  We construct a concrete model of Horndeski bounce with strong gravity in the
past. Within this model we show that the correct spectra of cosmological
perturbations may be generated at early contracting epoch, with mild
fine-tuning ensuring that the scalar spectral tilt $n_S$ and tensor-to-scalar
ratio $r$ are consistent with observations. The smallness of $r$ is governed by
the smallness of the scalar sound speed. Arbitrarily small values of $r$ are
forbidden in our setup because of the strong coupling in the past.
Nevertheless, we show that it is possible to generate perturbations in a
controllable way, i.e. in the regime where the background evolution and
perturbations are legitimately described within classical field theory and
weakly coupled quantum theory.
