To celebrate the release of his debut album ‘Space Walk’, Melbourne talent Luboku shares a behind-the-scenes look at its creation with us.
These were all shot on my 1982 Pentax 35mm camera in B&W. A short collection of stories around the Space Walk album.
The Studio
The album Space Walk was made almost entirely in this space - a little unassuming shed at the back of my family home.
The Space
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I keep the setup sparse with just one or two synths/bits of equipment at a time. I find the lack of distractions helps me keep focussed while writing.
Gear Highlights - Moog
A large portion of the Space Walk album was constructed with this bad boy. My moog sub-phatty has been a trusted companion for over four years now. I find it captures a certain elegance that I can never create with software synths. It actually features in every Space Walk track.
MS20
I was lucky to borrow a friend’s MS20 during the creation of Space Walk - having a new piece of analogue hardware at my fingertips really kept me exploring different sonics as I was late in the album process. This one makes an appearance on some of the more techno numbers, Pale Blue Dot, Pt. 1 and 2, Apollo, and Lift Off.
The Mix
While writing Space Walk, I was lucky enough to run some of the tracks through this crazy SSL desk from Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne before they shut down. It was a pretty wild experience hearing the tracks through such a large system - it made me wish there was a full-length Space Walk movie so everyone could experience that same level of massive sub-bass.
Lake Corangamite
I travelled to regional Victoria at the beginning of 2020 with my manager to take some photos at this surreal location, Lake Corangamite. It’s an eerie salt lake that I thought represented an outer space planet. Travelling to this area was about the same time I had begun writing Circles, and it was just before we went into lockdown in Melbourne.
Luna - My Dog
I got Luna at the start of the first lockdown - she was the cutest, smallest puppy but as you can see she’s become a beautiful full-grown doggo. She’s been the best companion while I’ve been home for almost six months, she also loves the studio.
Lockdown 2.0
Like a lot of us, I found the second lockdown in Melbourne brutal. It was at the very end of the writing process, I was exhausted with mixing and finalising those tiny details. In the end - it got too much for me and I made a permanent exit to rural Victoria, where I worked on a friend’s farm and finished the album in the wilderness.
Final Mixdown
I was mixing the album right up until the absolute deadline. I’d worked on the tracks for so long that I definitely found it hard to let them go.
When I eventually got the masters back, I was so nervous to hear the full-length experience that I put it off for a week. Finally, I sat down and just put it on. It’s hard to describe the feeling of listening back to a body of work that’s taken two years to write - it was a profound moment and I just remember feeling so relieved that I didn’t immediately fault it. I just thought, 'Huh - this actually kinda works.'