“The number one thing as a producer is to make music with other people,” says Jump Source’s Patrick Holland from the duo’s Montreal studio. “You can only learn so much from studying music or watching YouTube tutorials. It’s jamming with someone else that will help you discover everything.”
Sitting next to Patrick amid their gear at Jump Source Studios, Francis Latreille, Patrick’s creative partner – who also records as Priori and runs the label naff – agrees. “The conversations before you start working are so crucial, you’re trying to get comfortable and understand what someone is trying to do,” he says. “To be able to build trust and communicate without hurting each other’s feelings is so important.”
It’s a skill that the pair have honed, whether it be working together or with collaborators such as Martyn Bootyspoon, Frankie Teardrop, or Tiga; the fingerprints of Francis and Patrick are all over the latter’s acclaimed new album HOTLIFE. As Jump Source, the duo are gearing up for the release of their own debut Fold, a diverse, multi-hued project that lasers in on the dancefloor with tracks like Shattered and Empty Bars demonstrating the vast scope of their combined talents.
“We had finished production work on a series of different albums in the last two years and when we completed them, we thought it would be good to set out the tone for our own album,” Francis states. “Rather than working on someone else’s project, which we’d done a lot, we wanted to do what we wanted to do, with collaborators who were down with our vision.”
Patrick and Francis met back in the early ‘00s. Francis was immersed in Montreal’s music scene, DJing in small clubs and bringing various DJ contemporaries from Canada and the US to play, including Mood Hut. Patrick entered the picture after relocating to Montreal from Vancouver, and the pair almost immediately hit it off as both friends and creatives.
“I had this studio which was essentially a walk-in closet in my small apartment,” says Francis. “I put a mini desk along the wall and elevated it for my speakers and synths, then had clothes at the back to stop the sound leaking. It sounded awful but I had to make do, then I started buying gear like an MPC2000 sampler with the little money I had at the time.”
Francis’ friend and collaborator Adam Hodgins, who makes music as Sabola, began collecting analogue synths in the early 2000s, and he was willing to lend them gear while they tried to develop their sound.
“He had accumulated some nice equipment and lent me synths including this Moog Source,” Francis says. “It’s a unique Moog synth, it looks nothing like the rest of their line-up, and that’s kind of where our name comes from, as we used it on our first record. ‘Source’ sounded really fresh to us, then we tried to pair different words with it, and Jump Source stuck.”
Patrick and Francis have been working together ever since, sharing a studio from 2017 and gradually acquiring more hardware and outboard gear. “We moved from desktop synths and rack synths to preamps and outboard, and we’ve accumulated quite a bit over the years, which is the benefit of sharing a studio and the gear costs,” says Patrick.
“We have no hate for software,” Francis adds. “When it comes to doing surgical, clean music, software is great but I think a lot of the stuff we keep an eye out for in terms of gear has to have character. This will give us magical sounds when we go into the box, which is where most of our mixing happens.”
Fold was constructed within the walls of Jump Source Studios with an eclectic cast of collaborators including Poison Girl Friend, Billy Woods, Helena Deland, CFCF, and Loukeman.
The record shows off the duo’s broad tastes, from the shuffling bass-pop magic of Shattered with Helena Delands’s vocals to the shimmering trip-hop of album finale Close. Club, pop, leftfield ambience and even glitch-inflected post-rock sit side by side, displaying the pair’s talent for bringing diverse sounds together with coherence and flair.
The objective was to keep the creative process lean and energetic, taking what they’ve learned from their previous studio collaborators and making something they’d be proud to release under their own name.
“We talked about how much we wanted to record quickly,” says Patrick. “Most of the instrumental parts are something we did in an afternoon, then we pieced it together from there. But we tried to work rapidly, the mixing is where the majority of time was spent.”
Once the initial creative elements were captured, the duo would leave an idea, giving it space to gestate before returning to add more flesh to its bones.
“We’d get something to a place where we liked the arrangement and how it sounded, then leave it for a time,” says Francis. “When we came back to it, it felt fresh - and it’s an approach that works rather than agonising over an idea for days to the point where you feel like you’re just destroying it.”
The album follows a killer series of EPs Patrick and Francis have released as Jump Source over the last 12 months - JS06 and JS05 are hyperkinetic machine workouts laced with fidgety beats and electronic stabs.
“We knew that we wanted to do this album for some time, but we didn’t know when we would be able to fit it in,” says Patrick. “Then this time last year, we had a few demos sitting around, so we just committed to the album during the summer. Once we had the instrumentals in place, we started tapping up our friends for different vocal and production ideas.”
Parts came back to them from collaborators through October and September, then other vocalists began sharing contributions at the end of the year. “Everyone sent such quality recordings, there was a lot of substance to what they shared and it was a treat to work with,” says Francis.
“We didn’t have to ask anyone for anything more, everyone delivered great ideas and we integrated it into instrumentals. We were lucky enough that it worked really well.”
The album’s title track features CFCF and Helena Deland, and is a pivotal moment on the record, a production that was developed in October 2025 and set the tone for the rest of the project.
“It’s an ambitious arrangement for a club track as it’s really in two separate parts,” says Francis. “We wanted it to be epic in some ways but also punchy and in our style too. We were listening to some Underworld tracks and aiming to get that epic, long style with multiple sections, but it’s hard to do - there are reasons why they are famous and rightly revered!”
“The song is a really good example of one technique we’ve been doing a lot,” he continues. “We ran a chord progression with sustained longer pads, sent it through a modular set-up, then had it gated into a pattern. You can have some very emotive chords but once you start chopping them into percussive elements, you end up with more punchy sounds.”
“We kept working on it with Mike (CFCF), then getting Helena on it, and figured out the vocal tone,” adds Patrick. “It sits in a cool and unique spot and getting there took a lot of back and forth and figuring it out lyrically. But it was a very collaborative vibe with each person.”
As well-known as they are for working with other artists, many of Jump Source’s partnerships have come through friendships or social networks. They see each studio experience as helping them to push their own creativity to the next level.
“We’ve learned so much from everyone we’ve worked with,” says Patrick. “It’s different every time, which is why it’s so interesting. Creatively, people are usually their own worst enemy, and being able to help someone get through their own judgement of themselves is one of the biggest things.”
Francis nods in agreement. “With James K, it was very much about softness and beauty, then with Tiga, the idea was to strip everything back and only keep the badass elements. They have very different approaches in terms of making music.”
Jump Source are credited on eight tunes on Tiga’s HOTLIFE record, helping him get to and from various states of completion including many highlights such as Friction or Silk Scarf. They cite the importance of maintaining momentum during those sessions and keeping the creative process as instinctive as possible.
“With Tiga, it’s very important to the process to make sure things can happen quickly,” says Francis. “Those sessions were based on mood and vibe, and I’d try to get into the studio before and find a vocal chain I liked with distortion or prepare a pattern on the SH-101. It meant when we all got together, there was something to get excited about immediately.”
The city of Montreal is the home of Jump Source and was a direct influence on the pair, thanks to its healthy arts and music scene. “In general, out of anywhere in North America, the appreciation for music is stronger than most places I’ve been to,” Patrick says. “It’s constant here, where other cities don’t necessarily have that; the way of life for creatives is catered for, which is very special and unique.”
“There’s a real emphasis on community too, and there have been a bunch of collectives who have worked out of here, had spaces and built things,” adds Francis. “Usually, it’s not only music, but a bunch of creative people sharing a space. There might be a designer in the same room as a music producer, so there are no boundaries. Things are integrated and people are happy to experiment by blurring the lines.”
They cite spaces such as Systeme and Parquette as reliable party spots, with the latter operating in a grey area of legality slightly outside the boundaries of the traditional nightclub. It’s in these smaller nooks and crannies of the city’s nightlife that they feel most at home.
“Those are definitely our favourite places to play, we’re just back from Chicago and we played a party like that,” says Francis. “The organisers asked us if it was okay in a non-traditional club set-up, but this is where we come from - we love to see it.”
Jump Source Studios is the duo’s current home, a creative headquarters that’s home to their gear and provides a space for collaborative connections. “We moved from a smaller space that didn’t fit more than a couple of keyboard stands and a desk to this larger room with tonnes of storage,” says Patrick. “It’s really opened up the door for us to experiment and welcome different types of music in.”
With various projects ongoing and multiple collaborations both as Jump Source and as individuals underway, the pair’s immediate concerns are the release of Fold and a forthcoming tour, including a London set in August at the Blood Orange-curated festival Rally.
“I’ve only performed solo live sets before, so it’ll be nice to have four hands to make things happen,” laughs Francis. “It’s opened some doors in my mind in terms of what we can do and we’ll be taking elements from our samplers, then looking to reimagine the originals.”
“It’s still very much a club set,” adds Patrick. “The energy will be heightened, the pop structures will be less poppy, and we’re not touring with every vocalist, just narrowing the scope so it’s raw, ready and fun to experience in a live context.”
