BY BRIAN BONAV0GLIA Looking for a DJ/producer whose profile is in ascendency? Search no further than SOHMI. The L.A.-based talent has delivered a series of sublime productions and has recently spun at major industry events ranging from Coachella festival’s Yuma Tent to Pioneer DJ’s exhibition booth at the NAMM show. Being a classically trained pianist, music has always played a major part of her life. But it was the world of electronic-dance music where SOHMI (aka Stephanie Oh), following a self-released promo mix in 2018, found her niche and began to thrive. The blossoming Korean-American talent is a versatile DJ, producer, and vocalist with tracks that offer an enchanting blend of styles. Occasionally dark-leaning, yet often quite melodic, SOHMI’s tracks present a tight mixture of sounds – minimal, techy, pulsing, groovy – as evidenced by punchy tracks like “Closer” and “Time.” Solid collabs like the Moroder-esque “Somebody Like You” (with Lubelski and RYBO), the tribal/ethereal “Sunday Sunset” (with Josh Butler) and, most recently, the poppy “Get to You” (with Denton) deliver even more variety. As she prepped for upcoming gigs, including shows at Michigan’s Electric Forest festival (June 24) and Chicagoland’s North Coast Music Festival (Sept. 3), we caught up with SOHMI. DJ LIFE: How did you get introduced to dance music? SOHMI: I was first really introduced to the culture and world of underground dance music by moving to L.A. in 2016 and attending my first festival – Coachella. Though I’d listened to artists like Avicii and Skrillex for years prior while living on the East Coast, it wasn’t until Coachella 2016 that I was introduced to the sounds of underground house and techno through the Yuma stage and Rüfüs Du Sol’s performance at the Sahara. DJ LIFE: What made you fall in love with dance music as a whole? SOHMI: I think it’s the same thing many people would say. The culture was a huge piece of it for me, as experiencing “rave” culture for the first time was heavily intertwined with my assimilation to a new beginning in a new city where I really felt like I had to start my social life over. The two basically happened in tandem, sort of organically feeding into each other, so there’s this
SOHMI: DJ/musician, producer & vocalist.
forever-gratitude I’ll have for dance music’s culture because, through it and thanks to it, I feel like I was really able to establish roots in a new city and build my life over again – and even expand my self-discovery. DJ LIFE: What made you want to follow a path in music? SOHMI: As crazy as it may sound, I think I always knew I wanted to follow a path in music – maybe even as early as age 3. I was already studying classical piano by then and had learned how to sing on my own. It’s like I was born with an intrinsic need for music. It always came naturally to me, and I found myself always wanting to perform it, consume it, be around it. From 3 until graduating from college at age 21, I basically devoted my entire life to music and performance – outside of time spent on school and classes – and dreamed of continuing even after. Why I didn’t follow that path in music straight out of college comes down to cultural pressures that many other Asians and Asian-Americans are familiar with… my parents disapproved, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. DJ LIFE: How’d you deal with that? SOHMI: It took me nearly 10 years of trying other career paths and jobs that I thought were a “happy
INSPIRED BY COACHELLA, SOHMI TAKES HER TIME, 30
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