He sits down at his desk with his laptop and headphones, head full of harmonies. He begins to write out a string of chords and melodies that morph into different synths and sound designs. After he moves on to drums and fine tunes a beat, all the essentials are present. For hours on end he experiments with different rhythms, samples and tempos until it’s perfected. Once he puts the lyrics into the track, magic is made and a song is done. It’s a long, painful and stressful process, but he loves every second of it. 

After being mostly self-taught with a little help from YouTube and months of experimenting, senior Ian Mathews has been making and producing his own music for about a year now. Since then, he has successfully released a full extended play (EP), several singles and multiple remixes of popular songs. His music can be streamed on Spotify and Soundcloud under the artist name IANU.

“I’ve always been interested in electronic music ever since I was little,” Mathews said. “Eventually, I started getting more into the modern electronic scene and I wanted to DJ. After DJing for a while, I knew I wanted to start making music.”

Mathews has demonstrated his skills in his recently released single “There For You,” a song he believes is a culmination of everything he has learned so far in his career. 

“That song specifically is my biggest accomplishment because it’s the one that I have personally put the most time into and the one I’ve used the most techniques in,” Mathews said. “My parents have heard it and they like it, and some of my friends have heard snippets of it and they like it.”

While Mathews would like to pursue graphic design as a career, he has no plans to give up music any time soon. He wants to learn more and establish his own style so that eventually people can listen to his music and recognize his voice and technique.

“Mainly, I hope they take away a sense of me,” Mathews said. “In a lot of my music I try to strive for an emotional connection in the way that I put myself into the work. I hope people take away that it’s just more than a nice sounding song from it.”