This year, the cherished New York-based zine, record label, radio show, DJ partnership and party series Love Injection is celebrating its ten year anniversary. Inspired by the unifying ethos of The Loft’s David Mancuso, founders Paul Raffaele and Barbie Bertisch have forged an impeccable reputation over the past decade as selectors, community builders, audiophiles and New York nightlife historians, driven by a pure impulse to “build a world around the music you love and the people that make it.”

Love Injection’s origin story is surely one of the most wholesome in dance music, a serendipitous meet-cute that would forever change the lives of its founders. Paul Raffaele and Barbie Bertisch first crossed paths at Academy Records in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, in the disco 12-inch section. “It took a few minutes to work up the nerve to speak to her,” Raffaele admits, but he eventually struck up a conversation, then sent her a Facebook message a few days later asking if she wanted to contribute to the new zine he was launching, Love Injection.

The timing was perfect; Bertisch was about to play her “first DJ gig that wasn’t in a friend’s basement”. She suggested to Raffaele that they turn the event into a launch party for the magazine, planting the seeds for what would become their decade-long partnership.

Their musical tastes were diverse but complementary. Raised in Staten Island, Raffaele grew up listening to “big room” music, the kind he would hear going to venues such as Sound Factory and Exit, and spent years working at Pacha, including as a resident support DJ. The allure of the big room sound began to fade, however, as Raffaele started attending events such as 718 Sessions with Danny Krivit and Roots with Louie Vega. Later, he was turned onto parties at Joy and The Loft, places where songs were played in full in the David Mancuso tradition, a premium was placed on hi-fidelity audio and like-minded dancers shared a deep, joyful reverence for the music.

Bertisch grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, then moved to Miami at 14 with her family. In her late teens and early twenties she was into new wave and post-punk (Depeche Mode, Art of Noise, The Cure, The Strokes), as well as disco, soul, rock, and 2000s dance-punk. Shortly after moving to New York, she was drawn deeper into the house music scene and also began frequenting Joy and The Loft.

Following the zine’s launch party, Raffaele and Bertisch’s working relationship blossomed in tandem with their budding romance. Love Injection’s aesthetic was sleek and professional thanks to Rafaelle’s background in graphic design and art direction. Bertisch, who studied fashion design, already had experience conducting interviews for an art, fashion and music blog. Both had a desire to speak with and absorb lessons from key players in New York nightlife, and the zine allowed them to do just that. For the past decade, Love Injection has published long conversations with various DJs, producers and important scene figures past and present, among them DJ Harvey, ‘80s dancefloor icon Michele Saunders, Tom Moulton, inventor of the 12” vinyl, and contemporary local heroes such as musclecars and Toribio.

Some of these people would prove integral to Love Injection’s development over the ensuing years. After being interviewed in volume 5 of the zine, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy asked Bertisch and Raffaele to take over hosting the New York arm of Classic Album Sundays, a monthly listening party that ran in the city for a couple of years pre-pandemic and immersed the pair further into the hi-fi world. “It was a really informative time,” says Raffaele. “We were learning about music from Billie Holiday to Rolling Stones to Dilla to The Velvet Underground and then buying ten to 20 records that informed those records.” Years later, Murphy would connect Bertisch and Raffaele with the Klipsch Museum when they decided to publish Dope From Hope, an art book compiling the audio newsletters issued by Paul W. Klipsch, founder of the legendary speaker company.

Between 2015 and 2019, Raffaele and Bertisch were putting out 11-12 issues of Love Injection a year while holding down full-time day jobs. “We would go to work from 10 to 6 then come back and work on Love Injection til 1am or 2am,” Bertisch recalls. Advertisers and brand partnerships helped sustain the publication, but these dried up after Covid, at which time they started charging a small fee for the zine to help cover costs and allow them to pay contributors (physical copies of the zine are still distributed to select New York locations for free). To better handle their growing workload, Raffaele switched to freelance design and art direction work in 2019 while Bertisch quit her job to manage the zine and the expanding Love Injection project.

The record label was launched in 2020 and has so far featured acclaimed releases from artists such as Conclave, Yasushi Ide and Bertisch herself, with her 2022 debut LP Prelude. Around the same time, Raffaele and Bertisch began DJing together more regularly, appearing at leading NYC nightspots including Good Room, Nowadays, Le Bain and public records, where they’ve held a residency since 2022, as well as taking the Love Injection sound — eclectic, soulful, uplifting, high-fidelity — to parties in Miami, Philadelphia, Munich, Paris, the UK and Japan.

Their radio show at The Lot in Greenpoint is another fundamental cog in the LI machine. Raffaele and Bertisch have held the 10-12 Saturday morning slot since 2016, allowing them to share records they may not play in clubs, from a rich spectrum of genres, as well as to connect with community at the beloved reclaimed shipping container/radio station. “The show is an anchor,” says Bertisch. “When Covid arrived in NYC and the radio show transitioned to streaming from home, it was a vital marker in our week when time felt totally liquid.” For the past few months they’ve been mostly streaming from Miami, where they are currently spending most of their time to be close to Bertisch’s immediate family as they raise their 8-month-old baby Rocco.

The zine has been on hiatus for the past few months as Raffaele and Bertisch adjust to parenthood and shifting priorities. “I thought we would be back to a regular publishing schedule and doing all the things we loved doing before Rocco, but that's just not the case,” says Bertisch. “Those things will need to be added back slowly and thoughtfully, but for now we’re giving ourselves the grace of putting him first, how we make our living second, and then making sure we're able to do the creative, artistic things that make us whole as human beings.”

Raffaele and Bertisch are hoping to publish a special issue of the zine in coming months to honour a decade of Love Injection. Their public records residency this year will culminate in a full venue takeover in November, around which time they also hope to release a 10-year anniversary compilation. Other LI releases in the pipeline include a Gene Tellum single in July and a John Silas EP featuring a Patrice Scott remix, due in the fall.

From the zine to their label, radio show, DJing partnership, parties and merch, Raffaele and Bertisch approach everything they do with care, intention and humility. Their slow, steady growth, unassuming profile, and palpable passion for their work has made Love Injection one of the most respected names in New York nightlife, an unflashy but unfailingly high quality endeavour that aims to harness the power of music in its purest form.

“There are so many people we've met that we wouldn't have dreamed of meeting, so many people who have become friends who we wouldn't have dreamed of having a conversation with, and so many experiences we've had on and off the dance floor that shows that music could be this glue for all of us,” says Raffaele.

“We're very aware that the world is burning,” adds Bertisch. “But if we can find situations and places and people to come together, let's try to do that instead of driving each other apart.”

Find out more about Love Injection here. Read more coverage on Dope From Hope here.

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Header credit: Mario Federico