Sultan + Shepard

Canada’s Sultan + Shepard make many kinds of music, but they are invariably masters of balance: spanning banging beats and blissed-out moods, these versatile DJs have ridden the genre’s evolution with aplomb. Ned Shepard and Ossama Al Sarraf met at Montreal’s McGill University in the ’90s and began producing in the 2000s. Their early releases explored euphoric progressive house, but by the mid-2010s, the two began making big-room anthems like the Dillon Francis collab “When We Were Young”, putting emotive toplines to festival-ready drops. Then, as the EDM scene mellowed in the late 2010s, they shifted into deeper modes, like 2019’s “American Dream”, a melodic techno remake of the theme from American Beauty, or chill, ethereal songs like 2021’s “Assassin” and “Skipping Stones”, in which wistful keys and vocals take the lead. Whether turning out EDM floor-fillers or soaring, triumphant pop, the duo have an unfailing knack for pairing unforgettable melodies with the right groove, every time.