Carl Craig founded Planet E Communications in 1991. Thirty-four years later the label is still putting out records, the Detroit Love showcase he started in the mid-2010s is on its third continent of touring this season, and the Jean-Cosme Delaloye documentary "Desire: The Carl Craig Story" is heading to Detroit on May 22 after stops at Tribeca and a UK theatrical run.
Craig grew up in Detroit and entered the techno orbit through Derrick May's Transmat in the late 1980s. He started releasing his own material as Psyche, BFC, and 69 before Planet E became the umbrella, and he has spent most of the years since alternating between his own albums (Landcruising, More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art, Versus) and producing other people's records on the label.
Planet E's roster runs deep. Recloose, Kenny Larkin, Kirk Degiorgio, Naomi Daniel, Innerzone Orchestra — most of the second-wave Detroit and adjacent house and techno catalog has run through the label at one point. The Versus project, in which Craig rearranged his catalog with the French orchestra Les Siècles and pianist Francesco Tristano, became a full studio album in 2017. The math on a producer carrying a label, an orchestra project, and a touring showcase brand is unusual. Most of his peers picked one.
Detroit Love is the showcase he built around the city's lineage. The format is straightforward: Craig curates four to six DJs, almost always with at least one Detroit name beside one international touring name, and frames the night as a continuous program rather than a parade of headliners. It runs at Movement most years and at festivals from Sónar to Awakenings to Time Warp.
The 2001 dismissal from DEMF still gets brought up. Craig was the festival's first artistic director; he was let go after the second edition in a contract dispute with Pop Culture Media. He sued, settled, and stayed mostly off Movement lineups for a long stretch. He came back in the Paxahau era and now runs Detroit Love showcases on the festival's main stages most years. The reconciliation has been slow and never quite formal.
Delaloye's documentary, in production for several years, premiered at Tribeca in 2024 and opened in UK theaters in May 2025. Detroit gets it on May 22 at Newlab in Michigan Central Station, two days before Craig closes Movement's Saturday night. The Planet E soundtrack to the film is out the same week.
Craig's last solo full-length, Versus, is from 2017. There is no announced follow-up under his own name. The label has kept its release schedule steady through the period, including Versus reissues and a string of Detroit Love compilations.
The next chapter, in his framing, is the documentary and what comes after. Craig has said in recent interviews that he is not done. The catalog suggests he is not.
