The Mix 036: LP Giobbi

An ever-evolving electronic DJ/producer, the Oregon-raised, jazz-trained pianist Leah Chisholm AKA LP Giobbi is one of the most industrious artists in dance music. As a touring DJ, she currently averages around 300 shows a year globally, hitting many of the world's best clubs and festivals, and even appearing onstage to play ‘Free’ on piano at The O2 arena in London alongside Pete Tong and The Heritage Orchestra. While as a producer, she’s released for labels like Ninja Tune, Defected, and her own imprint Yes Yes Yes, sweeping up a raft of awards and industry co-signs from the likes of DJ Tennis, Krystal Klear, and her favourite band ever (that’s not The Grateful Dead), Portland alt-rockers Portugal. The Man.

While caught up in this whirlwind of life on the road and in the studio, her latest album 'Dotr' makes a point to pause, reflect and find her way home. The title is a youthful misspelling of the word ‘daughter’ that's followed her into later life and holds an endearing nostalgia that plays into the record's themes. It's a personal collection of 17 songs that pay tribute to her parents and the childhood they gave her, as well as honouring maternal figures she has lost, after three influential women in her life passed away in quick succession last year.

We spoke to Leah about why she felt compelled to make an album, delving into its themes of love and grief, and what's it like having Deadheads for parents. Check it out alongside her exclusive mix below.

Two tracks from ‘Dotr’ really jumped out at me initially. ‘Bittersweet’ being the first one.

‘Bittersweet’ is a collab with Portugal. The Man, who are my favourite band. Their first album ‘In The Mountain In The Cloud’ came out in 2012 and I remember working at Interplanet Entertainment (my only job after college before becoming an artiste!) where my boss called me into his office to hear a new band he was working on. I still remember what I was wearing and what the office smelt like. I remember everything about that moment because that album hit me in heart and hit me in all the feels. Fast-forward to a few years ago, their manager reached out for me to do a remix of one of their singles. To this day, when I get on an aeroplane, I listen to that album or [something by] The Grateful Dead. So I worked on a remix for them and a few months later, we were playing in Chicago at the same time. They played early, I played late and I finally got to meet the guys. I got struck by how they level set everyone, and put everyone on the same level on the bus afterwards, that’s a real skill set. If someone gushed, they chopped the legs out of that. It really struck me how they made everyone feel like a friend. So we stayed in touch and I talked to them a lot and after that, John [Baldwin Gourley, the lead singer] started sending me song ideas. He said they had a song called ‘Bittersweet’ which didn’t make the album and I said it was insane. I produced a rock 'n' roll version first and beefed it up but then John said, ‘damn I thought you were going to make a dance version of this song!’. I didn’t want to go too far or put myself in it too much, so it was almost scary to do that as I have so much respect for them. I finally got to a perfect yin-yang of the two. Having a song with them will never not be wild to me.

And then there’s ‘So Nice To Be In Love’ with that brilliant piano flourish at the start. Can you explain the backstory to this one too?

‘So Nice To Be In Love’ is a collab with Mascolo, one of my favourite new artists, who’s just signed to my own label Yes Yes Yes. What SOFI TUKKER did for my career, I want to do for his because I really believe in every single ounce of him. I think his biggest problem is he can do anything! It’s kind of incredible. When I signed to Warner Chappell, they sent me a bunch of library clearances and we were combing through them and that piano was in the sample pack and it sounded like the Grieg piano concerto, a song I learned in high school. It’s how I warm up and is very similar to that, so it really caught my ear. We made that track together in one day.

Read this next: The 20 best piano house tracks ever

Let’s start with the name of the new album ‘Dotr’, this was written on notes you left to your parents as a kid right?

It’s pronounced ‘DAUGHTER’ because I am the daughter of my parents. I am still the world’s worst speller and that has always been the case, so I would always write my parents love letters and hide them in the room and would sign them, ‘love Dotr’. And they thought that was cute so even to this day, if I get a card or Christmas present, they write ‘To Dotr’. This album is a lot about me finding myself and finding my way back home. I sometimes feel like I was put in the washing machine and thrown out on the road: I was home for 20 days last year. I wanted to give my parents their flowers while they are alive and tell them what a beautiful childhood they gave me. My Dad’s voice is one of the interludes.

We live in a world of singles now but I know it was important that you made another album-based body of work. Is that partly because your heroes did too?

It is! But I’m constantly wondering. Because of my last album, I know that the singles will be heard but if you look at the statistics, pretty much nobody will listen to the songs that aren’t singles. And there are three or four songs on this record that could have easily been singles and if they were, they would be heard my more people. But you know whose fault it is that I make albums? It’s Pete Tong’s fault! Because when I joined William Morris, I got on a phone call with him, because he’s head of the electronic department at William Morris and he was instrumental in me going over there. He’s a hero of mine and we got to work on that ‘Free’ record together. And the first thing he said was, ‘You know you’re an album artist!’. And I was like, ‘Woah’. I thought I could make a song and put it out in the world. He laughed and said, that’s not the kind of artist you are, you’re more musical than that. And he said he thought Ninja Tune could be a good home as ‘you have more to say than just singles’. It was cool that he made me think about things in a larger way. The reason I didn’t want to put out an album was because of fear, which is not a reason to not do something.

‘Dotr’ was created in the aftermath of losing three matriarchal figures in your life: your mother-in-law Patricia Lynn, your piano teacher Carolyn Horn, and your family friend Suse Millmann. The album is built around candid recordings from these mentors – so would you say this is a musical diary of sorts?

100%. That’s a great way to describe it! I lost those three women one month apart and played 100 shows over that time period so I didn’t get to process it properly. I didn’t realise that they died one month apart, this bio writer pointed it out to me. In order to find some grounding on the road, I write poetry to my Dad and we trade one line at a time. Making the album, I realised that so many of the lines are about grief. I see my lens as being a daughter and a woman in this world, and also what it means to be a daughter. A lot of that story is told in the stories of these three women.

In 2003, Soulwax released a seminal DJ mix as 2ManyDJs. Now that tongue-in-cheek moniker feels like the reality of the climate for breaking new artists. But you’ve definitely broken through! Do you have any thoughts on this? Is it your work ethic?

Have I? I feel like I haven’t yet, but thank you! Work ethic has always been a part if it. I was a 4.0 student and I was the first chair in the band, one of those sort of kids. But I was never the smartest, or the most talented or creative. I wasn’t the even close to the most intelligent in any situation. But I always outworked my peers. So I will work myself to the bone and my drive will swallow me whole. I am working very hard on this in therapy right now! Because I do think 10,000 hours is a part of why I have become a better DJ over this past summer and I love that. But I do have to ask, what is this for if I am missing every weddings and family function in my life. But I am coming up for air. It’s partly work ethic and also I am a kid from Eugene, Oregon, and that’s a secondary market. With the Grateful Dead connection, I am a DJ who can go and play Ashville or who can go and play Jackson Hole and Durham. I have developed a fan base with the Grateful Dead stuff in places like that, and those are my people. Yes, I can play in London but really my people are in these B-markets so I want to hit all those markets on the bus on my next headline tour: Where there are clumps of my people. Other DJs in my lane haven’t really developed that community and I love that community. Having Deadhead parents has been a blessing for me.

Read this next: The Mix 034: Kelly Lee Owens

With so much going on, I can’t help but wonder what else there is for you to achieve artistically?

I always do a dream board every year. And I struggled to make one this year because while I wanted to sell out Red Rocks, what I really want is to find the ability to be present in my life. That’s a bigger over-arching goal that I want to reach and I don’t quite know how to do that. Of course I want bigger and better slots and things like that, but while part of me want to push for things, part of me just wants to see what happens.

Can you tell us about your mix?

Inspired by a three-month span in 2023 in which I lost three crucial women in my life, my new album 'Dotr' is an attempt to create a musical world that radiates the comfort and warmth that the luckiest of us have found in anything. I'm so excited to share this new set for Mixmag featuring highlights from the album, as well as remixes from a few years ago for those who have been with me for a while.

'Dotr' is out now via Counter Records, check it here

Ralph Moore is a freelance writer, follow him on Twitter

Tracklist:
Intro: Patricia Lynn - LP Giobbi
ID (&Happiness) - LP Giobbi
Feel - LP Giobbi & Jacob Banks
So Nice To Be In Love - LP Giobbi & Mascolo
Love Come Through - LP Giobbi & Panama
Dancer - LP Giobbi, Caroline Byrne, & Le Chev
Bittersweet - LP Giobbi & Portugal. The Man
Is This Love - LP Giobbi & Danielle Ponder
Really Good - LP Giobbi & Reva DeVito
Until There’s Nothing Left - LP Giobbi & Alabama Shakes
Carolyn - LP Giobbi
Succession - LP Giobbi
Ball & Chain (JJ Tribute) [LP Giobbi Remix] - ASHA
Chemical (LP Giobbi Remix) - MK
Been Such a Long Time - LP Giobbi & Mascolo