Eliot Lipp

American producer Eliot Lipp first built his reputation crafting gritty instrumental hip-hop instrumentals, yet his style soon grew to embrace electro-funk, disco, and glitch-driven techno. Born in Tacoma, Washington, he lived for periods in San Francisco and Chicago, where he absorbed influences ranging from hip-hop and jazz fusion to post-rock and techno. Working with a minimal rig of an aging sampler and sequencer, he generated material that eventually drew notice from Scott Herren of Prefuse 73 and Savath & Savalas. His self-titled debut album surfaced on Herren’s Eastern Developments imprint in November 2004.

Shortly afterward Lipp joined Hefty Records, which issued the Immediate Action #10 and Rap Tight EPs in 2005 and the full-length Tacoma Mockingbird the next year. Displaying broader sonic ambitions than the debut, the album earned favorable notices and spurred greater output from the producer. After relocating to Brooklyn, he delivered two further Hefty titles that same year, The Days and Steele Street Scraps. City Synthesis followed on the Miami label Metatronix in 2007. Lipp then joined Willie Burns for the lo-fi cosmic-disco endeavor Galaxy Toobin’, whose self-titled debut LP appeared via Crème Organization in 2008 before Not Not Fun reissued it on cassette. As a solo artist he unveiled the characteristically wide-ranging full-length The Outside on Mush Records that year and joined abstract MC Vyle for the Neonstrider Bit Rate EP.

Following the 2008 Beamrider EP, Lipp issued the video-game-inspired Peace Love Weed 3D on his own Old Tacoma Records in early 2009. More dance-oriented than prior work, the album led him to explore that direction further through his Dark Party partnership with Leo 123; their Light Years LP emerged on Old Tacoma in 2010. The next year he released the digital album Brolabs, containing remixes by associates and touring companions including Pretty Lights, Mux Mool, and Big Gigantic. Shark Wolf Rabbit Snake arrived on Pretty Lights Music in 2012; like Pretty Lights, Lipp had become a fixture on the EDM festival circuit, especially with listeners favoring downtempo, dubstep, and glitch-hop over big-room fare. Shark Wolf Rabbit Snake Remixes appeared in 2013, succeeded by the electro-funk full-length Watch the Shadows.

Returning to Washington, Lipp recorded Come to Life, issued by Detroit’s Young Heavy Souls in April 2016; the label also reissued Shark Wolf Rabbit Snake later that year. After another move, this time to Austin, Lipp continued making regular visits to his home state. Young Heavy Souls released the prolific artist’s Skywave album in June 2017.