I Heart Me

Photo of Luke Eargoggle's son Elliot dancing in the Akupunktur studio, Gothenburg, by Luke Eargoggle. If you say his name over and over again it becomes a tongue twister.

When VICE first witnessed the Luke Eargoggle electro love explosion at a packed party in an Antwerp squat last summer, we thought we'd died and gone to some celestial rave where the girls can't stop smiling and everyone wears flowers in their hair. As Luke and his fellow Gothenburg pal Rutherford performed a Monkeyshop set of the friskiest disco ever, you could feel the universal love cascading out of their synthesizers straight into your heart. This was no MDMA-enhanced fairytale, though, not some fleeting ecstasy epiphany. For Luke Eargoggle is genuinely one of the purest, warmest and kindest human beings on the planet. His mission, with which he's obsessed, is simple: to spread love throughout the world via the medium of raw, rippling electro music, and it's going pretty well. Sometimes he works with Legowelt as Catnip, mostly he flies solo. He's like a real-life Swedish superhero, snuggled up in his Gothenburg abode, zapping listeners with insane tracks like "Audio Warriors", "Romance Is The Panther" and "Barbara! Buy A Monkey!!!". When you meet him, you come away glowing, like you've been blessed by this benevolent entity. At a party in Amsterdam, Vice went up to him to and fawned, "Luke, gotta say "Romance Is The Panther" is one of the all-time great disco records." And he replied, "Yes, and do you know why? Because romance is the panther." Then he opened his wallet and showed us a photo of his seven-year-old son Elliot. We know it's grim at the moment and the weather's foul, so if you're feeling a little down, just read Luke's four obsessions, his passions, and maybe they'll pick you up. It works for us. 1."Honest people make me love the world. My son, whatever he's doing, I'm soooo possessed that I could explode out into space like little pixels!" 2."My most beautiful dream is me hugging planet earth and then exploding. From my energy every little living thing on earth gets a bit more hope and life towards freedom and peace." 3."I also really love just watching people. I have some favourite spots I go to every now and then and just watch. It's amazing and incredible to look and be quiet, almost invisible!" 4."And I love synthesizers and machines! They all have their own soul and possibility—it's just for you to listen and understand. It's like with people, some you like, some you don't. It would be very nice if you could program people at certain times to give them a better sound." New Monkeyshop and Catnip EPs are out soon on Luke's Stilleben Records. Two Luke Eargoggle EPs are out soon on Bunker Records. www.stillebenrecords.com