Lucky Number Music

Today, Jay Som – the project of Los Angeles-based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer Melina Duterte – shares another track from Belong, her first new album in over six years, entitled “What You Need”, which highlights the collaborative nature of the record.

Inspired by a Peter Bjorn and John song that reminded Joao Gonzalez (Soft Glas) of Duterte’s music, “What You Need” was built together by the duo, crafting a track that is as springy yet sad as the lyrics, a tight-rope walk between adoration and annoyance. Addictive on first listen, it’s a subtle wonder of production, too, its layers of drums and curdled synths serving as a platform for the bright guitars that bend through it.

“Joao created and sent me the basic skeleton for ‘What You Need’ a couple hours before the fires in LA started,” Duterte says of the new single. “I remember feeling immediately drawn to it, but the uncertainty and danger we were about to face crept up, pulling our focus elsewhere. We eventually revisited the demo a month later, after witnessing how the people of LA came together in its darkest moments — it felt necessary and only right to create this song with friends.”