JIH

I’m Jonathan Hair, a Brisbane-based producer, composer and author creating electronic music as JIH.

My journey began in the early 2000s with a Casio keyboard, Cool Edit Pro and a collection of samples. Teaching myself through experimentation, I built synth sounds, drum beats and tracks inspired by late ’90s and early 2000s dance music. In 2006, local DJ Les Smith played one of my tracks at Brisbane’s Big Gay Day—a surreal moment I still remember.

I later completed a degree in audio engineering and sound production at JMC Academy in Brisbane. My original final assessment track earned a High Distinction and featured in the academy’s end-of-year promotional material.

Despite that encouragement, the career opportunities presented to me centred on live sound or working overseas. My ambition was to write and produce original music, and around 2014–2015, I stepped away.

In early 2026, I rediscovered an archive of old tracks, samples and production tools on my hard drives, including material from my Pro Tools days. Revisiting those ideas in Logic Pro, with familiar synths such as Massive, rekindled my enthusiasm for making music. Since returning, I’ve developed a sound of my own in dark electronic dance and club music.

I’m a producer and composer, and singing in public has never been something I’m comfortable with. In the studio, I use recordings of my own voice as source material, shaping them through pitch correction, pitch shifting and harmonisation to create the vocal parts in my tracks.

Today, JIH sits alongside my work as a fantasy and thriller author, bringing together years of experimentation, formal training and a renewed determination to release the music I want to make.