Dominic Flannigan is the 25-year-old co-founder (alongside Martyn Flyn) and art director of LuckyMe, the record label and artist “coolective” responsible for the current takeover of the UK’s most acclaimed and forward thinking, young electronic hip hop producers. Including Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, Nadsroic and his own group with Flyn, The Blessings, the tight knit creative family revels in Scottish stubbornness, trailblazing their own aesthetic. “I can only say what we are is a mix of cocky swagger and honesty. I think we are too young to be sardonic and cynical about the world we operate within. We keep working hard to keep it innovative.”

Name a person or organisation that shares your DIY ethos, and explain why?
Today I go for ECM and Manfred Eicher. ECM carry a connotation of innovation, style and quality but it’s still a surprisingly small staffed label to this day and the decisions of the label, despite spanning artforms and musical genre are driven by the people involved. It’s not consistent but that’s the price you pay for experimentation and if LuckyMe can one day represent a sense of individuality and quality - then we will be so proud. ECM epitomises good sensibility for me.

Send us a picture/video that summarises your view of modern life, and explain why?
My choice is my own photograph taken on our first American tour last October with my main home peoples Rustie (left) and Hudson Mohawke (right) in fake beards reclining in a San Franciscan hotel room before a show. It cracks me up. My view of modern life is that it is surreal and funny and somewhat centred on computers and concerts. I think this just re-instates the fact that we are just having a good time being kinda incongruous to our new found attention. It’s all so normal because you’re here and living it but this was the shit we dreamed about doing for years. Now that we’re here we’re not going to recondition and become all serious about this great lifestyle.


Do you think the recession has helped or hindered your creativity? Why?
I’m sure a bunch of the entrepreneurs will dig deep and say that the recession has helped their creativity one way or another because they want a sense of rebellion or being anti-establishment. For me, the recession has just given a cap to our client’s design budgets and I think that’s a very useful thing. It helps us get projects done when we don’t have infinite money to spend. The end product isn’t any better or worse for the money put into it – it’s just different.
As far as music goes we don’t ask more than folks come to shows and buy our selected records should they like them. So far they do, and seem happy to vote with their feet at our shows.

Music for a revolution - what song sums up your attitude?
‘GoogleMe’ (The Blessings Rework - stream below)

What other period inspires you the most, and why?
The 1950’s Beat Generation: a time of pretension and youthful energy. I know a lot of it is corny and I have trouble with a lot of it, but the way that a style and various art forms integrated to become a culture - man, it must have felt so new.
Fashion, film, sex, black music, white music, poetry, drugs, youth culture, nature and Buddhism all clashed into this huge incoherent mess on the West Coast and while a bunch of magazines talk up our scene in Glasgow like it’s something new, I can’t help think I’m just contributing to a new Beat movement.

Read more of the YCE feature here.