LP Giobbi - Dotr (2024)

A jazz-trained pianist who takes inspiration from the world of jazz music — preferring to eschew the often intricate and pre-programmed structures of electronica for spontaneous, live collaboration — Leah Chisholm, the artist known as LP Giobbi, is one of the world’s most interesting and important producers and DJs. She announces her sophomore LP, Dotr, to be released October 18 on Ninja Tune’s imprint Counter Records.

Alongside the news, LP Giobbi also shared the single "Bittersweet", which features vocals from Portugal. the Man that rise and fall through groovy, Chic-like funk beats."Portugal. The Man have been my favorite band since 2012 when I discovered their album In the Mountain in the Cloud. I cannot tell you how many late night air guitar jams I have had to that album in my living room,” says LP Giobbi of today’s release. “I just about passed out when they asked me to remix one of their songs a couple years ago and then again when they sent me some tunes to work on, including what is now 'Bittersweet'. The vocal is one of the most attention grabbing melodies I have heard in a long time.”

Dotr is the much anticipated follow up to 2023 breakout, Light Places, the album that earned her the title of DJ Mag’s Best Producer of 2023 and placed her among NPR’s Favorite New Musicians of 2023, Spotify RADAR’s Artists to Watch, Amazon’s Artists to Watch, and TIDAL’s Artists to Watch 2023. With 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 340M+ streams across platforms, LP Giobbi has graced massive festival stages — Coachella, Tomorrowland, Electric Forest, Lollapalooza, plus Kappa Futur, Arc Music Festival, Lost Village, Portola appearances set for later this year — and crowded club floors while touring with the likes of Mochakk, DJ Tennis, John Summit, Diplo, Dead & Co, Black Coffee, and frequent collaborator Sofi Tukker. LP Giobbi is also known for re-imaginings of her beloved Grateful Dead and Taylor Swift, and recently released the standalone single “Feel (ft. Jacob Banks)”, which will be featured on Dotr and was praised by Billboard for “building to a kind of serenely dancing with your eyes closed kind of place.”

Built from candid recordings of friends and mentors, vocal lines from peers and heroes — including Brittany Howard, Panama, Danielle Ponder, and more — and warm, rich melodies, Dotr is LP Giobbi’s attempt to capture the comforts of home between hundreds of days spent on the road and between studios.

Named for the way she signed notes to her parents as a kid, Dotr is a celebration of both what she has and has lost. Built around a triage of grief, Dotr opens with loss: first, there was Patricia Lynn, the mother-in-law she had loved for a dozen years. Then there was Carolyn Horn, her piano teacher since second grade and an early electronic music student at the University of Oregon. She taught Chisholm not just what it was to play and compose, but what it was to create without inhibition. And finally, there was Suse Millman, a longtime friend of her parents who was the only professional artist she knew as a child, and thus a formative example for turning creative passion into a realized dream.

Scattered throughout Dotr are real, raw memories for LP Giobbi: a final birthday voicemail from Patricia Lynn and the recording of one of her last conversations with Carolyn Horn. But while the album was borne of grief, at large, this is a joyous project that overcomes sadness through the exaltant revelation of what it means to live. “Is This Love” is wonderfully cinematic disco, “Carolyn” feels like an ode to chances unapologetically taken. There are songs of love and reconciliation, hymns of grief and belief, and anthems of anxiety and ecstasy — no one emotion is complete without its equal opposite.

"When I was young I used to write my parents little notes and leave them under their pillow or around the house and I would sign them “love, Dotr” as I was (and still am) the world's worst speller. To this day when they write me a birthday card or whatever, they start it “Dear Dotr.,”” shares LP Giobbi on the inspiration for the album. “This album is a lot about what it is to be a daughter, have a daughter and love a daughter, as well as a way of honoring some of the most important women in my life. There are also a lot of themes tied to home (the ones we create or the ones we were born into) which, for me, are reflected through my identity as a daughter."

Amidst the chaos of her rapidly growing career, LP Giobbi’s music always brings her back to the place that sent her into this world. On the last song on the album, LP Giobbi sings for the first time on record: “Mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come/Since I first left home.” It’s a fitting testament to the whirlwind of her life, to one of the most exciting arcs and outlooks of anyone making electronic music right now.