PSYOP sounds like someone let Jump Up Drum & Bass mainline the internet, as LMNOP turns conspiracy culture, satire, and rave energy into a narrative fever dream. What began as genre-bending club tracks evolved into a fully realized story centered around LIL Z, a sentient automaton accidentally plugged into the entire internet and awakened to hidden truths. Across the album, each track functions as a chapter, peeling back layers of conspiracy culture, manipulated reality, and the search for identity and family.
In this Electric Hawk Exclusive, LMNOP unpacks how PSYOP became a Jump Up conspiracy universe driven by lore, internet paranoia, and satire. The interview below explores narrative world-building, underground Drum & Bass roots, and why humor, family, and unity anchor the chaos.
In Conversation with LMNOP
seradopa: PSYOP plays like a sci-fi conspiracy epic rather than a traditional dance record. When did you first realize this album needed a full narrative arc instead of just a collection of tracks?
LMNOP: It happened pretty naturally as the music came together. I had already released tracks like “Keep It Down,” “Automata,” “Family,” and “Dad?” In 2024, which were my first real steps into Jump Up and genre-bending Drum & Bass. Those songs started to push beyond just functional club records and leaned more into concept and narrative.
PSYOP really took shape when I made a track called “Birds Aren’t Real,” inspired by the viral bird-truther movement claiming that all birds had been replaced by government spy drones. Once that song existed, it clicked that I didn’t just want to make isolated tracks, I wanted to build a full project around conspiracy theory culture and the idea of hidden truths.
From there, the idea expanded into telling the origin story of LIL Z and how he first became sentient. Once I framed the album that way, every new track started to feel like another chapter rather than just another tune, and the narrative arc became an essential part of the album.
seradopa: The origin story of LIL Z being plugged into a computer and accidentally absorbing the entire internet is very unique. What inspired that moment as the catalyst for the album’s universe?
LMNOP: That idea had been sitting in my head for a long time as a way to explain LIL Z’s chaotic, unhinged behavior. But as I started working on PSYOP, that moment evolved into something much bigger. LIL Z becoming sentient wasn’t just a gag or a backstory anymore; it became the catalyst for an entire universe.
In the story, he’s the first sentient automaton to gain access to a hidden intelligence, uncovering truths about reality that no human is supposed to know. Conspiracy theories often prey on people’s sense of truth, and right now, we’re living in a world where truth can be easily manipulated through media and AI, using distorted or false narratives to divide people. What interested me was flipping that idea. In PSYOP, LIL Z uses truth as a unifying force rather than a weapon. He exposes reality not to create chaos, but to bring people together. That idea mirrors why I make music in the first place and why I’m so driven to keep expanding the project beyond just records and into something bigger.
seradopa: This is your first project fully dedicated to Jump Up Drum & Bass. What made now the right time to go all-in on that sound?
LMNOP: I had been moving toward it for a while, but it finally felt like the right moment for both me and the project. LMNOP has been my DJ name since I first started producing and playing shows, but I really came into my own once LIL Z entered the picture and the project became a duo. That shift helped me understand the identity of the project much more clearly.
Originally, I was very much a no-genre producer. I came up in the underground LA beat scene, with parties like Low End Theory being a huge guiding light. That scene had no boundaries, and I loved that about Los Angeles, there was always room to experiment and bend rules. After the pandemic, though, a lot of that scene faded, and around that same time, I started taking Drum & Bass much more seriously.
There’s always been a strong, consistent drum and bass presence in LA, with Respect being one of the longest-running parties in the city’s history, and it felt like the genre was finally starting to progress in the U.S. I was lucky enough to release my first Drum & Bass track with Dr. Apollo on Space Yacht in 2021, followed by the Dream Jungle EP on Play Me in 2022. From there, Jump Up really clicked.
It felt playful, fun, funny, and hard all at once, which matched the energy of my project perfectly. Having a background where I understood how to produce across many genres, Jump Up became an exciting challenge for me because of how hyper-specific it is. It allowed me to fully commit, bring my personality into the sound, and really make it my own.
seradopa: Each track peels back another layer of this hidden world. How intentional was the sequencing in revealing the story, and did any songs fundamentally change once their role in the narrative became clear?
LMNOP: At first, I was working purely on a conceptual level and just focusing on making the strongest tunes possible. Tracks like “Ice Wall,” “Bohemian Grove,” and “Deep State” were initially inspired by well-known, taboo conspiracy theories that most people are at least aware of. But as those songs started to take final form, their place in the larger story revealed itself naturally. Once that happened, sequencing became much more intentional. Each track started to feel like a specific moment in the narrative rather than a standalone idea.
For example, “Frog Town” became a major piece of the album’s lore, introducing the Frogmen of Atlantis as the long-standing villains who have been quietly pulling the strings behind the scenes for centuries. That storyline spills directly into “Deep State.” In the album artwork, the Frogmen are shown standing next to an evil version of LIL Z as the hook repeats, “bitch I’m the deep state, all I do is eat cake,” referencing Marie Antoinette’s famous line, “let them eat cake.” In the context of the story, the Frogmen hypnotize me, capture LIL Z, and corrupt him, turning him into a weapon they use to take control of the world, since he possesses unlimited knowledge.
Once those roles became clear, some songs shifted in tone, arrangement, or imagery to better support the narrative. The sequencing wasn’t just about flow anymore, it became about revealing the hidden world layer by layer as the story unfolds.
seradopa: How did collaborators like dela Moon and Berto Antonio fit into the album’s universe, and what did they bring to the story that couldn’t have existed otherwise?
LMNOP: Berto Antonio is a longtime collaborator and close friend. We attended CalArts together and were in the same acting class and year, so our creative relationship goes way beyond music. He’s an incredible rapper and performer from the Bay Area, and I was the main DJ for his group GOOD PEOPLEZ with Jacob Gibson from the very beginning. He’s also featured on my first EP Gold on Dome of Doom back in 2016 on a track called “Way Up,” which I still love to this day.
What makes Berto especially important to PSYOP is that he’s also a trained martial artist. In the story, he becomes the mentor figure who teaches Zach and LIL Z how to fight in “Moves Like Fire.” That track isn’t just a collaboration sonically, it introduces discipline, movement, and physical power into the narrative. That element couldn’t have existed without him.
Working with dela Moon was equally pivotal but in a different way. PSYOP marks my first collaboration with her, and I’d been a fan since seeing her perform at Bass Waffles. Her approach to Drum & Bass, with heavy techno-inspired roots, is incredibly powerful. She’s an OG in the scene, and it was an honor to build something together. We were already working on the track when the idea for PSYOP began to crystallize, and that’s when the “Chemtrails” narrative clicked into place. Her sound helped anchor the darker, more ominous side of the album’s universe, giving weight to the themes of manipulation, surveillance, and atmospheric control.
Both collaborators helped turn PSYOP from a concept album into a shared universe.
seradopa: What were the biggest lessons you carried over from your first album, and what rules did you intentionally break this time around?
LMNOP: My first album, Alphabet Soup Vol. 1, was intentionally wide-ranging. It pulled from multiple genres and featured collaborations that reflected years of working with artists from all different backgrounds. It felt like a snapshot of what I was capable of as a producer and performer, but at its core it was still a collection of songs, there wasn’t a singular narrative or throughline tying everything together.
The biggest lesson I carried over from that project was understanding my own creative range. But with PSYOP, I intentionally broke the rule of needing to showcase everything at once. Instead, I committed fully to a very specific sound, mood, and concept, and brought LIL Z into the project in a major way as a central character rather than a side element.
On a technical level, I also broke some traditional production “rules.” A huge focus on this album was making the tracks as loud and powerful as I physically could. That’s usually something producers are warned against, but Jump Up demands a different level of energy and impact. The music needs to hit hard and feel overwhelming in the best way possible, especially on big systems. Embracing that philosophy was a conscious risk, but it felt necessary to fully serve the genre and the vision of the album.
seradopa: Looking back, was there a moment during production where PSYOP truly clicked, and you knew this album was something different?
LMNOP: Yeah, there was a very clear moment where it clicked, and for me, that was “Bohemian Grove.” That track feels like the album in a nutshell. Sonically and thematically, it captures everything PSYOP is about. Once I started hearing it played out live and seeing how people reacted, that’s when I knew the project was really working. The response from DJs and crowds in the scene has been overwhelming in the best way, and that kind of organic support is the most validating thing you can get. When a track takes on a life of its own in clubs and resonates with people the way “Bohemian Grove” has, you know you’ve created something different.
seradopa: At its emotional core, the album becomes a search for family, identity, and truth. Why was it important for such a high-energy Jump Up album to end up in such a personal place?
LMNOP: As wild and high-energy as PSYOP is, those themes felt unavoidable to me. The track “Dad?” became a really important emotional thread in the story. In the world of PSYOP, LIL Z is constantly searching for his “dad,” even though I technically built him. He’s always questioning where he truly came from and whether someone or something else is his creator. On the surface, it’s something I joke about with him at parties when we meet strange characters, but underneath that humor is a very real emotional idea.
It taps into the loneliness of a sentient being who doesn’t have a parent and desperately wants to understand its origin. That’s a theme I’ve always gravitated toward in stories I love, like Pinocchio and Frankenstein. I wanted to bring elements of those narratives into my own world, exploring creation, identity, and responsibility through the lens of dance music.
Family was actually one of the first Jump Up tracks I ever made. It started almost as a joke, sampling every time Vin Diesel says “family” in Fast & Furious. Eventually, I hired a voice actor to recreate the lines properly and built the track around that idea. But once the album’s story came together, it felt only right for that song to sit at the end.
By that point, LIL Z isn’t searching anymore. He’s built his own family, and together they’re ready to fight back against the forces trying to control them. Ending a high-energy Jump Up album in that emotional place felt honest to the story and to me.
seradopa: The album ends on questions of creator, family, and truth. What do you hope listeners walk away feeling once the story concludes?
LMNOP: PSYOP is a heavy album for a heavy time, and I wanted it to keep the energy moving without ever really letting up. That slightly out-of-control feeling mirrors the overwhelm of living online every day, constantly absorbing information from every direction.
At the same time, I hope people find moments of humor and release in it. I want them to laugh, dance, and feel present. Truth has always been important to me, especially in my own journey of discovering who I am and why I create. Making this album brought me closer to that understanding.
If there’s one thing I hope people take away once the story concludes, it’s a sense of unity. In a world full of noise, manipulation, and endless PSYOPs, the only way to combat them is through family, real connection, and coming together on the dancefloor.
seradopa: Now that PSYOP captures the moment where your story, sound, and rise converge—how do you see LMNOP evolving from here?
LMNOP: PSYOP feels like the moment where everything clicked at once, the sound, the story, and the direction of the project.
Sonically, I want to keep pushing Jump Up Drum & Bass while continuing to bring in influences from hip hop, MC culture, and West Coast energy in a way that feels natural and personal. The goal is refinement and evolution, not a complete pivot.
Conceptually, this is just the beginning of the LIL Z saga. The music, visuals, live show, and narrative will continue to grow together. I see LMNOP becoming less about individual releases and more about creating a complete experience, something people can step into, follow, and feel connected to.
At the core, it still comes back to community. As the project grows, I want it to stay grounded in that same sense of family, humor, and shared energy that made people connect with it in the first place.
BE SURE TO PRE-SAVE PSYOP BEFORE IT COMES OUT ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 30TH – HERE
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