Whenever Sofia Kourtesis returns to Lima, Peru from her current home in landlocked Berlin, she makes a point of going to see the ocean. Her father used to say that staring at the sea was a form of meditation, a way of clearing one’s head. Kourtesis wrote “La Perla” with both the sea and her father in mind. Having begun the song with a foundation of field recordings gathered around Lima, she was working on it while he was dying of leukemia; for that reason, she says, she finds it difficult to listen to today. But “La Perla” doesn’t sound mournful. Quite the opposite. Like most of Kourtesis’ work so far, the song is the coziest sort of deep house, with overlapping layers of synths, samples, percussion, and voice lending to its sun-dappled feel. (Kourtesis’ previous EPs appeared on Swedish house musician Axel Boman’s playful Studio Barnhus label, and her use of color, texture, and heart-on-sleeve emotion suggests that she’s cut from the same cloth as artists like Boman and DJ Koze.)

It’s a pity that there’s not likely to be much dancing in public this summer, because “La Perla” is begging to be heard on an open-air dancefloor, preferably one lit by starlight—or, better yet, the first rays of dawn. But this isn’t merely club fodder. Graced with Kourtesis’ own vocals—for the first time, she says—it hangs teasingly in the margin between “track” and “song.” It’s not always easy to make out the lyrics, which she sings in Spanish, but enough words are audible—“You and I in solitude”; “trying to change, trying to forget”—that deciphering possible meanings doesn’t take too much guesswork. And in any case, “La Perla” is really all about feelings that can’t be captured in words. Channeling wistful vibes reminiscent of M83, Superpitcher, and the Field, the song revolves around chiming synths, wafting voices, and soft chords that tumble in a nonstop cycle of tension and release. Somehow intimate and vast all at once, it’s like a postcard view of infinity—just waves, wind, and sparkling light as far as the eye can see.