Holly Lester has announced her highly-anticipated debut EP, Open Your Mind, out 4th September via her own label Duality Trax, alongside the release of its title track.
The EP marks the tenth release on Duality Trax and arrives as Holly celebrates twenty years as a DJ. Title track “Open Your Mind” combines an expansive bassline, UK garage-inflected percussion and piano stabs, sitting between progressive house and tech house. The EP also includes “Big Fill”, leaning into early London tech house and “Tanit”, which moves into Balearic territory with shimmering synths and UK garage flourishes. Berlin-based, Australian producer DJ Life closes the record with a slow-burning after-hours remix of the title track.
Speaking on the single, Holly explained: “I made this track with sunny festival days in mind, wanting to lean into something bigger and more expansive than my previous output. The bassline has a really wide, open-air feel to it, with the chord stabs bringing warmth and energy. It sits somewhere between tech house and progressive, whilst the percussion and bassline draw heavily from UK garage. Throughout the EP I wanted to bring together the sounds that have inspired me over the years rather than fitting neatly into one style. Finding your own sound is a long process, but I finally feel like I’m getting closer to what I want to convey.”
Based in Belfast and originally from County Armagh, Holly has also co-founded nightlife campaign Free The Night, which advocates for Northern Ireland’s creative communities.
Listen to “Open Your Mind” below and pre-save the EP here.