DJLarge

You Can’t Fool CHYL: Chinese-Canadian speed house prodigy CHYL got her start in the biz when she took a few DJ classes while studying finance at college in New York.

“I absolutely fell in love with it,” she says. “It became my way of escape after a long, stressful day at work. I would work all day during the week, and DJ at a local gig during the weekend. The only thing that kept me from being depressed during that time was electronic music. Eventually, after two years in banking, I decided to quit finance and pursue my passion for electronic music. I became super interested in production and wanted to learn more. Originally I was learning on Youtube. I felt that wasn’t enough, so I went to attend ICON Collective, where I learnt so much about sound design, mixing and mastering, and song writing. Now I am so lucky to be able to pursue producing and DJing full time! Given how different my life was a few years ago, I will never take this career for granted.”

She describes her sound today as fast and fun.

“I usually go for a 150bpm house beat with a bouncy, energetic drop,” she says. “When it comes to bass leads, I like to use square waves with FM modulation in Serum for a more ‘in your face’ sound. I also like to pair the drops with a melodic vocal during the verses. My tracks are kind of in between hard dance and bass house, and I like to call it speed house.”

CHYL believes that this is a great time for electronic music.

“I think it’s awesome,” she says. “We have so many talented artists in the scene, so many talented female producers as well. People are very receptive of new music and new sounds. It’s a really great environment to be inspired.”

Her latest release is “Fool Me.”

“I’m super honored to release ‘Fool Me’ on Monstercat Uncaged,” she says. “I actually first found the verse vocal on a Splice pack and fell in love with the melody. This usually doesn’t happen often since most of the time I work on a drop idea first. The vocal just so happened to be 150bpm and I thought, hmm, why don’t we try making a speed house drop out of this? The production came together really quickly and I had two ideas – the first drop being a fun, bouncy one and the second drop using a bassy, energetic square synth. The second drop is very much inspired by the OG speed house tune ‘Gassed Up’ by JAUZ and DJ Snake. The reception from the listeners has been awesome so far!”

Looking ahead, CHYL has plenty planned for 2023.

“I have at least one more speed house tune with Monstercat later this year, and I’m currently on support tours with Steve Aoki, K?D and Habstrakt,” she says. “My goal is to keep pushing the speed house genre forward and keep representing as a proud Asian woman in the dance music scene. I have an EP coming out with Dim Mak later this year which I’m super excited about. We are going to plan something really fun on the live event side along with the EP as well!”

You Can’t Fool CHYL: CHYL’s single “Fool Me” is out now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor’s note: The disclaimer below refers to advertising posts and does not apply to this or any other editorial stories. LA Weekly editorial does not and will not sell content.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.