01 Founder & press operator
June Okafor
Founder and press operator. Runs Bertha, the reject crate, and the kettle, in roughly that order of difficulty.
Favourite pair: Raspberry × Ultramarine
About
One press,
two colours.
LUMORA is three people, one secondhand press and a kettle, in a unit off Ledger Lane. Since 2024 we have been turning the playlists in your phone into heavy two-colour records, one squeeze at a time.
Test pucks, batch 41
The Idea
Fewer records,
made properly.
Most pressing plants want 300 copies of the same thing. We wanted the opposite: one copy of the thing you actually listen to. So we bought one press, limited ourselves to two colours of wax, and decided that every record leaving the building would be the only one of its kind.
The limits are the style. Two colours swirl better than sixteen million, one machine keeps us honest, and a six-week turnaround means nobody here is ever in a hurry except Bertha, who is never in a hurry either.
One machine
Every record on this site came out of the same 1978 press. She has a name and moods.
Two colours
Twenty-one named pairs, chosen by Priya, argued about weekly.
Zero clones
The swirl lands differently every squeeze. Yours is the only one like it.
The Plant
A unit, a press,
a kettle.
Unit B is 82 square metres of concrete floor at the end of Ledger Lane. Bertha takes up a third of it, the swatch wall takes another third, and the rest is sleeves drying on string. The door is usually open, partly for the wax fumes, mostly for visitors.
14 Ledger Lane, Unit B, London E8 3RH Pressed in Harbour: Ultramarine × Verdigris
Records pressed
12,408
Colour pairs
21
Identical copies
0
Press built
1978
Counted by Theo, who keeps a spreadsheet. The kettle is not on the spreadsheet.
The People
Three of us,
and Bertha.
One runs the press, one cuts the groove, one picks the colours. Nobody is in charge of the reject crate, which is why it has grown.
01 
02 Cutting engineer
Theo Marsh
Cutting engineer. Turns playlists into a groove, one lacquer at a time, and keeps a spreadsheet about it.
Favourite pair: Leaf × Carbon
03 Sleeve designer & colour lead
Priya Vance
Sleeve designer and colour lead. Names the wax pairs, argues about mustard, and has never once been wrong about a spine.
Favourite pair: Persimmon × Violet
Since 2024
Short history,
long cooling.
Two years, four milestones, roughly 900 records that never made it past the trim station. We keep the good failures in a crate by the door and sell them on Saturdays for five pounds, honour system.
Within tolerance.
Round here, that's a love letter.
Theo Marsh, cutting engineer, reading a humidity log
-
Bought Bertha
A 1978 SMT-12 press, one previous owner, sold with a shrug and a shoebox of spare gaskets. She arrived on a flatbed and did not fit through the door.
-
First test pressing
Raspberry × Ultramarine, off-centre by 3 mm, a pop in the run-out. Framed anyway. It still hangs above the trim station.
-
First 100 records
Number 100 was a wedding playlist in Poolside. The couple sent a photo of it on their kitchen wall. There may have been tears.
-
Pair number 21
Sorbet Grape joins the swatch wall. Priya says the list is now closed. Priya has said that before, at 14, 17 and 19.
Your turn
Now press
something.
Send us the playlist, pick two colours or let Priya pick, and in about six weeks a record that exists nowhere else arrives flat at your door. Or come round first and smell the wax.