duologue

Planet Luke, Luca Lozano, Lucas Hunter. Now living in Sheffield, Lucas Hunter is the driving force behind Klasse Recordings, a Berlin-based imprint where he works with Mr Ho as owner, A+R, artist and designer. Lucas also performs as a producer and DJ under the name Luca Lozano, and manages the graphic designer for grafitti-centric tape label Grafiti Tapes and 12” vinyl label Zodiac44 under the moniker Planet Luke.

But Planet Luke is more than that; it’s a whole new world. “The idea of Planetluke.com (the official name IS the URL) is that it is a planet that I and only I inhabit, its where I go to when I’m making artwork. I’m always on my own and I can sit there for hours making stuff. I’m a bit of a loner, I like my own company and I like making things…Luca is a version of Lucas and the Lozano name is used for the music side of things, I like the idea of having different sub-sets to my identity that can serve different purposes.”

TITIA (Titia van Beckum) is known as a DJ, but also the founder and creative director of Duotoon. During her studies at Design Academy Eindhoven in the 00s, learning all about communication in its broadest sense, she started buying records and spinning vinyl at the local hot spot. After graduation she moved to the big city straight away, starting a career in the music industry where she made her mark as an A+R, music supervisor and music producer for the moving image. “Lifelong connecting sound and vision, is my mission. Did I just say that? So cheesy! But oh so true!”

Lucas: I remember playing with Titia in Amsterdam, she was one of the only other people I knew that played a specific track by The Forgemasters (another Sheffield act signed to Warp Records in the early 90s). The fact she played and enjoyed this track spoke volumes to me and immediately confirmed her character as a real-deal homie. We’ve played together a few times and I always bump into her when I’m in The Netherlands. It’s amazing traveling around the world because of music, you get to meet so many people that share similar and obscure interests and Titia is definitely a solid connection and friend. It’s been fun to be able to work on something together after so long….I hope it continues!

Titia: There’s not many people (I know of) who share this particular taste in music, and even lesser people who have this same parallel love for the same two disciplines; music and (graphic) artwork. Even regarding the arts I believe there is a clear resemblance of taste and inspiration, it’s crazy. When I met Lucas I was immediately drawn to him, because he is such an inspiration in that sense. I think there was a mutual connection from the get go and I’m happy we finally got to collaborate on a project. We already played several club nights together and there is a sick B2B waiting for us as soon as the clubs reopen. But this one is extra special to me, because this is where our shared love for both music and visual come together, on a planet I created. A dream come true.

Lucas: Music and art are part of the same universe, they exist in my universe and parallel each other in many ways. I rarely set out to make artworks that are directly related or influenced by music but there is a co-existance that can’t help but affect each other. I make a lot of sci-fi relevant images, a lot of stars, planets, spaceships and those things are obvious reference material for electronic music too. Electro and Techno have always been forward facing genres and are obsessed with the idea of the future and what will be possible. I’ve not had time to fully assess it but the themes of space travel, outer space and other worlds can be seen in both the music and art I’m interested in. I think both can be seen as escapist subjects, I use both to get away from ’normal life’ and distract myself by being creative…both are a form of meditation that allows the creator to travel away from their immediate surroundings. At this point in my career there are many blurred lines between the various disciplines, I’ve been doing both for many years and its all part of the same ecosystem, I listen to music when I’m designing and am aware of the design and graphic elements of the music I consume and create. It’s effortless symbiosis.

Titia: I was just a kid in the dawn of the 1990s. I’ve always felt I was born a decade too late, I think I would’ve fit better. Not only because of all the sickest electronic music releases that came out, but for many reasons. So this music and Lucas’ artwork resonate with my nostalgia, my longing for time travelling, my love for the offline and off-grid, for the gritty, the sweat and the unpolished. Lucas’ visual output looks a bit low res, not yet refined, non-slick or crude. I must add ‘at first glance’, because I know it is executed with precise skill. I think the same goes for early house music productions (and parties) from the 80s + 90s, a bit sloppy at times, fuzzy, under-produced, rather underdeveloped or obscure. But always with an absolute explicit signature and effectiveness and a seductive power of weighty sub-bass. It’s a world of its own, just as Planetluke.com is. A place I’d like to live and go back to, escaping from a world where things are so perfectly perfect.

Lucas: I must have been aware of music before design and graphic art, I remember dancing to music as a toddler. But I also remember being aware of graffiti and slogans written on the street when I was younger too. The interesting thing to talk about here is when the two first met and when I saw them as ‘one’. I remember looking at my uncle’s record collection and noticing the design of Kraftwerk albums, I think like many people the record sleeve was my introduction into the world of music and art coexisting. I bought records in my early teens and spent a long time studying the sleeves when listening to the music. I wonder about the way music is consumed these days, the emphasis is not longer on the physical but the digital relationship of music and art…most of which is consumed in the palm of your hand…its interesting to think how that will change the psyche of music fans in the future. Will record artwork cease to exist in the physical realm and what endless possibilities will there be with creating digital artwork in the cyberspace?

Titia: My mother always says that, before I even knew how to say a word, I used to turn up the volume knob whenever I heard a good tune on the radio. I started drawing at an early age, I remember a drawing of TLC, on stage in the spotlights wearing baggy trousers. Drawings were always music related. At the Design Academy, everything was music related.
Also, a huge interest in language and linguistics runs in the family. I think that’s why I like words and typefaces so much, this is where my love for typography comes from. Graffiti and especially handwritten fonts have always excited and inspired me. I did my first tag when I was around 15 years old. Born and raised in Eindhoven, there’s a lot going on there. At the academy, I developed a love for handwritten typography even further.
I like the fact that Lucas’ interest in graffiti is highly visible in his flyers and artwork, he mixes graffiti signatures such as bubble writing with acid house aesthetics and 90s digital computer design. I’m really digging the DIY ethos, the dot matrix printing and photocopier vibes.

Lucas: Asking me to choose between art and music is an impossible question. I can’t imagine living without either…but if I had to choose I would choose music. Music has been there for me as a support network in my life for as long as I can remember, I go to it when I’m happy, sad, angry, bored and it never ceases to inspire me. As a record maker and self-taught musician I talk a lot about not disrespecting music and I really do feel music is bigger than all of us and we have to respect it honestly. As an artist you can make choices and go down different roads, if you take advantage of music and treat it badly you will get treated badly too. I’ve been in many situations where I’ve had to make decisions that basically equate to either money or music and I’ve always been careful, it’s easy to spot those who have not resisted temptation and suffer because of their bad choices.

Titia: For me, the same thing goes; it is an impossible question. But I’m not even brave enough to make a choice. I can be moved and touched by both, I grew up with both and I have always continued being surrounded by both. They are fantastic on its own, individually, and they are absolutely self-contained. Together though, they can really enhance each other and take each other to a higher level. If I could only end up with one, I’d tried to merge them into a whole, by melting them together into 1 sick BIG unit.

Lucas: The title ‘Join the Future’ is taken from an early record on Warp Records by Tuff Little Unit and the purple we chose is a direct reference to those early record sleeves and the pioneering bleep techno sound championed by places like Sheffield, Bradford and Huddersfield. I grew up in Sheffield and remember seeing Warp Records when it was a physical store, I listened to pirate radio stations and the sound was all around when I was a teenager. However, it wasn’t until I had moved to Berlin in 2008 that I started to feel a connection to the music. I think being away from home made me feel closer to the material that was being made in those times and locations and I became very proud of the sound and spent a lot of time looking into the old artists and records that came out at that time. It’s a fitting title for the artwork as when I think about it now I think back to myself as teenager looking forward to myself in the future. I spend so much time looking back and looking forward, it seems apt.

Titia: I’m forcing myself to make ‘imperfect’ things; to see beauty in the process, the idea and ideals, putting emphasis on the fun in the moment making it. Well, I had fun making this mix. It’s lo-fi and nostalgic and I’m super happy it gets the artwork it deserves. I made the mix after a request made by dance music journalist Matt Anniss for the Noods takeover back in May and I’ll take this opportunity to give him a big SO. He wrote the much acclaimed Join The Future book, which traces the roots, origins, development and legacy of the sound that started it all: the first distinctively British form of electronic dance music, bleep techno.
Go and read it if you haven’t already! Lucas’ artwork would be ‘perfect’ for the book as well, by the way! I hope y’all enjoy. <3

Lucas: I’m trying to live in the moment, keep being creative, keep being honest and keep being nice to strangers. I hope I can continue to play records and make artwork and continue to exist outside the industry. PEACE AND LOVE!