Though electronic music composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Dualist Inquiry​​—aka Sahej Bakshi—has consistently released singles and EPs throughout his career, his third album, When We Get There, arrives almost eight years after his last full-length effort, 2016’s Dreamcatcher. When We Get There, coincidentally, drops on his daughter’s second birthday—an appropriate date considering she was the inspiration for this reflective collection. “She was the catalyst for a lot of the thought processes and emotions [behind the songs],” Bakshi tells Apple Music, “but I didn’t want to put her in the middle of things because she’s her own person. At the end of the day, this was going through the filter of me. I needed to do it selfishly. This was time away from her that I was in the studio. That’s always the running compromise in my life—do I spend time with her, or do I spend time writing music? But I did wonder, ‘Wait a minute, is this album actually about her?’ And I realise it’s not—but it’s very much because of her.” Time’s passage is the overarching theme of the record, which Bakshi describes as his most personal yet. “It was like my own little diary and quite a therapeutic experience, in a way,” he says. The album’s title refers to the completion of the record itself, something that proved a challenge to the artist’s perfectionist side. Bakshi says: “It took nine months of real grinding and I was feeling some kind of pressure in terms of putting out more music, pressure that was coming only from myself.” The album marks a turning point in Bakshi’s career. “It definitely feels like a new base camp of sorts for my sound,” he says of the nine tracks that bear both an emotional heft and an inherent danceability. “I will be returning here. That’s what took so long, finding something that was so resonant, compelling and interesting. [I had decided that] if I’m not happy calling it my home, musically speaking, then I don’t want to be in a short-term rental.” With that, Dualist Inquiry takes us through the making of the album, track by track. “When We Get There” “The found sample of a pilot’s announcement that opens the track really spoke to me—that I should buckle up because it’ll be a bit bumpy, but when we arrive it’s going to be quite nice. I think I was reassuring myself, because in the beginning, it did feel like quite a turbulent ride, showing up day after day to work on this project, which at that point of time only meant anything to me and my wife, who’s an incredible source of support. I was bracing myself for a journey deep into myself, which is sometimes a bit scary. Now when I listen to it, I feel like it has this energy of a plane taking off and being airborne. Once you set off on the journey, you hit the high when you’re cruising and there’s excitement but there’s also trepidation. This song was me drawing a picture of the scenery I wanted to be a part of but I wasn’t at the time.” “Coming Alive” “This song really drops into the essence of the emotional core of the album quite nicely. Because the first track is a bit intense and gets right into it, I wanted to make a bit of space and pace the album out. The santoor sample is subtle but at the same time it’s a really important sound and it’s just so beautiful. That was enough for me to put it in the album. It really is a very celestial sound.” “Days Away” “It’s about capturing that feeling of driving somewhere and you’re really looking forward to where you’re going. I’ve used emulations of the classic Juno synthesizer, which is reminiscent of the 1980s and one of those machines that really defined an era. The song for me is very friendly and sort of unassuming, in a way. It came out of this exercise of me writing for myself and thinking, ‘Don’t worry, nobody’s going to hear it. Nobody’s going to judge you.’” “Mother” “It started off with these chords—which I found really sweet and very tender—that I chopped up and slowed down. Then I thought, ‘Let me go through some of my home videos and see if I can find a sample of my wife and daughter playing.’ I took the audio from one of those videos and buried it in there. It’s not really the point of the song or even important for people to know. But it’s personally significant.” “Times Go By” “I knew I wanted to play this album live when it’s done and ‘Times Go By’ is a track that was made with that at the back of my mind. The house-music treatment is very comfortable but also kind of new for me. It’s classic and works so well for a reason. With a lot of these styles, the point is not to reinvent the wheel but to find new ways of adorning the wheel that make it yours.” “All There Is” “There are certain emotional spaces I was looking to fill in the album. This one is about capturing a feeling of positivity. There’s a hint of nostalgia but it’s mainly about optimism. I’ve played this song a lot in my DJ sets and it went through a big change. It had a four-on-the-floor beat earlier [but] then I shifted it over to a breakbeat just a few weeks before it was sent for mastering. That made it work.” “Bloom” “I wrote this song as a pitch. I thought it would make a pretty great intro track for a TV series, like a drama or horror show. But I liked it so much that I never sent it to anyone. Some people have told me that they find it quite dark and some have said they find it quite hopeful. I don’t intend it to be either. For me, it feels like a moment of reckoning, where you face a test and you push ahead with resolve and there’s a moment that defines the rest of your journey where you either walk away or you lean into the fire.” “I Need to Know” “This feels like a walk through a magical, luminescent forest at night and you’re not really supposed to have your bearings. The sitar sample has been reversed and stretched out while the rest of the song is in this reverb-drenched, lush zone. The sample is supposed to come out of the blue and shock you a little. It’s called ‘I Need to Know’ because there’s a feeling of longing.” “My Fire, My Light” “The santoor sample on the song fit with how I wanted the end of the album to feel—like how I feel when I come home. Home has a special meaning right now. It’s not just a building, it’s also family, it’s my heart rate coming down after something outward-facing, stimulating or stressful. Our home—knock on wood—is a very peaceful place and it reminded me of that.”