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For the uninitiated, the LuckyMe back catalogue can seem intimidating. Founded in Glasgow in 2007, at the height of Myspace’s popularity, Martyn Flyn, Dominic Flannigan, Ross Birchard aka Hudson Mohawke, and Mike Slott chose to set up LuckyMe as both a label and a design studio. Long touted as one of the UK’s most prolific imprints, it’s clear that incorporating the design studio from the beginning has played a large part in this success and enabled them to maintain this position.

With well over a decade of releases under their belt spanning artists such as Jacques Greene, TNGHT, Eclair Fifi and more recently the Australian electronic/R&B artist KUČKA, and a design studio that has worked with both Kanye West and Apple Music; there’s a diverse output on offer here, with a range of entrance points for both the casual listener and the more clued up music fan.

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What’s striking is the lessons they’ve learned over the years, weathering huge changes in social media that have shifted the way artists and labels think about presenting their own work. “Myspace taught us that where everybody is looking changes all the time,” says Flyn when discussing the idea of artists abandoning websites in favour of socials. “Being on these things and having a presence on these things and maintaining that is important… but what we found with that is that you’re not archiving yourself properly. You’re not always showing yourself how you want to be.” This idea of archiving, or of LuckyMe serving as a kind of larger exhibition piece that connects the dots between hip hop, electronica and hyperpop, runs throughout their thinking and likely has its origins in both their love of design and co-founder Flannigan’s art school background.

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It is this art school background that you can see running through so much of the label’s output and more. Flannigan has served as the creative director for fellow co-founder and Warp signee Hudson Mohawke, designing all his records, including his collaboration with LuckyMe signee Lunice, as TNGHT. It was this record that put LuckyMe on the map. “There was a buzz around us from when we first started,” Flyn explains. “But the TNGHT record crossed over into so many places. It was the first thing we put out where cars would go past playing it, you’d walk past houses and hear it, and you’d hear it on the radio.” With Flannigan now also serving as A&R for Warp, there was already a natural relationship in place between the two, which led to LuckyMe eschewing major labels to work with Warp on the TNGHT record.

Once you know what you’re looking for, these organic relationships become easier to spot peppered throughout the back catalogue. The most apparent is of course, the large Montreal contingent of the label. From more established artists like Jacques Greene and Lunice, to slightly more recent additions like Littlebabyangel, whose first single Cartier appeared in 2015, and the r&b infused full length tape released in 2018.

LuckyMe’s ethos hinges on this strong interest in how localised scenes form as small pockets of exciting creativity, combined with a desire to work with friends. In spite of this, Flyn is keen to dissuade ideas of nepotism. “When we say the label is friends of friends, it’s not some weird elitist thing.” He explains that recent signee KUČKA (pronounced almost as if you’re trying to say “butch car”) was a name being spoken by the right people in his orbit. After working with a whole host of LuckyMe artists including Bauuer, Cid Rim and Nosaj Thing, as well as fellow Australian Flume, signing her was simply a natural progression of the label’s taste in outsider pop and hyperpop. From an early Hudson Mohawke bootleg of Tweet’s “Oops (Oh My)”, right through to KUČKA’s forthcoming release Wrestling, the clear affection for pop as a sometimes maligned genre, is greatly apparent.

One artist who certainly falls into that bracket would be Canadian producer Nathan Micay. His debut full-length in 2019 was released in conjunction with an immersive microsite that is both a visual and musical homage to the manga classic Akira and ‘90s rave. Trance with glitching samples snatched from real-life BBC News West reports on raves across Gloucester, Stroud and Castlemorton blares out, juxtaposed against Katsuhiro Otomo-esque drawings brought to life by Dominic Flannigan’s innovative design. The art forms part of a companion comic to the LP, created by Flannigan and Peter Marsden.

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