LP Giobbi Stuns With Masterfully Produced Debut Album ‘Light Places’

From enchanting piano to house music, elated tunes, soulful sounds, bouncy basslines, powerful toplines and enlightening harmonies, LP Giobbi does it all. Her upbeat productions have led her to become one of the fastest-rising stars in dance music, and she shows no signs of slowing down. Her debut LP, Light Places, out today (May 12) via Counter Records, further showcases her masterful takes on dance music.

The 13-track body of work boasts captivating piano, tinkling synths, catchy lyrics, uplifting sounds, bubbly and rebounding basslines, soothing tones and more. The album represents a dichotomy of sounds as some tracks provide a sense of longing while others are dancefloor-ready. Certainly, Light Places proves to be an expertly produced album by LP Giobbi.

The album’s name is a nod to lyrics from “Scarlet Begonias” by Grateful Dead: “Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.” Her mother and father are self-proclaimed “deadheads,” meaning their avid lovers of the band, she says. The lyrics are her father’s favorite by the iconic group, and it is the philosophy of how he taught LP Giobbi and her brother to live. The artist seeks light places in both the physical and the divine, and she believes in allowing oneself to get lost in order to find out where they’re supposed to be. LP Giobbi hopes that listeners can find this message in the album, which features an impressive roster of collaborations including the likes of SOFI TUKKER, Le Chev, Little Jet, Caroline Byrne, Monogem, DJ Tennis and Joseph Ashworth.

“My mission is to create light places—not physically, but metaphorically—where the world doesn’t feel heavy, dark or dangerous, and you can be transported,” she says.

Light Places celebrates LP Giobbi’s free spirit while also taking inspiration from music that brings out the light and joy in the world. For the producer, deejay, pianist and activist, she finds light and joy in her birth family, created family, music, community, friendship and the forest.

Her finding solace in the forest is shown in her visual production during sunrise performances. A notable moment from these morning sets is when a vision of the Oregon daybreak is displayed. The tastemaker, who grew up camping, recorded the video herself during a hiking venture on her favorite trail, the Spencer Butte, that she went on with her tour manager.

This visual once made a powerful impact on her. LP Giobbi was going back and forth between playing in multiple beach cities. While the producer recognizes that the beach is a beautiful site, it doesn’t “fuel [her] soul” in the same way that the “Redwood Forest, the Pacific Northwest [or places with a] lush, green, wet environment” do. She was on a long touring stint at this time, and she felt she needed to refuel her soul by returning to a forest because it brings her “peace that other environments don’t.” During one of her beach sunrise performances, her stage was set up with an LED wall that went behind her and up over her. When she saw the video of the Oregon sunrise while performing, she was overcome with emotion.

“It’s just an image on an LED wall, and it literally brought me to tears,” LP Giobbi says. “It was my body going like, ‘You need to get to a forest.’ Just seeing the Oregon mountaintop brought me this sense of…I felt like [it was] the first time I took a breath in like months. That’s how powerful it was.”

In addition to finding light and joy in the world, the album also shows how music production feels good to the body and soul. For the pianist, this is best shown on “Georgia” because it’s her favorite track off the LP as well as her top-pick for tune that she has ever created. She describes the vocal-less record as “bizarre,” noting that is part of the reason she loves it. The idea for “Georgia” came to her in a dream, making it the first and only track to do so. In her dream, she was jamming out with Jimmy Hendrix while a drummer was playing toms and breaks repeatedly. Upon waking up, she immediately felt that she had to make this dream a reality. Thus, “Georgia” was born.

Prior to going on stage, LP Giobbi texts her father. The messages are more than just a simple text—they’re poems. This started when she began touring again in 2021 and she was at a show in Australia. She remembers she was feeling “out of whack” that day. She typically warms up her piano and body before a show, but this time she wanted to warm up her mind since she was out of sorts and wanted to feel connected to home. She decided to text her dad. Now, the two write lines back and forth to each other until she goes on stage or the poem is done. She gifted her father a book of all of the poems, and the same book can be purchased as merchandise on her site.

“It’s been one of my favorite things I’ve done as an adult,” she says. “And my dad is my favorite poet, so it’s been a blast.”

LP Giobbi is known for more than making music as she is also an activist, which is best seen in her work as the co-founder of Femme House. The goal of it is to create a more equitable industry, and it’s geared towards femme and gender-expansive deejays and producers. Femme House is 501(C)(3) non-profit organization that offers free courses and monthly online workshops, programs, scholarships and provides visual representation through tours and festival stage takeovers. The catalyst for it was when LP Giobbi learned in 2019 that only 2% of charting producers are non-male.

Indeed, LP Giobbi proves to be a multifaceted creative who is also taking important steps to end gender discrimination within the dance music industry. She emerged into the scene in 2018 and quickly skyrocketed into fame. She shows no signs of slowing down.