NOBODY

Elvin Estela produces under the name Nobody from his base in Los Angeles, where his work fuses abstract hip-hop, psychedelia, and downtempo electronics while also drawing in jazz and R&B threads. Long recognized as a central presence in the city’s beat community, he has hosted programs on the Dublab online station for an extended period and once held a resident DJ slot at the now-shuttered Low End Theory club series. His first album, Soulmates, arrived in 2000 with contributions from Freestyle Fellowship and Abstract Rude, helping establish his reputation in underground hip-hop circles. Later releases expanded the vocal component: 2005’s And Everything Else… brought in sung performances from Mia Doi Todd and Jimmy Tamborello of Dntel and the Postal Service, yielding a brighter, more psychedelic tone, while 2010’s One for All Without Hesitation pivoted toward somber R&B through Estela’s own heavily Auto-Tuned vocals. Returning to instrumentals, he issued the guitar-driven All Too Familiar in 2019, his first project made entirely without samples.

Estela began circulating self-released beat collections in the mid-1990s, among them Puzzles in 1996. He joined 2Mex and DJ ESP in the group SonGodSuns, which put out the EP Love Fights Back in 1999. His initial vinyl EP, Earthtones, mixed atmospheric instrumentals with rap cuts featuring Aceyalone and Freestyle Fellowship and appeared on Ubiquity that same year; the label followed with Soulmates the next year. Using the alias Nowhereman, he placed tracks on compilations such as “Seathrough Dolphin Smile” on Dublab Presents: Freeways in 2001, the station’s first anthology. After several 12-inch EPs, Pacific Drift: Western Water Music, Vol. 1 surfaced in 2003, offering greater psychedelic shading than its predecessor, a cover of the Monkees’ “Porpoise Song” issued as a single, and vocal spots from Languis and Jimmy Tamborello. And Everything Else… came out on Plug Research in 2005 and contained a version of the Flaming Lips’ “What Is the Light?” made with Mystic Chords of Memory; that collaboration led to the full-length Tree Colored See… on Mush Records in 2006. Also in 2006, Plug Research issued Revisions Revisions: The Remixes 2000-2005, gathering Estela’s reworkings of pieces by Busdriver, the Free Design, and Phil Ranelin. With Niki Randa he formed the downtempo duo Blank Blue, whose debut Western Water Music Volume II appeared on Ubiquity in 2007, followed by the Dive EP in 2008.

Toward the close of the decade Estela took on a resident DJ role at Low End Theory, the influential weekly that helped introduce Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, the Glitch Mob, and many others; he began contributing regularly to the associated podcast series in 2009. In 2010 he released the Auto-Tune-saturated One for All Without Hesitation, shaped by the dissolution of his marriage. Three years later he returned with Vivid Green, a trap-oriented album featuring Baths and members of the Mars Volta, issued on Alpha Pup, which also put out the 2015 short release Prodigal Son containing a track with Open Mike Eagle. That year saw two additional projects: Hood Rich Life, the first vinyl EP under his juke-styled Druguse guise, and the mixtape Fallin’ Angels by the revived SonGodSuns, then consisting solely of Estela and 2Mex. Nobody rejoined Ubiquity in 2019 for All Too Familiar, a sample-free set drawing from indie and post-rock sources.