A psy-fi power hour from one of Australia’s most exciting artists, LOIF
Based in Naarm/Melbourne, LOIF made his production debut in late 2019 with the release of ‘Electronic Organism’ and has since landed on a broad selection of record labels such as Animalia, Ute.Rec, Amniote Editions, INDEX Records and Pressure Dome. Most recently, LOIF released his new album ‘GHOSTWORLD’ on Steeplejack. A project that was five years in the making, featuring collaborations with sina, bluhol, and Nū, ‘GHOSTWORLD’ shows the full breadth of LOIF’s ability to build these immersive worlds, journeying through impeccable sound design and psy-influenced soundscapes whilst accomplishing the balancing act of drawing inspiration from both the natural and the digital. Some stand out moments include the deeply emotive, melancholic tone of ‘As Above, So Below’ featuring sina to the tunnelling, skittering energy of ‘Ektoplazm’. On the album, LOIF has created a world that is so distinctively his sonically that lends itself to his live and DJ sets – a couple of the tracks on there are expansions from a live set LOIF had been working on. Whilst LOIF prefers to play outdoors and is deeply influenced by the nature he is surrounded by in Australia with the DIY park parties and bush doofs, over the last few years, LOIF has made a global leap with performances at Persona, Dekmantel Selectors, Dripping, Ohm, Osmosis, Fata Morgana and Recess (in NYC, which is run by como se DJ, who we featured last week), with plans to return to Asia and Europe in the coming months.
Hey Declan! How are you doing? What have you been up to lately?
Hey! I’m good thanks 🙂 Recently I’ve been working on a new live set (with some new gear) to prepare for a mini Asia tour coming up and a larger Euro tour in the middle of this year. There’s also a few collab projects in the works which I can’t say much about yet but I’m excited to share more of in the future.
Let’s start from the very beginning, what was your first introduction to music in general and then more specifically electronic music?
My very first introduction to music would have been my parents playing me classical music when I was baby to help me get to sleep (I was a terrible sleeper lol), but the first stuff I properly remember was CDs they’d play on long car rides. Classics like Moby, Massive Attack, Gorillaz, Coldplay, Jamiroquai and U2 are especially nostalgic for me, and I’m still obsessed with a lot of these artists today.
Although some of that stuff could be described as electronic (Moby for example), it was artists like Pendulum, The Glitch Mob, Aphex Twin and Brian Eno that were the first electronic artists that I really locked in to.
Who was the first artist or band that you were a fan of?
Gorillaz! Still a fan.
Was there a formative moment growing up, whether that’s seeing your favourite band live or an incredible DJ set, that led you to this path?
There were so many formative moments that it’s hard to pick one but I’ll try list a few off the top of my head:
- Seeing tech house played for the first time at Revolver
- Attending Inner Varnika for the first time (and every subsequent time after)
- Seeing Harold play (there’s at least 10 sets they’ve played that changed my life)
- The Mercat Basement
Where do you look for sources of inspiration outside of music?
I’m inspired by a lot of things outside of music – film and TV is a big one, I’ve sampled a lot of shows and movies in my music. I’m also influenced by aesthetics and world building in other media, often indirectly – my album is somewhat an ode to that. Nature I also find very influential too, especially the Australian bush which I’m lucky to have spent a lot of time in.
How has Naarm/Melbourne influenced or informed your sense of self and artistic output?
The music scene here has always been pretty amazing. I’m continually influenced as an artist and as a person by the people, parties and musical output of the city. We’re very lucky to have a really supportive, open and experimental scene here and I owe everything to it really. I think DIY park parties and doof culture have especially been a huge influence on me and these are still my favourite spaces to perform in (anything outdoors).
What has been your most recent musical discovery that you’re obsessed with?
Organ Tapes! I don’t listen to much dance music in my spare time to be honest so this has been my recent obsession.
You’re just released a new album on Steeplejack, ‘GHOSTWORLD’, which has been 5 years in the making. What’s the story behind this record? What is the narrative you’re trying to tell with this album?
So Harrison who runs Steeplejack reached out to me about 5 years ago asking me to contribute an EP to the label and then over time that gradually turned into a full length album. Steeplejack and Harrison have been hugely influential for me and they’re a close friend so I wanted this release to be special and to do the label justice.
Narrative-wise, I’m not trying to necessarily tell a specific story. I’m more trying to create a sonic world of some sort – rather than an underlying narrative I’m more interested in creating a feeling, an emotion or an idea. I’m personally much more drawn to music that leaves room for interpretation.
What was the creative process like when making ‘GHOSTWORLD’? With the tracks being produced over the course of 5 years, did you always set out for these tracks to be pulled together for an album or did it evolve into a LP as time went on?
The process of writing GHOSTWORLD was a bit all over the place. The first track on the album ‘Fallback’ was the very first demo that I sent to Harrison back in 2020, but because I’m notoriously slow at making music it took a long time to lock in the rest of the tracks.
As mentioned before, the release was originally just an EP but once Harrison suggested I do a full-length album it kind of expanded the scope of the project a lot and I wanted to feel ready to take on such an endeavour.
What we ended up with was a range of tracks from different periods over the last 5 years – kind of like a collection of my musical influences and experiences during that time frame. Two of the tracks are expanded versions of moments from my first live set, and most of the others were created slowly over the course of 2023-2025. Harrison also had a lot of say in the curation of the album. It was really interesting to work so closely with someone in that way and I learned a lot from their input. Definitely the trickiest part of the album was making it feel cohesive as there is such a range of genres/styles/moods on the release, but with their help I think we got there in the end.
There’s three tracks on there with collaborators, sina, bluhol and Nū, what do you enjoy the most about collaborating with other artists? Was there anything you learned in the process working with these artists specifically?
I’m such a huge fan of collaboration and I always learn so much when I work with other producers, artists and musicians. I think what I most enjoy is seeing the way other people work and practice their craft – there’s literally infinite ways to approach music making and performance and it’s so interesting to see what else is possible.
With GHOSTWORLD I had the pleasure of working with three amazing artists and I got to learn from each of them in unique ways. With bluhol I picked up some really cool psy-related effects processing techniques as well micro-detail stuff that I’ve always really appreciated in his music. For ‘As Above, So Below’ with sina, this was a long-overdue collaboration that came together at the very last minute but Claudia is such a pro with an incredible voice so things went very smoothly and felt so natural. It’s always so cool to work with singers and she encouraged me to go further with vocal-processing than I have before and I’m so happy with the end result. Nū is also such an amazing and unique artist, she uses this program called ‘Sonic Pi’ which allows you to essentially code music (something that goes way over my head) and seeing her work within that infrastructure was so informative and interesting. She also has an incredible voice and is from a pretty different musical world to me so finding our overlapping tastes was a really fun process for both of us.
You’ve also contributed a mix for the 909 series, what’s the concept behind this one?
For this mix I wanted to show my faster, dancier, doofier side with a bunch of artists I’m loving at the moment, as well as slip one of the tracks from the album in there too 😉
How does your approach to DJ sets differ from studio mixes and radio shows? Is there a narrative in mind that you’re always trying to tell through your sets?
I sort of look at live/in-person DJ sets and Soundcloud/prerecorded mixes quite differently. If I’m playing at a club/festival/on the radio etc. I like to loosely plan some things. I’ll make a folder for the gig with a few different playlists of various genres/moods/styles but I want to be able to be flexible and change things up if I’m feeling it – but this also really depends on how long I’m playing for. If I have more than 2 hours I feel like I have more space to construct a narrative of sorts, with peaks and troughs of energy and a broad range of styles. I find that sets of less than 2 hours feel more restrictive and there’s less room for experimentation.
For prerecorded mixes (like this one for Untitled 909) I usually make the sets entirely in Ableton. This allows me to get super detailed with layering and to fine tune transitional moments. Rather than focusing on beat matching in a traditional DJ setup I’m able to construct dense narrative-based mixes in a shorter time frame – I kind of think of this process as similar to making a really long track on Ableton, but with songs rather than individual instruments/elements.
When was the last time you were on the dance floor?
Animalia @ Miscellania 😎
What are you most excited about right now?
My upcoming shows in Beijing and Tokyo, I’m very excited to explore new music scenes in Asia – I’ve heard such great things!
What’s on your vision board at the moment?
I’m hoping for some new venues and spaces in Melbourne to open soon – we desperately need more more variety in our infrastructure and the city is notorious for turning beloved venues into large development projects such as apartments :’(
’GHOSTWORLD’ by LOIF is out now via Steeplejack – buy here.