Interview with Luna City Express

The entire Luna City Express story is based on a comic. So yeah we love comics!

Editor Angelos Kouklakis

Sat 16 Apr 2016

Music and nightlife inspired both of them from early on. Norman often accompanied his father, a musician and DJ, on tour where absorbed a melting pot of party music, from Funk and Disco to HipHop and Acid Jazz. At 14 he heard his first Chicago House Mix on tape – a musical revelation and the beginning of his subsequent career. For Marco discovering electronic music happened in the early 90’s in a friend's basement studio where he first started delving into drum machines and synthesizers.

Hello guys, thanks for talking to us. So you’ve been a production and DJing duo for over a decade. Where are we now in the LCE story?
This adventure is not at its end at all. We have way more to discover.

What to expect from LCE in the future?
We’re working on new music and hope to be back soon on 2020 Visions and Moon Harbour.

Your recent track is “Motherland” released in Supernova’s Lapsus Music 6 Years Compilation. How did this came up?
Motherland is an exclusive track for Lapsus’ new Compilation series  “xxx Plays Lapsus” mixed and compiled by us. It’s the second part of that series and in our opinion not an anniversary compilation. We’re working with the guys since a while and they just asked us if we’re up to it. We obviously said yes.  

Which is your ideal imaginary motherland?
The lyrics in Motherland describe that quite perfectly. All nations of the universe are united and everyone lives in harmony. There’s just love instead of hatred. Hunger and war doesn’t exist.  Simple as that!

You’ve been also an active member of Moon Harbour family for the past decade, and you seem to be really wise and careful in choosing the timing of your releases. Is that an essential element of your success?
It might look like this but we’re actually never really planning a release. We do music and hope that Matthias or other A&Rs will like and sign it.  Even after that long time in business it’s not like that you produce something and labels take that directly (which is of course sometimes really annoying). Every release is still a process and we are always happy when it comes to a record contract.

Over 10 years is a long time to do anything with anyone. What is the most challenging thing you have to deal with your productive working relationship?
It’s definitely the time! We try to have at least one studio session per week. But we both have family and kids and to travel weekly doesn’t make it easy to be creative on demand sometimes. Beside that Marco runs his own label and also focuses on his solo project.

What are your basic production and djing equipment?
We play with 2-3 CD Players + 1-2 Turntables and one 4 channel mixer. In most cases with Allen & Heath Xone 92 or Pioneer DJM 900. The center of our studio work is our DAW with Ableton Live 9. It’s surrounded by stuff like Universal Audio’s UAD-2, Soundtoys 5 Bundle and Native Instruments Komplete 10. We also love hardware and use a couple of vintage stuff like Roland Space Echo, Korg Mono/Poly, Roland SH-101 and the Roland Juno 106.

Is it true that you love comics?
The entire Luna City Express story is based on a comic. So yeah we love comics!

Have you ever thought cutting your beard?
Thinking about it, yes. But cutting isn’t an option at the moment. We prefer to look older and wiser.

Wishing the best for you guys. Thanks a lot for your time.