We've written about Cautious Clay before. This week, he has teamed up with electronic phenom LLusion and Bay Area producer HXNS for an upbeat, disco-flavored pop confection named "Sad4good" which will be featured on an upcoming mixtape from LLusion.

Cautious Clay achieved near-instant success with the release of two innovative projects in 2018 (Blood Type and RESONANCE). Since then he has written with Quinn XCII, Taylor Swift, John Legend, and Anderson Paak, just to name a few. His sound combines a sharp instinct for pop melody with elements of electro-pop, RnB, and experimental soul.

LLusion (pronounced "loo-zhuhn") is an artist and producer based in Orange, California, who recently gained attention on TikTok for his remixes of artists like 24kGoldn and Selena Gomez. He assembles dreamy soundscapes that are rooted in bold beat-craft, toasty warm samples, and delicate electronic alchemy.

With a father that worked as an editor on blockbusters like "Transformers," who shared a reverence for film with LLusion, his childhood was a fitting prelude to his eclectic musicality as a performer. Listening to Duke Ellington and doo-wop, LLusion went from playing saxophone in class to picking up drums at home. In his first year of high school, he discovered the music of late Japanese DJ and producer Nujabes.

I listened to Nujabes, and it changed my life forever. It was the first time I had ever heard instrumental hip-hop fused with quality jazz. I’d listen to his beats over and over again. At that point, I couldn’t just keep listening to music anymore; I had to make my own. – LLusion

With his wife Six overseeing the branding, artwork, and aesthetic for his projects, in addition to functioning as a sort of consiglieri of strategy, LLusion is living the dream. He wants his fans to appreciate the passion that he brings to his work, and above all, he hopes to inspire people to make their own music. "Sad4good" brings the distinctive vocal talent of Cautious Clay together with LLusion's keyboard wizardry, under the auspices of their collective talent as producers, and the result is a bittersweet and bouncy groove from two of electronic music's brightest new stars.

But if everything hurts then
It couldn't get worse
Then it already might be
If I went to church would you pray for me more
Then you had in the past
I wanna be sad for good

This song is featured on our Groovy Summer playlist.