“I don’t recognise the man that I’ve become, he’s nothing like the boy I once was,” Sam Gellaitry sings solemnly on “CLOUDS”. Where many grow into the role of ‘your favourite producer’s favourite producer’, the 28-year-old Soundcloud prodigy-turned funk synthpop star wore that mantle before even being allowed in clubs. “I had a nice upbringing and stuff, lots of positive things,” he says in a rich Scottish brogue, resting in Denver while on tour with Justice and KAYTRANADA. “Being in the industry growing up, that’s where I experienced the veil drop, that everything is not what it seems.”

The son of a bandmate-turned-teacher ma and bagpipe-making pa, Gellaitry never paid attention in school, instead learning to produce from the age of 12. He had never been to a club night before he started getting booked for them. His early material flitted between corpulent house beats that sampled Michael Jackson, Beyoncé and Ciara, and whomping future bass that didn’t just suggest but toasted to an early love for the maximalist electronic of Rustie, Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke. Finding an online home in LA music collective Soulection, Soundcloud was his playground, where he would chuck out songs and have them accrue over a million plays regularly. There was a long period of time where trap titan Future’s Soundcloud had a single liked track: Gellaitry’s briskly shimmering “Glacier”.

After a trilogy of elemental future bass EPs for XL and a jazz fusion-inspired mixtape in 2019, Gellaitry made a track that would take his intensely digital production to more vocal-driven ventures. “Assumptions” could soundtrack the sort of utopian party seen in Interstellar 5555, with its flared synth riff that trafficks ecstasy, a bassline that glides like a vintage George Duke jam and Gellaitry’s own voice delivering the sweetest of hooks with just two lines. The song has been a part of the producer’s existence for almost a decade, but has taken on a life of its own, achieving a special kind of sleeper hit status that countless astroturfed viral singles couldn’t come close to maintaining.

This year in particular, “Assumptions” snowballed into a TikTok meme thanks to a blue-shirted ballroom dancer throwing his hips to the slowed-down version. Now, Gellaitry is enjoying rooftop parties in Brooklyn, modelling for Stone Island and working with PinkPantheress, salute and Toro y Moi. His debut album, ANYWHERE HERE IS FINE, stretches the euphoria of “Assumptions” into a tribute to the iridescent, sweat-slick funk of 80s disco, the same sound that later shaped 90s and 00s French house. Like Random Access Memories, it digs into the roots of his influences, pairing them with his candid, confrontational lyrics about old flames resurfacing, outside pressures on his relationships and even his own faith. He pulls it off with the precision of a handbrake turn.

Below, Scottish producer wunderkind Sam Gellaitry speaks to Dazed about his early experiences on the internet, working with his idols, and how past relationships influenced his new album. 

Hi Sam! When you first started producing, what parts of the internet were you trawling?

Sam Gellaitry: I was active in this French house scene on MySpace when I was 12. I used to send tracks to this guy called Louis La Roche on MSN. He was 18 at the time, but he was putting out songs like “Love” and everyone thought he was Thomas Bangalter.

Your brother was a producer as well, making happy hardcore. What reaction did you have to that sort of stuff as a kid?

Sam Gellaitry: I never liked it, but now in hindsight, I love it. When I heard Hudson Mohawke, Rustie and SOPHIE, the sounds of the synths and arpeggios they use felt very happy hardcore to me. It’s a heritage thing, it reminds me of Scotland. What was interesting was that when my brother was in forums and stuff, they called it ‘PCDJ’, which you could link to PC Music. It’s basically the most euphoric sounds ever. Meanwhile, I was using his software to chop up old disco samples.

How was working with your hero, Toro y Moi, on “CURIOUS”?

Sam Gellaitry: We met in 2023 at Camp Flog Gnaw, and I grabbed his number. Then we DJed in London in 2024, at a listening party for [Toro’s album] Hole Erth. Then, I called him one night and pitched the album to him, and I sent him “CURIOUS”, which had a space for him because I always had his voice in mind. I waited a while to get something back, which is totally fine, but as soon as he sent his verse, I had the track finished that night. I love how his output is all one sound for each project. I’m happy it’s only him as a feature, because he’s a big reason why my album is pretty centred towards one sound.

That track reminds me so much of [New Jersey garage-house DJ] Todd ‘the God’ Edwards, in how it fashions microsamples into a svelte groove.

Sam Gellaitry: Todd Edwards was the first person to ever give me feedback on a song. It was the first track I ever made and I messaged him on MySpace, saying, ‘I am Sam, I’m 12 years old from Scotland, I want to know what you think of this track. I also wondered how you felt about being a Christian and getting called Todd ‘the God’. Do you find it blasphemous?’ In hindsight, he must have found that email so odd, but he replied. That meant a lot to me.

Relationships define the subject matter of this album. Were they all written from personal experiences?

Sam Gellaitry: The story isn’t necessarily a linear journey, because my experience of relationships in my life hasn’t been linear. There’s a lot of random prophecy in this album, where I’ve written a song for this album that didn’t come true until months after I wrote it. This album is alive with me, and it describes my past but is also defining my future in a way. I’ve never had that with any project I’ve made.

“SCAR” was about my first relationship, but then there’s “A NEW VOID” that comes after it, and that was a song that wasn’t embedded in any truth, but it came true quite recently. It’s really interesting, it’s coming alive right in front of me.

The last two tracks put you under a robotic mask of vocoder. What was the significance behind adopting that for the finale?

Sam Gellaitry: Well, obviously it’s a reference to Daft Punk and how important they are to me. To have them at the end shows that. But those two songs are very linked, and my favourite conceptually. “DON’T TRY” is an inner monologue of someone, who could be me, convincing themselves that they’re not allowed to be emotionally present, and they have to be focused on work. Basically, to become robotic to be successful in the field I’m in.

Then the second song, “YOU MIGHT FIND THE ONE”, which is the solution of hope from the first track. The title of the tracks speak to each other - “Don’t try, you might find the one”. It’s the classic thing of, if you’re not looking for a relationship, you might find it.

“Assumptions” has been a track that’s been with you for almost a decade now. How does it feel, when you look at the amount of industry-backed internet hits, to have a sleeper hit come out of nowhere?

Sam Gellaitry: It’s honestly quite funny; it’s just random how that song has a life of its own. Two or three years before “Assumptions” was in the situation it’s in now, I was saying to people that I was gonna make Assumptions: the Album. An album around the 80s disco sound. It’s a testament to that sound, it doesn’t have any limits or time binding it. It can be the biggest thing in the world when Daft Punk made Discovery in 2001, it can be “Say So” by Doja Cat, it can be all these things, and people have an affinity for it. I think it’s because it was when people were first exposed to consumer synths. It’s the electronic expression of people.

Now you’ve returned to where you began musically, will you travel along to the next step with your next project?

Sam Gellaitry: I do think I want to follow the journey my musical past went through. So for the second album, a futuristic take on the beat scene of Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, that sort of stuff.

I sometimes try and make the stuff I used to do in that vein, but I was so hyperactive back then and really down to create chaos. Now that I’m older, I like things more refined and intentional. But I’ve never put a project out that felt painful; it’s always been joyful. It’s fun to expand.

Sam Gellaitry’s debut album, ANYWHERE HERE IS FINE, is out now