There is a specific intensity reserved when the day turns to dusk. For Mumbai-born, Chicago-based producer and DJ Sankalp Tambe, operating under the moniker Sunset Shades, this liminal threshold is precisely where sound comes alive. Describing his music as the soundtrack to a sunset playing inside his head, Sunset Shades constructs emotionally charged electronic soundscapes out of synths, field recordings, and percussive movement. His work delivers a delicate atmosphere, wrapping listeners in a sense of nostalgia while steering them forward into his musical world.
Rooted in the contrast between Mumbai’s chaotic energy and Chicago’s structural minimalism, the Sunset Shades project thrives on tension and release. This refined approach to sound design recently caught the ear of UK producer Jasper Tygner, who paused a live stream to celebrate Sunset Shades’s official remix of “Hold You,” praising its polyrhythmic structure and drawing comparisons to the early work of Jai Paul and Flume.
Now, as he prepares to release his club-focused “Gradients” EP alongside a meticulously crafted debut concept album that took three years to make, Sunset Shades is ready to bring his cinematic sonic universe to the stage.
We sat down with Sunset Shades to discuss translating visual feelings into Ableton, balancing dual-city inspirations, stepping onto a patio during a viral co-sign, and designing an immersive live experience.
You’ve described your music as the soundtrack to a sunset in your head. How do you trigger that specific feeling when you’re sitting down to produce in a studio?
I like to start by experiencing what I want to express. Just as sunsets are a literal end to a day, they are also symbols of harmony and the promise of renewal. I genuinely love writing music in the evenings during sundown because it slows everything down internally before I even touch a sound. I think my music sits at the intersection of emotion and atmosphere, and is sonically designed for the quiet intensity of a sunset. What comes out as my artistic expression is an amalgamation of euphoric moments told through music, allowing listeners to relate and experience their own version of nostalgia; a weird feeling of nostalgia that surprisingly makes you look forward to better beginnings. I’m usually chasing that feeling more than the idea: something warm, reflective, a little nostalgic, but still with a driving energy. I’ll build from very simple elements, like a melodic texture in a wide space or field recordings that carry a sense of place. Oftentimes, I’ll just blurb out or put down the most random ideas on Ableton because that’s what I feel is playing in my head, like a movie soundtrack. Writing to a visual of a beautiful sunset makes my music feel like it’s dissolving and coming together at the same time, and that “mix of emotions during sunset” feeling comes from contrast too: light and shadow, tension and release. A lot of it is about restraint, letting moments linger, and letting imperfections stay. Scientifically, I don’t know how deeply natural stimulation or triggers contribute to boosting inspiration, but if catching a sunset at a lake or a park or out of my window, or turning on a sunset lamp in my studio, contributes to the spark of an idea, I’ll happily take that over going into the production software with a set, solid plan. It always begins as a feeling at sunset and grows into a world that reaches far past the horizon.
What’s Mumbai, and what’s Chicago in your sound?
Mumbai is rhythm and chaos to me. It’s dense, emotional, and constantly in motion, yet it’ll always be my home. There’s a certain intensity to my city. Everything is happening at once, and yet there’s so much beauty in those small, fleeting moments. Growing up in Mumbai, music was never something that felt separate from everyday life. It was everywhere, from Bollywood songs and regional classics playing at home, music coming from shops and cars, weddings and festivals, radio, and the high tempo of the city itself. I grew up hearing so many different languages, melodic structures, and rhythms that I almost developed an instinct for musicality without realizing it. I guess that’s where my instinct for rhythm and groove comes from, and that sense of layering a lot of feeling into a small space. Even now, when I’m producing, I think I’m still trying to capture some of that feeling: the chaos and the emotion, but finding a sense of calm within it. Chicago, on the other hand, gave me clarity. There’s so much history here, but at the same time, the city feels incredibly alive and constantly evolving. What really inspired me was how deeply music is woven into the culture of the city. You can go from a small club to a piano-jazz bar to a warehouse party to an experimental show and hear completely different approaches to sound and performance. The house and techno history obviously runs very deep, but I’ve also been inspired by the DIY community, independent venues, and the musicians and artists who are constantly creating their own spaces. Being around its electronic scene made me more intentional about sound design and building unique sonic palettes. Chicago introduced me to space, to minimalism, to systems, and to structure. It made me more conscious about experimenting without restraint. I think Chicago broadened my sonic palette and sharpened my melodic instincts, while Mumbai gave me a rooted understanding of pace, percussion, and energy. So I think my music sits somewhere between the two, emotionally saturated but sonically controlled, combining so many different sounds and influences. The best example I can think of would be the lead single from my upcoming album. It’s an experimental one that somehow tastefully blends Indian street-style drums and rhythmic production with modular electronic jams.
Jasper paused his Instagram stream to replay your remix and praised your production. What was going through your mind watching that happen?
I remember I turned this remix around super quick, maybe in under a week? When I got the raw stems for “Hold You,” I wanted to flip the garage sonics of the original into a sharp, textured, drum-heavy electronic piece, trying to move away from a four-on-the-floor dance beat structure. I’ve followed Jasper’s trajectory as an artist, and his synth work and euphoric production have constantly inspired me for a few years now. His music hits you in the feels just as much on a blue-hour evening stroll as it does in a dancefloor setting. I was actually in the middle of an apartment viewing/tour when he played the remix on Instagram Live, and I quickly (secretly) joined in the middle of walking around multiple apartment units just to see his reaction. To me, it was crazy that he paused, rewound, and played my remix back live during the listening session because he was so hyped hearing it. I, on the other side of my phone, was equally excited seeing how my arrangement and sound design choices surprised him. He added that he loves remixes that are completely different from the original, where you can hear snippets of the original song, but then it blows you away with something completely unexpected. Honestly, I was totally speechless when he said the remix was one of the most original things he had heard in a long time, that it resembled early Jai Paul and Flume vibes, and then proceeded to clear it for an official remix release. Now, those are two exceptionally heavy praises, and one seriously massive piece of news to digest in the moment. I’ve drawn so much inspiration from both of those artists, and a comparison like that is extremely flattering. I asked the person conducting the apartment tour to give me a second and stepped out of the apartment unit onto the patio to take it all in. Truthfully, it was to let out all my excitement after seeing him connect with something I made, especially in such a spontaneous and genuine way. I’m humbled by the appreciation from him and his fans, and just feel really glad that he loved it.
You don’t usually make straight-up dance music. What made you want to dive into breakbeat and future-garage for the “Gradients” EP?
Long before I ever started producing music, I was DJing as a young kid in high school. I’ve always been drawn to groovy music, just not always in a conventional club sense. I now make denser and emotionally meaningful music, like full songs with elaborate storytelling, songwriting, and intricate structures, but my journey as an electronic music producer initially started with making dance music or DJ-friendly music. Honestly, I don’t really make straight-up dance music, but to me, it’s fun and lighthearted. It’s what I like making when I’m not in the zone to write or expand on a fully serious idea. Sequencing and playing my dance-adjacent demos alongside a selection of other tunes in a set helps me share my taste and show which sonic environments my music belongs in. My upcoming dance EP, “Gradients,” is pretty much a collection of these cool, dance-y ideas that I spontaneously keep making just for fun on the side, mostly to take a break from writing deeper material. Since these demos shared some common themes, I wanted to explore their movement in a different way for this EP, something that felt fluid yet slightly off-center. I really admire artists like Overmono, Burial, Bonobo, Jamie xx, and Disclosure, who strike a perfect balance between pace and motion in their music while still making you feel things on the dance floor. These styles and sub-genres of electronic dance music have this emotional weight to them, but they still make you move. I tried to incorporate some of these references and influences into these songs by blending simple and sweet melodies, sharp synths with punchy drum breaks, and a gritty bass, with some seasoning of shiny sound design. It felt like the right language to translate that transition phase I was in, both personally and creatively. It was less about making dance music and more about making music that moves physically and emotionally.
You’ve been working on your debut concept album for three years. How do you know when a track is actually finished and ready to let go with the rest?
That’s probably the hardest part, and I often struggle with it. I don’t think a track ever feels “finished” in a perfect sense; it just reaches a point where it stops demanding more production. It’s taken me a really long time to arrive at a place where I can comfortably let go of a song. Otherwise, for all these years, I’ve kept trying to perfect and refine a song, and many times I’ve also ended up overproducing it, just in the flow without realizing when to stop. There are songs on the album that have been in the works for over four years now, and they only felt fully done very recently. When I can listen to a demo without wanting to fix something, and it still communicates the feeling I intended, that’s when I’m able to feel like it’s ready. With a concept album, it’s also about how it sits with everything else. Sometimes a track isn’t done until it finds its place in the larger story. I like to take my time piecing together individual songs and finishing them in relation to the other songs on the project, and sometimes that takes forever.
What can you tell us about that concept running through the project?
I’m not fully sure how much detail I’d like to give away about the album concept yet, but I’m happy to share somewhat of an overview. The album is inspired by the way colors or hues can be associated with certain feelings or emotions, and how they blend during a sunset. It pushes you to experience a kind of emotional or nostalgic turmoil comprising not just a singular feeling, where nothing feels sharply defined, and everything exists somewhere in between. These colors relate to emotional states blending into each other and moments that don’t have clear beginnings or endings. This project lives in that in-between space, where things feel most honest. It explores adventure, escapism, memory, distance, and nostalgia without staying stuck in it, pairing warmth and vulnerability with forward motion. Each song is moody and intricate, and there’s a new shade in every song, but together they form a cohesive arc that moves from reflection to release. Metaphorically, I want to give away colors through this project and let the listener paint the picture as I guide them, and then finish and interpret it by themselves. The idea is that you’re sharing this thing with everyone, but everyone is experiencing it in their own way, just like watching a sunset.
You designed this album specifically for a live setup with instrumentation. What will a Sunset Shades headline show look and feel like?
I want it to feel immersive rather than performative. The goal is to blur the line between a live set and a band performance, using synths, drum pads, sequencers, live processing, and instrumentation in a way that feels organic yet constantly evolving electronically. Visually, it’ll mirror the music in the sequence of the story, with gradual transitions, shifts in programmed lighting, and a sense of creating peaks and valleys with sing-along material rather than just hard drops. I don’t want the live set to be about constant highs; I want to take people through a journey where they can get lost in the details and discover elements that resonate most in my songs. Dancing and headbanging in some parts of my show is guaranteed.
Now that the album is being mastered and almost out, what feeling do you hope listeners walk away with when they hear it front to back?
It’s still being mixed and mastered, and honestly, I want to properly roll it out with associated supplementary material, so I think it’ll take some time for it to be out. But when it does, I hope it gives people a moment to pause. If someone can sit with it and feel like time slowed down a little, that’s enough. More than anything, I want it to feel personal to whoever is listening, like it meets them where they are and lets them project their own memories onto it. I’ve always intended to share the album as a story and try to trigger feelings that we all interpret and understand in our own ways. We’re all more connected than we think; we just need to see past the noisy horizon, watch the next sunset, and listen to the music.
What’s the next step for Sunset Shades? What’s over the horizon right now?
Right now, it’s about bringing everything into the real world, dropping the dance EP and sequentially rolling out the record, translating the album into a live experience, and playing it out on as many stages as possible. I’m playing some DJ sets to test out music from “Gradients” and see how the floor reacts, but at the same time, I also want to keep collaborating more, especially with songwriters and visual artists, and keep pushing the project into new spaces without losing its core identity. It feels like the start of a new phase more than anything.
Get to know more about Sunset Shades on Instagram and TikTok.
