Shlohw Motion

Shlohmo's productions have this great melancholic vibe to them: his work occupies a trip-hoppy space between underground electronic and rap music, where emotional progressions are simplified to a raw care and clouded over with screwy, deep vocal samples. Laufner's is a more soulful injection into the LA beat scene, a vibe that carries across his several EPs, 2011 album Bad Vibes and remixes for Little Dragon, Jeremih, LOL Boys and Burial. His stuff has a cult following among contemporary underground music fans the world over, including a fairly massive base in Australia.

Laufner's own collective, WeDidIt (founding members include Groundislava, RL Grime, and 2KWTVR) operates on equalising principles, bringing artists and fans closer together through their hands on work. Laufner, a former intern at Dublab, signed hype-worthy young producer Ryan Hemsworth, who lives in Canada, following a random internet friendship: “We'd be talking to each other online for a while, then I played a show with him in Toronto earlier this year. It just felt right, then Ryan sent us his EP and we were like, 'Holy Shit!'. Man makes music like I've never heard.” WeDidIt's casual approach is owed to its unassuming beginnings, explains Laufner:  “Pre-everything, we were just friends getting high and driving around around LA, yelling at people out of cars and blasting air horns. We also made music and fuckin' art and whatever.”              

While the collective is now divided between LA, San Francisco and New York (where Laufner is currently based), their aesthetic holds strong to their teenage years, no better reflected than in the sew-on patches that come with most of the WeDidIt releases. “I grew up with punk music, and was a skater/punk kid. I didn't even know about electronic or hip hop music until I was like 13, when I started getting inspired by trip-hop stuff like DJ Shadow. It was the same for everyone I grew up with, including the WeDidIt guys, it was all about punk music, graffiti, skateboarding, DIY shit. So I think the patch resonates with people who grew up around that time too, and did the same things, there's definitely a commonality. Plus, it's nice to do something that's physical, that matters.”

Speaking of 'grassroots', the story of Laufner's pre-Shlohmo alias 'Henry From Outer Space', is nothing short of amusing.

“I did an EP in 2008 during high school and that stuff was all like house music – dance-focused electronic pieces – before I moved back to trip-hop sort of stuff. It was pretty gimmicky, it was this comic idea I had, that there was there was this alien called Henry that crash landed on earth and found out about weed and rap music, and made an album using the engines and gears from his spaceship.”

The name 'Shlohmo', however, is consciously without narrative: “I liked it because it doesn't have any connotations. It's just like, a sound. It's a Jewish word but it doesn't come with any visual themes or anything, it's not like I'm wearing a fuckin' mask or some shit.” No, Shlohmo, because that would be weird, right?

Friday 1 February – RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Saturday 2 February – Sydney College Of The Arts
Sunday 3 February – Footscray Community Arts Centre, Melbourne
Thursday 7 February – Civic Underground, Sydney
Friday 8 February – Fowler's Live and UniSA West Campus, Adelaide
Saturday 9 February – Perth Cultural Centre