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The Many Moods of Singer Luke Black

To see more of Luke’s photos, check out @lukeblackmusic on Instagram. For more music stories, head to Instagram @music.

Serbian pop alchemist Luke Black (@lukeblackmusic) is looking back upon his days of few conventions — and fewer clothes.

“2012 was a very wild year for me,” he recalls. “My friends and I made these movies, we were naked all the time, I got kicked out of my apartment for having too many parties and I was having this Romeo and Juliet relationship where I was prepared to die for love. That’s when I wrote ‘D-Generation,’”

As befits its turbulent origins, Luke’s debut single is dark, intoxicating and hard to shake: a melancholic electro lament that invokes Depeche Mode and Massive Attack. Luke’s recent follow-up track, “Holding On To Love,” is similarly fixated on shadows and light. “That one was actually supposed to be a piano ballad,” he says. “But then I put in some electronic and club sounds too. I wanted it to be sad, but I also wanted to dance.”

That tension between melancholy and rapture is set to be further explored on a forthcoming EP, whose themes, says Luke, span, “Death, sex, biblical references, gypsy magic, screwing up and being very attached to someone.”

If this all sounds poetic, then that’s with good reason: Luke, who was born in Cacak, studied English literature and language in Belgrade. He swiftly fell for English romanticism, and honed a knack for wordplay which is evident throughout his lyrics, his song titles, and even his name (which he changed from Luka Ivanović).

That said, the multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter was already well-versed by the time of his studies: he’d been writing lyrics in English since he was 12. And he’s been making music and DIY recordings since the age of 16, as variously inspired by Boy George, Bruce Springsteen, techno, jazz and the geography of the imagination.

“I have this song called ‘Virtual Paris,’” he says. “I wrote it when I moved to the artistic part of Belgrade, because it has all these jazz bars and art galleries, and I felt like I was in Paris. I said to my friends, ‘Let’s make this place our Paris; let’s make this our New York.’ I had nothing in my hometown — there was only folk music or ex-Yugoslavian rock, there was no pop scene. So when I came to Belgrade, I was like a kid in a candy store. And I met a lot of other creatives – I’m not just influenced by music, I’m influenced by painters and photographers.”

Luke’s eye for art is evident. From his monochrome portraits to his stark, reflective artwork to his day-glo, kamikaze video clips, there’s a striking visual identity at work. “I consider myself to be a pop musician, and with pop music, you can do anything,” he says. “There’s a sense of freedom and I always think of the audio-visual experience. When I write a song, I imagine what I’ll be wearing and what the video will be like.”

As with his music, there’s contrast and tension in his photos, too. “They vary from color to color, from filter to filter — the colors change depending on my mood. So if I’m happy it’s probably yellowish, and you can see the periods where I’m sad. It’s like a visual diary. It’s like a mood ring,” he laughs. His pop and art may come veiled in a dark filter, but his future looks far from black.

—Nicola Meighan for Instagram @music

by via Instagram Blog