Southwest Florida is one of the last coastal music markets in America that doesn't have a defining sound. Miami has Miami bass and Latin house. Tampa has jook. Orlando has 00s pop-punk and synthwave. Jacksonville has Southern rock. Every Florida metro has claimed a frequency. And SWFL — us — has historically been a place music passes through, not a place music is made.
I think that's about to change. And I think I can tell you exactly what the SWFL sound is going to feel like, because Jack and I have spent three years accidentally assembling the ingredients on actual beach dance floors.
It's going to be slow, for one. SWFL tempo runs about ten BPM below the rest of the state. I think that's the humidity. I think that's the geography. I think it's the fact that a lot of us came down here specifically to stop sprinting. Whatever the reason, a peak-time set that would run 126 BPM in Orlando runs 118 here. And the dance floor prefers it. I've tested this.
It's going to be warm. Literally warm — chords, pads, analog-sounding basses — and also emotionally warm. The heartbreak songs down here hit differently. I think it's because the whole region is still metabolizing what it lost in 2022 and rebuilding in real time. Every dance floor we've played has had a grief undertone. People want to dance through something, not past it. The music that meets them where they are is soft-focused and a little bittersweet and on the warmer side of house.
And it's going to be outdoor. SWFL has the best outdoor music weather in the entire country from October through May. You don't need a club. The sky is the club. The horizon is the light rig. The Gulf is the subwoofer. Any sound that gets built here is going to be built assuming the room has no ceiling. That changes how you mix. You stop worrying about low-end buildup. You start worrying about whether the song will read in open air.
Put it all together: the SWFL sound is going to be 115-to-120 BPM warm organic house, played outdoors at sunset, made by people who are rebuilding. That's Casamoré's exact lane and we know it. We also know we're not going to be the only ones. Already two other local producers have reached out about collaborating on tracks with this tempo and this warmth. I think in two years you will turn on a radio in Miami and hear a song that was made down here and you will recognize it before the chorus. I'm writing this post partly to claim it before it happens.