In our Road2Release series, we publish four stories that have inspired the artist in his creative & artistic process leading up to his upcoming release on KROOKS Records.

SpaceAgePoetry takes you on a trip through space using stories and music. It’s a combination of deep & slow electronic music and spoken word, that organically evolved out of the shared music taste of Josh Dupree & Justin Samgar. This is Justin’s story:

SpaceAgePoetry is the culmination of a lot of things. Influences on me as a person and finding my way in life. It’s weird to realize in hindsight that the thing I didn’t like going to every week, was also one of the most defining features for me as a poet.

My dad is a pastor in a cult. The way he preaches and used to tell us stories was very specific and is something I unintentionally copied from him. I found a way out and have been looking to substitute that affection I lost ever since and more importantly, what ‘the truth’ is, I felt, that was withheld from me in that period. This struggle found its way into the lyrics of the Sputnik EP.

My mother has named me after the singer of The Moody Blues, Justin Hayward, but I have been mostly raised with a lot of classical music and opera. As a teenager, I started and at a later point only wanted to listen to hip-hop, thereby finding a way to reject my parents’ music and faith. Only later in my life, in my twenties, I discovered music from bands like The Doors and Pink Floyd and more electronic-oriented music.

In that time the lyrics from Jim Morrison and Gil Scott Heron really touched me and inspired me in a special way. I didn’t feel lonely anymore, or as much, through my writing. These two poets inspired me to take SpaceAgePoetry in the direction it has been going and even further. Huge inspirations are also Flying Lotus and Moderat. When I met Guy, I found out that we both have a broad taste in music, complementing each other. We started looking for electronic music that helped to elevate my lyrics and their recitation. After many rehearsals and performances, we set out the musical direction for the productions on our first EP.

Conceptually, the rapping alter-ego of Flying Lotus, called Captain Murphy, is one of the coolest things happening in hip-hop in recent years. Concerning finding ‘the truth’, Neil deGrasse Tyson opened my eyes with his documentary Cosmos, it’s still is one of the best I’ve ever seen. I was always into space and science because I felt there was more than the narrow view of religion I was raised with. The Sputnik EP is my account of this journey.