Julodose - MP3 IDs (2023-2025)
Miami, then LA, now London. How has that movement shaped your outlook generally?
Growing up in Miami definitely played a huge role in getting into electronic music at such an early age. Ultra. Progressive House. Avicii. I probably installed VirtualDJ on my computer when I was 13. From there I just kept going deeper and deeper into it.
By the time I got to high school I was spending all my time on SoundCloud, constantly digging for new tracks and seeing who was pushing things the furthest. Guys like Mr. Carmack. RL Grime. Baauer. Eventually genre became secondary to just being obsessed with different artists' styles and what made their sound unique or interesting. I started making my own mixes and edits in Traktor and posting them online, but I realized pretty early on that I really wanted to learn how to produce my own music.
I was DJing at a lot of the clubs in Tallahassee my freshman year at FSU while trying to teach myself production on Logic in my free time, but there were so many distractions there that I just felt like I wasn't moving fast enough. One night I went to see this artist Jauz play at one of the clubs in town and got to speak to him after his set. He told me about this music school in Los Angeles called Icon Collective and how it had changed his life. I applied that summer, and six months later I was in LA.
Los Angeles really opened the door to a whole other world for me. For the first time I was surrounded by a bunch of other people who were all pursuing creative things in one way or another. Most of the kids at Icon at the time were making dubstep or other forms of bass music, and while I finally felt like I could make that kind of stuff at a high level by the end of the program, I didn't really want to listen to my own songs after I made them when they were on the more aggressive/EDM side of things. My taste had really started to shift once I learned more about writing music, and I had started listening to more melodic and increasingly experimental stuff. Flume. Shlohmo. Four Tet. Burial. Aphex Twin.
After I graduated, I started working as an audio engineer in downtown LA and would take the Metro from North Hollywood there every day. I would listen to music the whole way, and I think there was something about the constant noise and repetition of those train rides that made me start appreciating more syncopated, four-on-the-floor type stuff again. I had a few different aliases I was posting on SoundCloud under at that point, but none of them felt quite right. I was still trying to discover who I was and what kind of music I wanted to make. This was right around the time the whole lo-fi house scene was getting started. Ross From Friends. Baltra. DJ Seinfeld. Mall Grab. The tracks felt raw and rough around the edges, and it was more about making dance music where the songwriting and chord progressions were the main focus rather than trying to make everything sound clean and polished. The imperfections were the whole point, and that was freeing for me.
I ended up quitting that job once the pandemic happened and focusing on my own music. That was when I finally started making a lot of what would eventually become the Julodose project.
Once things started opening back up again, I got a job in the film industry instead of going back to audio engineering so I could put more of my energy into my own music, and eventually some of my songs started getting attention online. By that point most of my favorite producers and SoundCloud friends were in Europe or somewhere outside the US, and I had felt this pull to travel and experience more of the world for a while. So in 2023, I decided to visit the UK for the first time. That trip ended up changing my life, and after spending the summer of 2024 in England again, and most of 2025, the move to London was almost inevitable.
What's the version of Miami, LA, or London that actually makes it into your music, versus the version that stays outside it?
I think the main Miami influence comes from growing up in the shadow of festivals like Ultra and being surrounded by such a strong electronic music scene. I'm also half Cuban and my first language was Spanish, so there's always been a part of me that wants to bring a slight Latin influence or tribal elements into whatever I'm making, especially the drums. Until recently that had mostly stayed outside of the project and gone into my older aliases, but it's really starting to come through again more and more in the newer stuff I've been making.
The cinematic aspect of the project is definitely more from my time in LA. That's where I really started working in film and learning how to write music instead of just programming drums or DJing.
London has also had a huge impact on me. I think traveling to places and learning about different cultures/perspectives probably has the biggest influence on whatever I am making at the time. It still has to sound and feel like me, but I love being influenced by my life experiences and incorporating my interests into the art. It all kind of ends up blending together.
What's feeding the music right now, inside and outside of production. Doesn't have to be musical.
Naturally, being in London I'm surrounded by all of this history, so that definitely seeps in. I studied Cultural Anthropology in school, and have always been particularly interested in ancient myths and local legends. I've been especially obsessed with the Holy Grail and other Arthurian legends lately. I'm always digging for new inspiration, and a lot of the time it comes from somewhere completely outside of music.
Walk us through how a track usually starts for you. Where does the idea come from, and how much changes between the first doodle and the finished version.
It will almost always be something non music related that inspires me. A trip. A place. Something I read. Something that happened in my life.
I will try to get that feeling out in one form or another. Chords. A melodic idea. Something I can then try to land some drums on to capture that same energy. And if I'm lucky, some kind of vocal or counter melody.
The first sketch is usually pretty close to the final track, but I almost always convince myself there is so much more to do on it even though there rarely is. I have this terrible habit of taking two years from when I make something to when I finally want to put it out. After that amount of time, if I still like it, then it passes the test. It needs time to marinate.
Is there a moment in the process where a track tells you what it wants to be, or is it more deliberate than that.
A bit of both. I never really feel like a track is truly done. There is always something more I feel like I can do or another sound I can hear. It's just about knowing when those small micro changes are actually making it better or just making it different.
I feel like I'm constantly thinking about ideas in my head, so whenever it's time to finally go into the DAW it tends to come out pretty close to what I want. That being said, I think it's important to go with the flow of an idea and allow it to evolve instead of trying to force it into the original box I had in mind.
DAW of choice, and why that one.
Ableton. I originally learned on Logic, and used Pro Tools for work back in the day, but nothing compares to Ableton for me. I don't have to think when I'm in there. I can just paint freely and tear up audio however I want.
One tool, plugin, or piece of gear you keep coming back to.
I love FabFilter and Soundtoys, and mainly use Serum when I need to make a specific sound. But really a lot of the time it's just Ableton stock.
Anything you've deliberately stripped out of your process over time.
When I first started producing I was downloading and experimenting with every plugin I could find. I felt like I needed to EQ and process everything. Dial in every reverb and delay perfectly. But as time went on I realized that if I chose the right sounds and made the right songwriting choices, there was very little that actually needed to be done outside of the original audio clip most of the time.
Now I only really add something if I hear a problem or want to do something very specific. At this point knowing how to use the few tools I like really well is more useful to me than constantly looking for new plugins.
That being said, I would love to get some analog/outboard gear now that I'm more settled here.
Three tracks, three years. Talk us through each one on its own terms, what it was and where it came from.
Heart Field
Heart Field was made after I got back from my first trip to the UK in the summer of 2023, and was heavily influenced by the time I spent in the countryside. The chords were originally done on piano, but it wasn't until I redid them with the synth/pad that's on there now that it really came together.
Leave It All Behind
Leave It All Behind was made that next summer when I came back in 2024 while staying in an Airbnb inside this renovated church in Bethnal Green. I saw a whole different side to London than the summer before, and spent a lot more time exploring the different boroughs and the city itself.
Safe Haven
Safe Haven was made in 2025 when I was here visiting after I had decided to make the move. I'd already gotten rid of my apartment in LA and was going back and forth between here and the US, really just waiting for my visa to make it official. In my mind London already felt like home, and I knew I was going to be living in the UK for the foreseeable future.
Set side by side, how do you hear your own taste and technique shifting from the '23 track to the '25 one.
I think they all have this certain quality to them where they sound like my style but carry the different emotional elements and energy of those years.
Was there a version of you making the '23 track that the '25 track's version of you wouldn't recognize, or does it feel continuous.
I think it feels pretty continuous honestly. Obviously I changed a lot technically and personally between them, but I still recognize the same instincts in all three. If anything, by 2025 I just trusted those instincts more and didn't feel like I had to keep changing things just because I could. More minimal. More secure.
Any of the three change meaning for you between finishing it and this release.
I was struggling to figure out what to do with these songs for a while because they didn't fit on the main EPs I was working on at the time. Heart Field (2023) came after my first trip to the UK when I had already made most of my "Stunt Revival" EP. Leave It All Behind (2024) came after spending that next summer here, much deeper into East London, when I was working on "Sinister Field". And Safe Haven (2025) felt like it maybe could have made it onto my upcoming EP "Resurgence", but ultimately it just didn't fit.
I always felt like they deserved to be put out though. Looking at them together now there is this weird progression I never really planned, and a similarity between them that I didn't notice until I put them together.
Why MP3.
Jack was one of the first people I met in London who actually felt like a friend first and someone running a music label second. I remember the first time I went over to his place we ended up talking about music, playing FIFA and watching The Chase until like 3 in the morning. It was just a completely different kind of label interaction than I had experienced before.
Career highlights so far, in your own terms.
The first real shift happened in 2022-2023 when people started DMing me that they had played my track out somewhere. Radio shows in Melbourne. DJ sets in Hong Kong. It just kept becoming more and more frequent until it felt like it was happening all the time.
Having one of my songs played at III Points in Miami is still one of the main highlights, just because it's where I grew up. I always dreamed of one of my tracks getting played at Ultra or a major festival there, but honestly never really thought it would happen.
Now that it's happening more often and there are opportunities for me to start actually getting booked consistently, I am just eternally grateful I didn't give up.
Anything you'd tell someone starting out that you had to learn the hard way.
I have a tendency to associate songs with certain events or real things in my life and channel all of that into the music while I am making it, which makes them really hard to let go of. It can be very therapeutic to externalize those emotions, but putting all that extra meaning or trauma on there can sometimes psych me out of actually releasing them.
I also feel like I have to tell the visual side of the story for every song, which makes the whole release process take a lot longer since I do all the artwork and visuals myself too. I think when you are just starting out it is probably healthier to just make music without putting so much meaning onto everything, and as time has gone on I've become more open to letting other people help with certain aspects of the release process rather than trying to do everything myself.
Outside of music, what's actually taking up your time and attention.
Filmmaking is also a huge passion of mine and takes up a lot of my time. Sometimes it's hard to know how to balance the two, like how much film work I should be doing outside of the Julodose project and how much of this project should be just about the music versus the story around it.
Then there is traveling, trying to make time for friends and family, and understanding that not 100% of my life can be about making art or creating something.
Sometimes it just needs to be about living.