On Motherhood & Music with Logic1000

“The feeling of love is so tied up in creativity, I think. It’s a very inspiring feeling and gives you this surge of creative energy.”

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Image credit: Jarred Beeler

It’s always a good feeling when an album lives up to - or surpasses - expectations, which is the case for Mother, Logic1000’s freshly released debut album. It’s been a long journey for Samantha Poulter AKA Logic1000, the Berlin-via-Sydney producer & DJ to get to the release of Mother, first bursting onto the scene in 2019 with her lauded self-titled debut EP.

Since then, Poulter has made several international moves, made a name for herself as an in-demand DJ, released a string of singles, remixes and EPs, wrote and finished the album… oh and became a mother for the first time, hence the record’s title.

A celebration of motherhood as well as being a “love letter to house music”, Mother packs 12 cuts that explore the nearly four decade history of house, with vibes ranging from deep dubby chords to speed house influences and breakbeat to classic deep house bleeps and bloops.

Speaking of the album's release, Poulter says: "The release of my album, ‘Mother’, marks everything I have been working on, both materially and spiritually. It is representative of a time when i broke into a million little pieces and built myself up again, piece by piece. I look back on this period, when Tom and I were writing the album, as the period of my life where the most personal growth had happened.

Motherhood stretched me, tied me in a knot, and then untangled me again to reveal a whole new person. I didn’t know this was happening at the time, but in retrospect, the change and transformation is super clear. I nearly gave up on my dreams, I basically fell into a heap - over and over again. but for the past while, I've been undergoing some pretty serious therapy, and have found my passion and love for music and life again. I love my job, being a mother, my relationship with Tom, the people I surround myself with, my home, and the life I have created for myself. I guess you could say this is our second baby!”

Alongside the release of the album, Poulter also has a new podcast series co-hosted by rising DJ/presenter Helena Star called Logic1000 & Helena Star Present: Therapy. An exploration of how to navigate motherhood and mental health in the tumultuous music industry, there’s already a few episodes out, including their first guest - the wonderful Jayda G.

With all this going on, we checked in with Logic1000:

Congrats on the new album! You experienced a surge of creative inspiration and love following the birth of your daughter Genie - could you describe how that felt? What was it like first getting back on the tools

Aw thank you so much! I definitely did. The feeling of love is so tied up in creativity, I think. It’s a very inspiring feeling and gives you this surge of creative energy. The enormity of the love I have for Genie is something that took me by surprise. I feel like I had quite a good idea about what love is and how it feels, but when Genie came along I was like “Oh. Ok. This is it, this is love like no other”. The energy is similar to that energy you have when you first start dating someone you are into.

You think about them day and night and all you want to do is get to know them more and more, deeper and deeper. But with a child, that energy and love keeps growing. It doesn’t stop! I never really stopped working on music so there wasn’t a point at which I “got back on it”. Although I did stop DJ’ing for a long time due to COVID and morning sickness, so when I got back into DJ’ing it was way too soon, and a massive shock to the system.

The record is a collaboration with your partner, the incredibly talented Thom McAlister (Cop Envy, Big Ever) - what challenges and advantages are there to working with your partner?

He is so talented, and not only that he is an incredibly easy person to work with, so it makes the process of making music with him super fun and enjoyable. The challenge is spending way too much time together. Sometimes it can be almost like being in primary school during the school holidays and you spend way too much time with one friend. But we generally laugh it off and just take a breather. The huge advantage is that we really deeply know each other so well, and this extends to each other’s taste and ideas. And not only do we know this so well, we really respect each other’s ideas too. Plus it’s obviously so fun to make music with the love of your life!

The album is a gorgeous “Love Letter To House Music” - did you have any certain reference points going into making the record?

It’s a culmination of years of listening to house music but also other things like UK funky, bass, R&B, soul, indie, all of it!

There’s some very iconic house sounds on the record, what gear was used to craft the album?

We very proudly made the entire album in the box! We’ve always worked that way and we have the view that we don’t need to fix what isn’t broken. But I’m also into the idea of expansion. So moving forward I’m looking down the path of more traditional instruments and wanting to see where that takes us.

You took some time off DJing and touring to focus on finishing Mother - was that a tough call to make?

It was a really, really tough decision. It was both so I could work on the album, but also so I could work on myself. I had got to a point where I was so governed by my past traumas and felt incapacitated by them. Thom and I worked on the album, and my psychiatrists and coaches and I worked on me as a person. I feel like 2024 is a new me, a new beginning, a fresh start.

What was it like returning to the stage for Logic1000 presents Therapy? How have those parties been going?

The Therapy party I threw in Berlin was so cute and such a heartwarming experience. I plan to do more of these down the line, I just want the timing to be perfect. I want it to be sunny, warm, outdoors in a beautiful place in nature.

How do you balance mental health challenges with being in the notoriously mentally taxing music industry? Do you have any tips for emerging artists?

I would say to emerging artists - trust your gut. If you are saying yes to a lot of things that don’t necessarily feel right to you then take a second to pause. Think to yourself, will this impact my health and wellness? The most important thing in your career, as an artist, is you. If you are unwell, then there’s no art and the whole thing you’ve built comes crumbling down.

You’ve got a new podcast series with Heléna Star - what can we expect to hear covered on Logic1000 & Heléna Star Present Therapy?

The podcast is all about navigating the creative industries as a parent. We want to go deep into the lives of artists and musicians and creatives and work out how they make parenting and a job like that work. It can feel so unattainable to have both. But Helena and I want to give people hope and a how-to resource.

You’ve had Jayda G on as your first guest, are there any future guests you could spill the beans on? Do you have any dream guests?

We have so many dream guests, a long list we are slowly getting through. I think I want to leave it as a surprise.