Sully continues growing his catalogue with seismic single, ‘Quake’

Here at CE, we’re no strangers to Sully‘s violent brand of bass. Since the Los Angeles rising producer marked his debut this past spring with “Frequency Shift,” he’s followed with a steady stream of releases that always tell a larger, ongoing story. Now the Icon Collective graduate expands on his growing discography with a seismic fourth single that is every bit as explosive and earth-shattering as the last.

Dubbed “Quake,” the aptly-titled track offers listeners a small glimpse into Sully’s destructive beats with dark opening FX and atmospheric soundscapes to set the tone. The intensity begins to build as Sully quietly layers in ear-candy melodic aspects from the very first drops. Then, seemingly unexpectedly, the track switches into some hard-knocking drums interlocked with a high-pitched, wonky rhythm that creates Sully’s signature call. Sully says the song was built around a recorded sample of an actual earthquake:

“The idea for ‘Quake’ was super spontaneous. I was in the studio one day and wanted to flush out a quick idea before I went home, so I whipped up some build up drums and found a placeholder vocal from Diplo’s song ‘Earthquake’ to get me started. As I was working on the drop, I just kept the earthquake concept in mind and replicated that not only in the vocal phrasing, but in the sound design during the breaks and the drop. During the breaks, I even used a live recording of an earthquake I found to give me that crunchy, crumbling fill I was searching for. I think it also adds a lot of character to the track. See if you can hear where I used it!”