Laura & Santiago on Reinvention, Creature Mode and the Long Road to ‘Juna’

Six years, an unusable sample and a chance encounter at Ibiza airport stand between the first incarnation of “Juna” and the record Laura & Santiago are finally able to release.

First conceived back in 2020, the second release on the husband-and-wife duo’s newly launched Creature Mode label has taken a wonderfully circuitous route into the world. Along the way, one half of the pair virtually gave up on it, the other refused to let it die, and a serendipitous meeting eventually led them to Nandi, whose soulful Ndebele and Zulu vocals transformed the track into something even better than they had originally imagined.

Its arrival also feels particularly timely. “Juna” lands during a period of profound change for the artists formerly known as Lovely Laura & Ben Santiago. Following the launch of Creature Mode with “O Ma” in March, Laura & Santiago are embracing a new identity and a newfound creative freedom that extends far beyond a simple change of name. “Big time! That’s exactly what it is,” they say of the sense of a creative reset. “The name change is something we’d thought about for a very long time, but it always felt too risky.”

The catalyst came unexpectedly when Laura broke her wrist early in 2026. For an artist whose career has been built around the saxophone, it was a potentially life-changing injury, but the enforced pause also provided both of them with time to reconsider where they were heading. “There’s nothing like a health scare to make you re-evaluate things,” they explain, “and, dare I say it, a bit of bravery emerged from that difficult period that helped us overcome any concerns about changing things up.”

It seems to have unlocked something creatively too. “Probably the biggest thing that’s come from the name change is that we’ve let go of any worries about meeting expectations. Instead, we feel we have a lot more creative freedom to be true to ourselves.”

That freedom is already feeding into what comes next. Alongside Creature Mode and a succession of new releases, Laura & Santiago reveal they are “also working on an album that isn’t being made with the dancefloor in mind. Watch this space!”

For now, however, the dancefloor remains very much in focus. “Juna” follows March’s “O Ma” as Creature Mode’s second release, building on a recording catalogue that has also included “Real Love” alongside Marco Lys for Nervous Records and “Cinnamon Flower” on Todd Terry’s Freeze Records. Yet its roots stretch back considerably further. “It all started with the two horn lines that you can still hear in the version we’ve just released,” Laura & Santiago explain. “It needed some vocals, and we stumbled across an African record called ‘Mali Niale’ by Oumou Sangaré.”

What happened next is a story they have never previously told in full. “We ripped the vocals, put them on the track, and were jumping for joy at how it sounded. In our complete and utter ignorance, we thought we’d just discovered some unknown artist, had been handed an epiphany from the gods, and could clear the sample without any issues.”

Reality quickly intervened. “Turns out Oumou Sangaré is one of the most important African musicians of all time. She helped bring Wassoulou music to an international audience and has even won a Grammy. That brought us crashing back down to earth.” They suddenly found themselves with a track they loved but couldn't release. “But we still had a record we believed in… one we couldn’t release. So what do we do now?”

The answer, for a while at least, depended on which half of Laura & Santiago you asked. “One of us gave up hope on the record and abandoned it, but the other completely believed in it and just couldn’t let it go,” they admit. “I think that’s one of the great things about being a duo, you take turns encouraging each other through those moments when you know something is special and worth fighting for.”

That dynamic extends well beyond the studio. Laura and Santiago were established solo artists when they met and fell in love in Ibiza, before their personal relationship gradually developed into the musical partnership that has taken them around the world. Spending so much time together might suggest they have perfected the art of separating their marriage from their careers. Apparently not. “To be honest, we still very much struggle with getting the work/life balance right,” they admit. “I guess it’s the same for most people who work for themselves, but we’re especially bad at it! So, if anything, it’s the other way round – we need to learn where the work ends and the relationship begins!”

In the case of “Juna”, their refusal to collectively give up was eventually rewarded in the most Ibiza-like fashion imaginable. “We bumped into another artist who had just been on a writing camp here in Ibiza,” they recall. “We got chatting and, somehow, African vocals came up in conversation. We mentioned we had a track that needed an African vocalist, and she introduced us to Nandi. The rest is history! Pure Ibiza magic at work.”

NANDI provided an entirely new vocal, sung predominantly in the southern African language Ndebele with elements of Zulu. The central lyric, “Umthwalo wam’ngiwuphethe / Ngizohamba, ngizohamba”, translates as “I carry my burden / I’ll be on my way.”

Yet it wasn't initially the meaning of those words that captivated Santiago. It was the way her voice immediately locked into a piece of music he had spent years hearing in another form. “There’s a real-life phenomenon called ‘demoitis’, where you get so used to hearing a demo a certain way that you become overly attached to it, so any change just sounds wrong,” he explains. “It’s a genuine struggle that producers come up against all the time.”

NANDI broke through that attachment instantly. “When I first heard Nandi’s vocals on the track and the way they sat with the horn line, it completely blew any demoitis and attachment to the original version out of the water. I couldn’t believe how right it sounded, especially given how used I was to hearing the old vocals. I’ve never experienced that before, which says so much about Nandi’s talent and just how perfectly she nailed it.”

Interestingly, they didn't initially know precisely what she was singing. “We’d already fallen in love with the emotion in Nandi’s performance before we knew exactly what she was singing,” they say. “Once we found out the meaning, it just felt like another beautiful layer to the record rather than something that changed the way we approached it.”

There is an intriguing emotional tension at the heart of the finished track. NANDI’s words speak of carrying a burden and continuing forward, while the music surrounding them is exuberant, soulful and unmistakably uplifting. It would be tempting to interpret that contrast as an intentional creative decision, particularly given the period of personal change Laura & Santiago themselves have experienced.

The reality is considerably more instinctive. “Not at all,” they say. “It wasn’t a conscious decision, it’s just the way the record evolved. It felt right, and ultimately that’s all that matters.” That instinctive approach extends to one of the defining elements of the Laura & Santiago sound: Laura’s horns.

For “Juna”, the horn lines weren't an embellishment added to an existing house track. They were its foundation. “In the case of Juna, the horn lines were actually the very first thing we wrote, even before the drums,” they explain. “On other records, though, the sax has been the very last thing we’ve added, sometimes after we’ve already got the full arrangement down.”

Rather than imposing a formula on the studio process, the pair prefer to allow each record to dictate its own direction. “More than anything, our focus whenever we’re making music is to lose ourselves in the process and let the ideas evolve naturally. We don’t really have a set point where we think, ‘Right, let’s get the sax out.’ It just happens whenever it feels right.”

Nevertheless, horns are increasingly becoming a recognisable signature. “Cinnamon Flower” and “Juna” both use horn sections as their principal hooks, while “Real Love” captured something far more spontaneous. “Real Love centres around a sax solo that was really just one of those magical moments in the studio,” they recall. “Laura played it in a single take and, when we sent it to Marco Lys, he loved the whole performance so much that he kept it in its entirety.”

If those records have gradually helped define their production identity, the pair are reluctant to impose boundaries around what a Laura & Santiago record should be. “I think that’s come more from gradually building confidence in ourselves and releasing music that we genuinely love, rather than worrying about meeting expectations,” they explain. “It’s taken us a long time to get to that place, probably longer than it should have! I imagine lots of artists go through something similar, but for whatever reason it took us a while to really find our feet.”

Creature Mode is the natural extension of that confidence. Rather than existing to impose another carefully delineated musical identity, the label offers something much more valuable: autonomy. The timing of “Juna” as its second release was almost accidental. “The label was due its second release at exactly the same time this updated version of Juna was finished, and it felt like a really natural follow-up to O Ma. Everything just seemed to line up.”

As for the wider philosophy behind Creature Mode, they put it more simply: “Release what we want, when we want!” “I think that’s one of the reasons you’re seeing so many independent labels emerge now. Artists finally have the tools and opportunities to release music on their own terms, and it’s really exciting to see the creativity that freedom is producing.”

After six years, “Juna” has finally found both the voice and the home it needed. Returning to the original production meant refreshing the drums and replacing a bassline they admit they had never particularly liked. “It was more of a placeholder that filled out the low end than something that added any groove or melody,” they explain. “We just kept playing around with ideas until something jumped out and felt right.”

The finished version has already been road-tested in some of the places most central to the Laura & Santiago story, including Pikes and 528 in Ibiza. Their assessment of its effectiveness is pleasingly uncomplicated. “It goes off! It’s always an amazing feeling when a record you’ve made gets such a strong reaction, and seeing Juna connect so well with people on the dancefloor has really given us confidence in it. Those moments remind you to trust your instincts.”

And Ibiza remains the perfect testing ground. The island where Laura and Santiago met, fell in love and ultimately began performing together continues to permeate almost everything they do. “Ibiza is at the core of everything we do in the studio, and it influences us in so many ways,” they explain. “Inspiration can come from listening to other DJs here, being on the dancefloor and feeling what connects, but also from seeing for ourselves what gets the biggest reactions when we’re playing.”

More than any particular sound or genre, however, they are attempting to capture something considerably harder to define. “At the risk of sounding pretentious, Ibiza has a certain feeling or energy, and if we get it right, we somehow manage to capture a little bit of that spirit and translate it into our music.”

That sentiment could equally describe “Juna”. A record born from two horn lines in 2020, temporarily stranded by a sample they couldn't clear, kept alive by one partner when the other had lost faith, and eventually transformed by a vocalist discovered through a chance airport conversation.

Six years later, its circuitous journey feels strangely appropriate for two artists entering their own period of renewal. Lovely Laura & Ben Santiago has become Laura & Santiago; Creature Mode has given them control of their music; expectations are being discarded; an album is taking shape away from the demands of the dancefloor.

And “Juna”, the record they once believed they might never be able to release, is finally doing exactly what they always hoped it would.

It goes off.

Laura & Santiago - Juna is out now on Creature Mode. Grab it on Beatport HERE.

Read the full interview with Laura & Santiago on The Night Bazaar HERE.