SoFTT select their top 5 love anthems for Valentine’s Day (2024)

14February 2024

SoFTT, short for South Florida Trance Team, is the Miami dance duo consisting of Trevor McFedries and Kablito, aka Karen Freire. The collaborators-turned-couple began life as roommates before making music together and eventually falling in love. Having previously worked on tracks for the likes of Azealia Banks and Sky Ferreira, McFedries is no stranger to dance music, while Kablito is a rising solo artist known for her high-drama pop ballads. But it’s under SoFTT that they really join forces with an explosive blend of Eurodance, trance and Latin pop that pays homage to the city’s legendary club scene.

Having released their debut single “Kiero K Me Kieras” (“I want you to want me”) in May 2023, the duo has already performed on line-ups with the likes of Dinamarca, Miss Bashful and Horsegiirl, with the sort of wildly over-the-top trance anthems that you’d expect to hear mid-confetti cannonat a trance festival as the sun sets. With a new track “Quiero Ser Sexy” on the way – “we just wanted to feel sexy out in the world without anyone judging you or f*cking with you” – the pair select five love anthems to listen to this Valentine’s Day.

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SoFTT: It’s probably telling that the love songs we put together lean unrequited. But this is one of my [Trevor] all-time favourite songs. Lowell George, in so many ways, was a man of his time and ahead of his time, the body of work Little Feat put together crosses so many genres but is tied together with incredible songwriting across all of it. This song rings even truer in our interconnected but increasingly lonely world. A song of fleeting love barely hanging by a telephone line.

SoFTT: There’s a popular Zizek quote I appreciate that goes something like, ‘If you have reasons to love someone, you don’t love them’. There’s something extremely Western about trying to provide reasons for a divine calling to someone else, I find it incongruent with true love. That’s probably why this song speaks so deeply to me. Vybz Kartel is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence and an infamous character. But lines like, “She seh di love she hav fi me is a mystery/ She hold mi like a baby and kiss me” for me really encapsulate true love. Just a primal curse wired into your being that will have you fiending for someone with no explanation.

SoFTT: This is one of the songs my mother played for me as a youth that was totally lost on me. An unrequited anthem and a perfect song performed by a perfect voice. But also a song with enough emotional complexity to require some years on this earth. More recently I’ve been digging into the discographies of artists like Bonnie Raitt and Tracy Chapman, and there must have been something in the water in the late 80s/early 90s because I find these songs have such a maturity in the way they discuss relationships. Universal themes but a depth that makes them feel incredibly singular at the same time.

SoFTT: A country song from 2007 is somehow the song on this list that probably most inspires the music we make as SoFTT. Brad is one of the great storytellers of his era and an absolute monster guitar player. He’s got such incredible guitar tone and a troll-like sensibility that mirrors the “very serious about fun” energy we bring to the studio. This song is a great example of those qualities and a love song that will look you in the eyes and say:‘Cause I'd like to see you out in the moonlight/I‘d like to kiss you way back in the sticks/I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers/And I'd like to check you for ticks’.Is a song whose greatness I aspire to.

SoFTT:Natalia is one of the first artists Kablito and I discovered to be a shared inspiration. This entire album is a masterwork. Just incredible, passionate, honest songwriting and performance. It’s cliche to say that Latinxs love hard, but they do! Lyrics like: ‘Every day I keep pulling out thorns/From the depths of my heart/At night I keep igniting dreams/To clean every memory with sacred smoke’.

Are the kinds of lyrics that drew me into music as a young person looking to understand who I was. Natalia has this ability to pair words with a sonic palette that conveys feelings in ways few artists of any medium can. Natalia is a gift, and if you haven’t, I encourage you to dive deep into her catalogue regardless of whether you speak Spanish or not.

SoFTT’s new single “Quiero Ser Sexy” is out this Friday, February 16 via Method808