MENTAL HEALTH & MUSIC
DJ MINI SERIES
Voices and glasses clinck together as feet shuffle across the bar. A table of two let a little roar of laughter slip out to my right. I watch as staff stack clattering plates and sweep coffee grinds away.
LUPNI’s presence fills the room as she swirls in and chimes her hellos like a breath of fresh air. She orders a deep red wine and I join her.
Keeping things horizontal on her NTS residency, Lupini carries herself as if her feet are tethered to the earth and her mind is in other worlds entirely. She describes her “first love” radio as, “therapy, talking into timelessness.” Her art is crafting soundscapes of music for the mind and body to explore. As station manager at MELODIC DISTRACTION radio and Co-Founder of promotion ATHE, LUPINI spreads across many souls in Liverpool’s music scene.
We begin reflecting on bar shifts in music venues and parties wondered into. The late nights spent shape shifting below full moon and techno music.
Lupini is an ethereal melody weaver, an electronic midnight raver. Although music is her soul food, there are moments which are not so fluid for her.
You ought to only be playing the songs that make you feel like there is no sense of time. The albums that you stick the whole record on and only come to half an hour later when the needle is scraping across the label
“I find myself getting more nervous and more precious about each one,” she shares reflecting on livestreamed sets, “Now I definitely feel the sort of ‘void’ of no people there after a show.”
She acknowledges however there is a beauty in this, “There is an utter sobriety to playing alone in your living room,” she explains, “You ought to only be playing the songs that make you feel like there is no sense of time. The albums that you stick the whole record on and only come to half an hour later when the needle is scraping across the label. They are the only ones that are worth listening to right now”
If radio provides Lupini a doorway into a realm of static and airwaves, live sets embed her into the people around her. But without the buzz of bodies, a livestream set becomes a place of purgatory for DJs. “With streams, you get this kind of Boiler Room effect. You’re left thinking, are people going to leave shitty comments about my mixing ability? Is my internet going to go down? How many people are watching?”
There’s a reason so many folks believed that a photograph could steal away part of your soul
Throughout our interview Lupini expresses the duality of things. The shadow and the light. “I certainly simultaneously found/find myself using social media more/less over lockdown. It’s a really bizarre balance,” she shares.
The shift to social media for “building your brand” and “networking” is an exhausting if not rewarding one. “It’s very hard to break through in any creative industry without social media right now” Lupini admits honestly, acknowledging both the highs and lows online work can bring.
“There’s a reason so many folks believed that a photograph could steal away part of your soul”
The truth is the party starters need a rest too sometimes. The people you swipe past on your phone exist so much fuller, so much messier, so much deeper than the momentary flash you catch of them. But somewhere, in all this existence and escapism, we find ourselves experiencing something together.
For the music weavers like Lupini it is enough to just make one person smile. “I’m curating these hours of music for people to enjoy, so knowing that they did is better than any follower number or play count. But also knowing you’re proud of a mix is everything”
If lockdown has allowed us anything it is to slow down. “I’ve found a particular patience for playing songs fully,” Lupini tells me, “For an early morning show, I played a huge chunk of Charlemagne Palestine’s ‘Strumming Music’. The track is an hour long. No regrets. I enjoyed every second of it.”
Acknowledging our bruises is the beginning of our healing, for our growth. Lupini reminds me of this, giving equal space to the highs and lows she has experienced throughout her music career so far.
Lupini is rooted in an organic experience of music. Letting it become a teacher, a leader. Allowing it to be the catalyst of crossed paths and chaos throughout her life.
Talking with Lupini I am reminded there is the thread of light woven into our fabrics. It is the same thread which shows us how to dance, how to cry. It teaches us how to laugh and sometimes just shows us that just by being here, we have accomplished more than enough.
Words Mary Olive
Comments