LUR: You never know when you need a space suit with a rabbit hat

LUR are dubbed the "livelooping wonder from the North." They are a Swedish band that ues omemade instruments and costumes and combines electronica with strange noises nobody had heard yet.
They play Prague's NoD on the 1st of April, which really called for an interview. 
 
Why Lur? Des it have anything to do with Lurpak?
"Lur" means many things in swedish and many of this things means a lot to Lur. For example "lur" is an old instrument but the word has also a lot to do with old analog technology, but could also mean to take a nap which we always do before our shows. 
Whate were the most important milestones of your history?
The first one was when we started a collaboration with the Swedish national theatre (Riksteatern). It boosted our self-esteem and made us put more effort into Lur. 
Another one was the first time we played at the Fusion festival in Germany. To get the opportunity to play in front of a huge audience at this otherworldly place.
And the latest milestone is to have an expanded version of Lur, with five persons on stage doing the music together with acrobatics and live visuals.
You have been known for unusual costumes - who makes them, and how is the process of having new ones made?
Because we always want to give the audience more than an regular live-act, the costumes are very important. Usually we sit down with our costume designer (we have been collaborating with four different so far) and brainstorm. For the the last show we knew that we wanted white costumes with built in light but we never dreamt that they could be so beautiful (Thank you Åsa Gjerstad). During the years we had also collected a lot of clothes from all around the word. You never know when you need a space suit with a rabbit hat and sun glasses looking like guitars.. 
Tell us more about how you make your instruments, what is the process like.
Some of them is about taking parts of old-school electronic instruments and put together to something new. Some are toys that we open up and modify. Some are made from scratch.
Those constructions often starts with a need, that becomes vision, and then a lot of time researching how to construct it. We think it's important to make electronic music more visual, so that an audience can get a feeling that it is just not pre-recorded. Because of that, the need of making home-made instruments/controllers is often based on the need of making it more visual.
Have you ever had any accidents such as electricity problems on stage etc? Is it dangerous to wear things that glow and dance in them?
In a previous show, we had a part where we played on each others bodies by sending electricity through the bodies, holding a cable in one hand each. That was always a bit scary because sometimes you felt it really much, and we had no idea how dangerous it was. 
Now we run everything on the bodies on batteries so we can dance around safe and happy. 
Your most important musical instrument is...?
Everything has it's own place in the show but I guess the fundament is the drums and the bass, for which we use a MFB-522 drum-module and a DSI Mopho synthesizer with different midi-controllers.
Is it hard to be a duo that tours a lot, are there any challenges to be overcome regarding spending so much time together on the road?
Being a duo is actually really nice. It´s so easy to take decisions and find time to rehearse. The hardest thing have been to drive long distances but we usually bring some friends on the tours and now we even bring some more people to the band. We´re working with the VJ Olof Werngren, the acrobat/rapper Kajsa Bohlin and the singer Jenny Nilsson, so Lur being a duo might belong to the past...
 
Lur
Prague, NoD
1.4.2015
Support: Fertilizer
Tickets are available here.