Emre & Mert Altinok are living in Berlin and Istanbul and releasing their productions under the name Lunar Plane since 2014. The likeable twins joined Parquet Recordings in 2016 with their track "Apogee", a collaboration with the argentinian artist Ubbah. In the meantime they brought us another collaboration track, delivered a great mix for our mixtape series, played on our last label night in Cologne and released their first solosingles on Parquet this month named "Rapture / Chimera". Time to ask the boys some questions about their influences, favourite intruments and more. (June 2018)

 

When did you come to electronic music and what were your musical influences?

Is there a secret behind your artist name?

As far as we can remember, we got hooked on electronic music through Booka Shade's 'In White Rooms'. However it took us 8 years to actually start producing music, so we have been producing for 4 years now. Music production was never in our life agenda, although we were working on a music streaming app that focused on electronic music before our production days. Two of our partners from that project started to take Ableton courses and asked us if we would like to join them and we said no, because we had no interest in creating music at that time. After they finished the course, they started to produce in our office and showed us how to build some beats. At first it was just fun, but rapidly it turned into a passion, and we spent at least 8 hours a day on Ableton trying to figure out how to get to a level of producing quality music. So basically, we taught ourselves the music theory and music production by trial & error and watching tutorials, because we had no music background. Our most prominent musical influences would be Booka Shade, Solomun, Solee, Just Emma, Tale of Us and Mind Against. 

 

We named ourselves Lunar Plane, because we try to tell the story of the moon through our tracks. This text summarizes it: Following the outburst, there was darkness. Then came the stars. Only the strongest could withstand the vastness of the dark, whereas the light was fast and effective. This eternal battle between the light and the dark formed an unexpected balance. A balance for life. Throughout this endless conflict, byproducts came about. Planets, moons and humans. Amongst these humans, a pair of twins set out on a journey. A journey of discovery and expression through music. They reflect upon the might of the dark and all the sophistication it brings about. They tell the story of the lonely moon, struggling on its own against all the darkness. Join the twins in an epic story of the light and the dark. The Void and the Moon. The duality. The twin-hood of the universe.

You are twins. One of you lives in Berlin and the other in Istanbul. Can you tell us something about your creative process and how you build your tracks from the ground up in the studio? Which DAW are you using and do you have any favourite instruments?

Being twins is quite helpful in our creative process because we always agree on the direction of a track, and we usually like what we produce individually. Each month one of us visits the other for a week, so we are together in the studio for at least a quarter of the year. When we aren't together, we just work on different tracks simultaneously and send them back and forth. We usually finish those tracks when we are together. We have seen that this system works great for us. By working both individually and together on the tracks, we can come up with various approaches to finish a track. We use Ableton to produce our tracks, and our favorite software instruments are Diva and Bazille. We also use Moog Sub37 and Nord Lead 4 as hardware instruments in our productions. 

Do you have any other jobs or hobbies besides producing and playing as a DJ?

Before Lunar Plane, we both went to Yale University and were swimmers in the Turkish national team. However, we are now completely focused on music production. We just enjoy life and make music =)

What can you tell us about future 2018 plans for Lunar Plane?
We are currently working on an album and a live stage performance for it, so stay tuned!

Your 3 favourite Parquet Recordings Tracks?

Solee - Feiern

Township Rebellion - Challenger

Jos & Eli - Amore (Solee Remix)

 

More infos about Lunar Plane:

https://www.facebook.com/lunarplane

https://soundcloud.com/lunarplane

 

Booking contact: sanny@captbook.de