Producing Between Heaven and Hell: 4evr’s Sonic Purgatory

By Katie Li

June 9th 2025

Somewhere along the ultra-specific, inter-genre pipeline many of us have traversed—from the SoundCloud emo rap underbelly, through the pandemic-era hyperpop renaissance, to today’s recession-fueled electronic scene—stands Midwest-born, Surf Gang artist and producer 4evr: musical alias of Mike Santoni. 

Whether or not you’ve heard his name, you’ve certainly heard his music; 4evr is the silent pulse behind much of the underground’s digital beauty and glitchy, genre-defiant soundscape. Each one of these musical movements bears his sonic imprint, a signature sound blend crafted with the common goal of making you ascend. His impressive résumé is more akin to a testament worthy of worship, with collaborations spanning Snow Strippers, Black Kray (a.k.a. Sickboyrari), Izaya Tiji, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, Joeyy, and meat computer. And, while his productions get most of the spotlight, his own projects—namely his EPs Halo and Momentary Repair—are where 4evr’s true visionary emerges, soundtracking the score I imagine plays during the body’s agonizingly slow and dramatic ascension to Heaven. Outside an ornately tricked-out Mediterranean hookah lounge a few doors down from East Village’s Nightclub 101, we sat down with 4evr before his DJ set to discuss Minneapolis, his online friend-turned-label co-producers, and his upcoming sound direction.

Like many artists discovered through the internet’s unpredictable talent wormhole, 4evr’s rise feels serendipitous, sparked by his casual decision to upload a few offhand remixes to SoundCloud. Growing up in Minneapolis, a city whose musical history is mostly singularly defined by pop icon Prince, Santoni’s environmental inspirations come more from what the Midwest couldn’t provide. “I was mostly just doing everything by myself,” he tells us, “growing up in Minneapolis kind of forced me to put myself out there online.” 

Mirroring the Minneapolis scene the 2016-17 SoundCloud underground was small and still in its early stages; imperfect, rudimentary algorithms and lack of accessibility to DAW tutorials or less expensive alternatives made the DIY producer scene a small pool of talent and unlike the oversaturated, ever-growing list we see today. There was no ability to simply buy a WAV license for $30 on some beat website, nor could you just look up insert-favorite-rapper type beat on Youtube… I digress. But, working within this limited space was a sign of the times, paving way for 4evr to get his start with two fortuitous collaborations. 

First, despite his earliest works feeling more adjacent to productions by Salem and Yung Sherman—characterized by an ambient influence, dragged-out Southern hip-hop drum patterns, and masterclass stereo imaging—4evr was first discovered by the emo rapper Lil Lotus. Bouncy synth beats are substituted with emotional guitar riffs, while the same trap drum kit patterns are simplified to a more four-on-the-floor rhythm. Though the connections between genres are not obvious, perhaps it’s that cathartic feeling both emo rap and electronic bring that led Lil Lotus to entrust Santoni to adapting to this sound: the first collaboration in becoming a permanent production fixture of the emo rap scene.

Producing for an emo rapper may just be a hidden rite of passage necessary to becoming a part of the New York record label collective Surf Gang; 4evr’s closest online SoundCloud friends-turned-labelmates share similar credits from Capoxxo to David Shawty. Meeting Harrison Sutherland, Eera, and a pre-Snow Strippers Graham Perez for a business meeting in 2018, 4evr reminisces: “those are still my friends and still the people that I'm working with today. So, it's just awesome how we're all still going. But yeah, so those are the longtime homies for real.” What started as casual collaborations among scattered SoundCloud kids has now solidified into the creative backbone of Surf Gang—a collective bound as much by connection and shared experience as by sound.

Still, producing for others is only part of the mark Santoni hopes to leave. When 4evr steps out on his own, the sound shifts—more personal, more atmospheric, and fully immersed in the singular vision that brought him to produce in the first place. A look at his first songs in his nearly decade-long discography provides us with insight into what that vision may be. 4evr’s first two songs “mistake” and “one last glimpse” draw similarities to the beats on Yung Lean’s first project Lavender: spacey, percusionally sparse yet deliberate, and drawing an emotional whiplash made possible by the long rises and falls that make beat drops feel as intense as humanly possible. The sound feels untethered by the physical barriers of the means of your listening experience—your headphones and the street you walk down with them, your speaker and the bedroom they’re blasting from—instead creating a soundscape that feels so impossibly vast, they feel otherworldly like they soundtrack the purgatory separating Earth from Heaven’s gates. His sample curation is perfectly tasteful, tailoring the vocals of Bladee’s “Skin,” Drake’s “Take Care,” and Nicole Dollanger’s “Lemonade” to somehow co-exist in this same 4evr dimension. 

Following this legendary run, 4evr’s solo work was mostly put on pause until last year, the break punctuated with an occasional remix or instrumental track and described by him as “frustrating to have to just work within what they want you to do instead of building your own sound.” In spite of this, his newest solo projects are unaffected by the seven years of near dormancy, picking back up his original sound with a sense of refinement. With this new motivation, 4ever has released two full-length albums Halo and Momentary Repair, which highlight his versatility—going from a video game soundtrack-esque piano score (“Spilled”) to blowing out your speakers within seconds (“Intro”). Just last week, 4evr released “anything u want,” a trap-meets-EDM track with an emotional vocal topline chopped to perfectly replicate the feeling of euphoria. And while he has the goal and vision to push his sound further into the future, his music is also undeniably nostalgic; Particularly, his more vocal-heavy tracks (i.e., his new single and “u always get what u want”) take me back to a mix between early 2000s Youtube culture and the summers of the mid 2010s: slow-mo boat party edits, Youtube notepad tutorial intros, and Arizona iced teas in hand. As the church electronic scene continues shifting towards this familiar, lush, emotive EDM terrain—where emotional vocal verses meet cathartic, hard-hitting instrumental chorus drops—4evr continues to shape the sound from within, quietly essential, divinely in tune, and always one step ahead.

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Watch our full conversation with 4evr below.