iimbi's Debut EP 'Technology' Was Built in a Downtown Los Angeles Loft

Issa Leigh, the Ohio-born musician behind the alter ego iimbi, has a debut EP called Technology. The six-track release, which Leigh wrote and produced in full, was described in an interview with Billboard.

The name is pronounced "ihm-bee". An EP, short for extended play, is a collection of songs that sits between a single and a full album in length.

The record blends three styles: trance, a repetitive electronic dance genre built on swelling melodies; ghettotech, a fast, club-driven electronic style; and world sounds drawn from music beyond the United States and Europe. Put together, the mix is less a single genre than a set of influences pulled into one place.

Most of Technology was made in a downtown Los Angeles loft, directly across from the Cecil Hotel. Leigh has said the sound was shaped by boom boxes playing breakbeat and '80s-style music on the streets below. Breakbeat is a drum pattern looped from older funk and soul recordings, and it gives many dance tracks their stuttering rhythm.

One track, "CGI Rodeo", was produced in 2023 and took almost a month to finish. Its central sound is a whistle that suggests a Western or a rodeo, and the track's wider feel was inspired by the Joshua Tree desert in California.

The EP is a clear example of how a record can start with a room, a radio and a single odd sound. For Leigh, the first chapter of iimbi's catalogue begins on one downtown block, with a whistle that pointed toward the desert.