Turno breaks down the ambient intro to his track, Melia

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“The track is kind of ambient. I wanted to capture the ‘concrete jungle’ vibe for it,” Turno tells us of how he built his track around inspiration from The Shard Climber, George King. “There are quite a few different elements layered up. I even have his breathing in there.”

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“It starts with George’s breath. I had to double this up,” he explains. “In context it gives that meditative, trancey state.”

The breath sample is layered up with a vinyl crackle too; a trick Franko uses regularly to add texture.

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The next layer is an ambient cityscape recording. “It’s subtle, you can’t really hear it, but, again, it adds to the whole ambience of the intro and helps to paint that picture even more.” A chorused white noise further thickens up the ambient textures.

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Alongside the ambient textures, Turno uses filters to bring in the main pads and loops of the track, so they build up towards when the drums come in. “It gradually adds tension,” he explains. “You don’t get everything all at once. You start to feel the presence of all these sounds.”

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The pads themselves are run through Output Portal’s Grain Swells preset, which adds texture and movement. A low-level, filtered arp line underpins the pads too, slowly rising towards the drums.

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A pulsing 808 kick is used to underpin the intro. “I’ve tried to emulate the heartbeat that [George] would be feeling. It just adds another element, particularly when you’re using headphones.”