Lucianblomkamp is one of Melbourne’s newest and most unique exports. His music exists in a chamber of gloom, smothered in layers of atmosphere and monstrous synths. Each song is almost like a movie soundtrack in its own, travelling through a series of maximalist, blockbuster barrages and faint, low-key melodic sections. It’s a style that is entirely his own, and can’t be pigeonholed to a particular style or influence.
The last two years have seen Lucianblomkamp’s profile rise globally. He has become an important part of 6lack’s production camp, working on songs like “Nonchalant” and “Seasons” from the artist’s sophomore album East Atlanta Love Letter. This has resulted in more eyes than ever being fixated on his latest album Sick Of What I Don’t Understand, which has been seeing a scattered release in the form of 3 parts (the last of which dropped October 19). I sat down with Lucian to talk about his experience working with 6lack, and the influences and processes behind his new album, as well as not understanding the current climate of the music industry. It seems odd that a man that has seen this much success so early in his career would not know what’s going on. But it’s simple; he just lets the music speak for itself.
For the people who don’t know: How did you initially get into making music?
Like many kids, I played an instrument when I was younger. I've played the violin since I was 6, and continued to play it all throughout high school. Through violin, I started dabbling in guitar, and then through guitar, I started dabbling in production. It's been a gradual snowball – a very slow snowball from age six to now [laughs].
There’s always been this sort of underlying murmur of musicians from older generations kind of pinpointing electronic music as a ‘cop out’ or ‘not actually making music’. Was it a hard thing for you to transition into this style from traditional instrumentation?
No, it was the most liberating transition. I only started using Ableton and stuff because I was playing the guitar, and I wanted a way to put drums in. And then realising there were infinite possibilities for creating sounds you can't hear in the real world made it far more exciting. It was like “holy shit, I can do all of this stuff!”