Worlds Apart.” Seven Lions: 1999 EP, which marks Montalvo’s first official EP dedicated to trance, was crafted to spark creativity. “After the first lockdown started happening, I was having a hard time finding inspiration,” Montalvo says. “For me, doing something different, kind of nostalgic and old school was really kind of a way to be creative again.”
Montalvo selected the four tracks since they’re among his biggest hits from the past and he hasn’t worked on them in some time—adding that he used to frequently create mashups of them, so remixing them felt appropriate. The producer says he decided to remake the records as late ‘90s and early 2000s trance remixes because he’s always been drawn to that time of raving—noting that the EP’s title is a nod to that era—even though he joined the scene around 2007. “I think it’s more of this sense of nostalgia for a time I never really was a part of and wanting that innocence of raving. I feel like people tend to do that, and I’m guilty of it, where they are nostalgic for a time they were never really a part of,” Montalvo says. “I guess there’s an innocence about [that time], and it’s not overly complicated. It’s just really euphoric and fun.”
Seven Lions is a multi-instrumentalist known for fusing pop, trance and dubstep. Courtesy of ... [+]
The artist says he doesn’t plan on crafting more old school trance songs, at least not for a while, because it was an exercise for regaining inspiration. “Everything felt like the world was ending, so it just didn’t make sense to go in and try to work on my own project. I just lost all inspiration, and this totally helped and brought it back, which is cool,” he says. “It was something fun and kind of therapeutic for me to make, and I’m just hoping that people enjoy it because it comes from a place of pure happiness and enjoying the process of creating, because it’s therapy for me still.” Moving forward, he plans to finish collaborations he previously started, as well as work on new material and continue to delve into new creative processes, such as sampling from vinyl and working with new equipment.
Montalvo’s start in music began by playing the drums in a band, only later discovering electronic music after a high school friend gave him FL Studio (Fruity Loops) software, which he would mess around with while waiting for his band mates to show up to practice. He says he was initially drawn to beautiful, sad trance songs during those formative years, such as “Song To The Siren” by Vengeance, Tiësto’s remix of “Innocente” by Delerium and “Can’t Sleep” by Above & Beyond. Looking back to when he first started making music, Montalvo says the advice he would give himself is: “I feel like when I’m telling people who are just starting out, it’s always be persistent and have realistic expectations. I think it’s easy to look at other people’s success and try to compare yourself and think, ‘why am I not there yet?’ It’s very demotivating, but if you’re persistent and you just do it because you love it, it will always be fulfilling and pay off in the end.”
