Lord of The Isles & Ellen Renton

LOTI (Lord Of The Isles), the Edinburgh DJ, producer, sound designer, and label owner – real name Neil McDonald – crafts sounds that transport listeners to another realm. He first made an impression with his breakout track ‘Ultraviolet’ in 2011, a soaring piece of electronic disco with an emotive synth riff and percolating bass.

Since then, this prolific musician has put out an immaculate run of singles, EPs, and albums that have crystallised his atmospheric and melodic style, effortlessly shifting between techno, house, electronica, and contemplative ambient.

LOTI’s music has graced labels such as ESP Institute, AD 93, Firecracker, Lapsus, Permanent Vacation, Beats In Space, Mule Musiq, and his own fledgling label Dusk Delay. As a DJ and live performer, he’s appeared everywhere from Panorama Bar to Fabric, Barcelona’s Club Montjuic and Nitsa, Lux Fragil, Sub Club, and even the Sydney Opera House.

Ellen Renton is a poet, performer, and theatre maker from Edinburgh. While always keeping poetry at its core, her work varies in form and has included film, installation, dance, music, and theatre. She has released the poetry pamphlet ‘An Eye For An Eye For An Eye’ with Stewed Rhubarb Press, and written two multimedia theatre productions, ‘Within Sight’ and ‘Disciples’.

Growing up, McDonald was captivated by sci-fi art, synthpop, electro, early hip-hop, and soul. Outdoor raves in the countryside introduced him to techno, breakbeat, and early trance, while nights at the legendary Edinburgh club Pure made him fall in love with the sounds of Detroit.

A visual as well as musical artist, McDonald has always loved creating atmospheres and telling stories with his music. It’s an approach that drew him to DJing in the first place. “Making long blends of disparate records, and making something new out of that, was what really sparked my imagination in the early days,” he says.

McDonald’s painterly productions daub lush synth chords and lucid leads over subtle arrangements that flit from house music rhythms to beatless soundscapes, and from drum machine funk to dub techno reverberations. Influenced by his travels abroad, walks in the Highlands of Scotland, and his love of various musical mavericks such as Basic Channel, Underground Resistance, and Boards of Canada, his singular sound is all about atmospheric immersion.

Woven into his sometimes-mystical records are found sounds, samples, and field recordings that he collects while out in nature or traveling abroad. Listen closely, and you can hear the details and auditory textures of the real world interwoven with the beats. “Field recordings are a great way of getting that sense of place, that transportive aspect.”

McDonald works with a mixture of hardware synths, software, and modular equipment, and loves the happy accidents that can happen when you’re learning something new. “Some of the best stuff I’ve written has just been with very minimal gear,” he says.

“One of the reasons I got into modular synths, though, was to recreate a beginner’s mindset. I like not knowing what I’m doing, that exploratory way of working, where you allow your ears to find bits that you like. I think when you become proficient at things, it can get in the way of beautiful moments.”

One of his latest projects is a collaboration with poet Ellen Renton. After a well-received EP together, their album ‘My Noise Is Nothing’ was released by AD 93 in 2023, mixing Renton’s vividly evocative words with LOTI’s introspective ambient synthscapes. “I immediately felt a connection between what I do musically and the cadence and tone of Ellen’s voice,” McDonald says.