LA-based producer L.Dre releases LoFi Symphony; rising to a completely new challenge of blending LoFi beats with high-quality orchestral recordings of classical music. His bold combination of two musical worlds, involving a conscious clash of styles, has led to impressive results on an album that’s more than just the sum of its parts.

Debussy’s Clair de lune and Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata were already among the producer’s personal favourites, and he decided to expand his soundscape by adding Satie’s Gymnopédies and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. As well as choosing peaceful, melancholic pieces which obviously lent themselves to a LoFi treatment, L.Dre also deliberately went for some more upbeat works to add variety to the new album. His main aim was “to pick a few truly iconic pieces and re-tell their story in a new way, my very own way”. To get that mix and balance right, L.Dre had to put all his musical instinct and intuition to work. Instead of slicing up his sample sources beyond recognition, he embraced the big melodies of the classical originals.

While growing up in Los Angeles, L.Dre learned to play various instruments, including guitar and drums, but back then, skateboarding and hip-hop dominated his life. Although he studied music production in college, YouTube became his most important teacher. Inspired by his early heroes, hip-hop producers such as J Dilla or Kaytranada, he started uploading instrumental tracks to streaming platforms when he was still a teenager.