Album Review: DJ Sun – Love Letter

Modern styles marinated in moody sounds

DJ Sun– also known as Andre Sam-Sin– was born in Holland and moved to Suriname, then Houston as young person. His music reflects his diverse upbringing and knack for creating sounds that combine multiple styles and genres. His new album, Love Letter, delivers such diversity, with a “strong nod to Lo-Fi” and a natural, skillfully improvised sounding feel. 

“Aquarian Twins” is a song where sparkling and shimmering sounds are played on a foundation of a simple reggae beat that rocks the track from beginning to end. The next song, “Avec Plaisir,” is a softer, more musically straight-forward track with reverberating synths and chimes. Although the instrumentation is a bit busy, the theme of the piece clearly comes across through Sun’s style. 

“Daunting” is made of a soulful vocal sample layered atop a heavy drum rhythm. It fades into a second section that pivots towards a more modern motivic style, then continues into a mosaic-like section with samples, reverbed synths and a rhythm section. Later in the album, “Heaven” brings the mood of the album down to a quieter, softer place. With spoken words sampled above a low beat, quiet synths and some sung vocals, the piece is a nice relaxing take on a lo-fi or hip-hop style. 

“Roy Horb,” which is a couple of songs down, is a funky-sounding trumpet-laden song with keyboard blips and a scratchy synth throughout. Purely instrumental, the piece is an ostinato in nature until the very end, when it breaks into a quieter, synthed-over section and ends with a sample of what sounds like a crowd, abruptly. 

“Sirens” is an eclectic song with sounds from what sound like video game effect and a shaker played over a continuous bass line and piano. The song is a quiet, jazzy one with a style reminiscent of multiple genres.

The whole album is gorgeously creative and musically enticing. The variation of style and instrumentation sounds refreshing to the ears, and it’s impossible to be bored while listening to DJ Sun’s playful motifs and sounds over groovy base tracks.