Artist:
Luke Slater
Title:
Wireless
Label:
NovaMute
Cat#:
NOMU70
Release Date:
04th October 1999 (original release date for physical items)
2012 (digital re-release)
Format:
CD, vinyl, download & streaming
Tracklist:
A1.
In The Pocket
A2.
Sum Ton Tin
A3.
Hard Silence (Part One)
A4.
Sheer Five Five
A5.
Let Eat All Vanbrook
B1.
Body Freefall, Electronic Inform
B2.
You Butterfly
B3.
Hard Knock Rock
C1.
All Exhale
C2.
Bolt Up
D1.
I Thought I Knew You
D2.
Weave Your Web
D3.
Out The Pocket
Press Info:
Luke Slater releases his second long-player ‘Wireless’ for NovaMute on 4th October. A startling testament that continues from where 97’s universally acclaimed electronic opus, ‘Freek Funk’ left off. Self produced, ‘Wireless’ is a glorious piece of work marked by its rhythm, electronic squalls and explosions of spine – tingling sonics. Highly emotive, the album showcases Slater’s creative rise from his early adventures in the field of electronic music. ‘Wireless’ is the clearest sign yet of a musical shift in Slater’s career.
Having developed an embryonic understanding of the finer points of electronic music via his father’s antiquated tape to tape machinery and a love of rhythmic dissonance thanks to a pre-pubescent stint as a drummer, Slater’s latent talents were activated by a love of early electro and a precocious residency at premier acid house London club Troll playing the early sounds from Chicago and Detroit. From these roots Slater has established a reputation as one of the UK electronic music scene’s most consistent, creative and internationally respected DJ, producer, and musician recording under a variety of nom-de- plumes including Clementine, 7th Plain, Planetary Assault Systems.
1997 saw Slater release what is generally viewed as his most ambitious project to date. ‘Freek Funk’ united the critics, proclaimed as one of the albums of the year in the international dance press (album of the month in Muzik, Mixmag, Jockey Slut) its power lay in its ability to transcend the confines of its mother genre and re-appropriate sounds, twisting them into distinct sonic experiments in Slater’s own inimitable style. Ranging from dub, house, electro and tuff techno to moments of beautiful electronic melancholy the album was diverse as it was visceral. A defining moment.
‘Wireless’ is no less stunning than its predecessor. Predominantly an album concerned with “breaks”, Slater has still managed to instil enough of his own character into the proceedings to elevate it beyond a generic piece of work. Transforming the sometimes functional electronic sound into moments of sheer beauty or brutality the album is a staggeringly powerful testament. ‘Body Freefall, Electronic Inform’ articulates a sense of aggression through a tsunami of random beats, while ‘Weave Your Web’ caresses with its ambrosial freeform washes. The forthcoming single, ‘All Exhale’ utilises the funked-up beats of electro with the addition of nagging analogue vocal hooks while ‘Bolt-Up’ pulls on the leash like a rabid dog. Equally as ecstatic is the freestyle drum attack of ‘Let Eat All Vanbrook’ which charges along in a dangerously random manner. More cohesive, direct and mightily accurate than its predecessor, its full-on funk assault is a challenging lesson in modern music. Still as crucial and essential as ever, Slater still is THE teacher and one of the UK’s few world class electronic artists.
‘Wireless’ is released on CD (NOMU70CD) and double vinyl (NOMU70LP) on 4th October.
Snippets:
Full Track Streaming:
“Body Freefall, Electronic Inform”
“Sum Tom Tin”
Special:
“1997-2001 Special // 27-12-2013”
Recommendations:
Luke Slater’s “Freek Funk” on NovaMute
all stuff by Luke Slater and his aliases
all stuff on Mute & sublabels
Buy CD:
Juno
originally released in 1999
Buy Vinyl:
Juno
originally released in 1999
Buy Download:
Qobuz
JunoDownload
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more soon
Commercial Streaming Services:
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Booking:
Luke Slater
Websites:
Luke Slater
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© Photo By Paul Krause
Luke Slater
Luke Slater looks satisfied. Leaning back in the functional surroundings of his West London record label, drawing on a prison thickness roll up and sporting a fine pair of two-tone bowling shoes(!), Slater reflects on the last couple of years. It’s not been a bad end to the century for the Sussex lad who started out as a teenage drummer eventually to end up as one of the UK’s leading exponents of what could loosely be called dance music. In 1997 a wildly eclectic and much praised album, ‘Freek Funk’ saw Slater eventually reap the rewards of a decade of hard work touring the country DJ’ing and promoting a string of underground releases.. Slater’s the real deal, a true believer, someone with a clarity of vision and passion for his trade. Someone who’s never compromised, someone who’s never given up on the feeling that inspired him all those years back on hearing the embryonic sounds of electro. And so to 1999 and the return of the boy wonder armed with a devastating album, the potent ‘Wireless’, that side-steps what we have come to expect and takes us further into uncharted territory. This is the story so far.
Born in Reading, Slater eventually ended up in the suburban surrounding of Horley, a sleepy commuter town to the south of London. Music was always around, the house resonated to the sound of his father’s big band 78’s while Luke persevered unsuccessfully with piano lessons. Tired of the limitations of playing other people’s musical creations, Luke’s attention soon moved on to a tiny drum set that had sat un-played for some time. Bashing out primitive rhythms Slater felt he had found his vocation. At the age of 12 he found himself teaming up with a gang of local teenagers in a less than successful rock outfit. Yet the dead end nature of his efforts were not to deter the young Slater in his quest for his own musical nirvana.
Undeterred and with an ever increasing interest in the possibilities of music, Luke’s attention switched towards the creation of synthesised sounds. Experimenting with sound textures and abstract noises on his father’s antiquated 1957 Garrard Hi-Fi and a less than mint condition reel-to-reel, Slater soon discovered that a world of sci-fi sounds existed beyond the constraints of the organic instruments he had previously tinkered with. Intrigued by the sound of a stylophone it was the lending of a Roland 808 that eventually sparked a latent interest in the perfect beat. Even during these formative years the young Slater’s restless and inquiring mind drove him on questioning the constraints and boundaries of the music he was making. Never content with his creations, a trait that still remains as a driving force today, and inspired by the other worldly possibilities of sci-fi films such as Stanley Kubrick’s epic, ‘2001 – A Space Odyssey’ he soon developed a wider overview of the music he was creating.
Yet by the early eighties a potent musical force had entered Slater’s world. Electro had developed out of the electronic sounds of artists such as Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire and had been mutated into a funked up hybrid more tailored for dance floor consumption. Slater was transfixed. His musical vision and expectations had left him feeling isolated, yet the synthesised assault of electro provided him with an ally, a sound with which he could identify, after all Slater had been dreaming of such music for some time. Inspired and energised by these early polyrhythmic grumblings of electro, Slater set out to define his own musical vision armed only with a handful of scratch records, a battered Roland 808 and the help of a friend’s percussive skills. A journey had begun that would eventually see Slater championed as one of the UK’s most dynamic, risk taking electronic producers.
By 1988 Slater had already been DJ’ing at Troll in London, a defining club in the history of acid house, for over a year. Playing a mix of electro and early jack tracks that had begun to find their way over from Chicago and Detroit, Slater found himself at the centre of the musical revolution that was exploding at the time. Yet by 1989 Luke had found himself back in his native Sussex after a year or so of excess in London’s clubs and warehouse parties. Teaming up with an old friend Al Sage, Luke became involved with the running of a Brighton record shop, Jelly Jam which was soon to spurn a similarly monikered label. Recording in his spare time with Sage, a primitive track titled ‘Freebase’ became the pairs first vinyl outing.
Becoming further immersed in the sounds coming out of the Motor City at the time, Luke went further into his own musical journey teaming up with the legendary Dutch label Djax to produce a crop of incendiary tracks under the guise of Clementine. Always restless, Luke continued to craft tracks that exhibited an alarming diversity and focus. Swapping labels to the wildly eclectic Irdial, Luke created slices of shimmering electronica under the guise of Morganistic while a transfer to the fledgling Peacefrog label saw Slater mould a series of space-funk classics as Planetary Assault Systems. Further changes in identity saw Slater tinker with ambience under the 7th Plain moniker and mount an all out sonic assault with his X-Tront project. By the mid ’90’s Slater had firmly established himself as a true musical maverick, an innovator capable of moments of breathtaking beauty and power that wooed critics and fans alike. Yet his best was yet to come.
By 1997 Slater was beginning to feel the constraints of the music he was creating. Tired of being labelled in a particular way he felt the critics and public’s musical expectations weighing heavily around his neck. Wanting to instil a degree of clarity and focus to his work he dropped the monikers that had for so long defined each style and adopted his own name in a focused attempt to clear the decks and start again with musical forms he felt comfortable with. The result was astonishing.
1997 saw the release of the landmark ‘Freek Funk’ album on London based NovaMute, a piece of music that ripped up the rule book with its fevered diversity and brazen disregard of the public’s perception of Luke Slater. This was Luke as he wanted to sound at the time. Spontaneous and covering much musical ground, the album effortlessly hopped between rabid techno barrages and moments of lush orchestration that dripped a fragile beauty. He had wanted to create a multi-purpose album that could be interpreted on a myriad of levels. What he ended up spawning was something that went far beyond his vision, an album that intrigued and wooed fans and critics alike. Muzik, Mixmag and Jockey Slut pronounced it album of the month as praise came in from all quarters. Slater had produced an album that distilled everything that mattered in his musical world. Compressing his own unique musical journey into an hours worth of sonic alchemy, ‘Freek Funk’ stands as a near perfect summation of all that’s been excellent in electronic music in the last ten years. Innovative, informative and down right funky, ‘Freek Funk’ saw Slater well and truly come of age.
By late 1998 Slater was back in his Crawley based studio, Space Station ø, impatient and restless and ready to go further out beyond the boundaries laid out by ‘Freek Funk’. The autumn of that year saw Slater and erstwhile partner in crime Al Sage, holed up in deepest Sussex plotting the next move. Things had moved on, Slater had become a father for the second time, he had developed an interest in roller-skating, he hadn’t stopped thinking about his next creation and he had been once again listening to the brutal sounds of the electro beat. A plan was devised and Slater set about the casting of what was to become his latest offering, ‘Wireless’ in late 1998.
His mind had been made up. He yearned to craft an album of sharp focus that possessed a crystal clear clarity of style. Stripping away the superfluous, Slater was determined to produce an album that almost went back to basics, an album that utilised the sounds of his youth and pushed them into the future. Inspired by industrial electronic rock, Slater drafted in live percussion and guitar to add muscle to his sounds. The results are astonishing.
‘Wireless’, to released in September 1999, is testament to Slater’s ever developing musical mind. Not content with remaining static and trading on the success of ‘Freek Funk’ Slater has once again swerved violently to confound any pre-conceived expectations. Essentially an electro-breaks based sound, ‘Wireless’ is brutal in it’s lack of restraint. ‘Body Freefall Electronic Inform’ sounds dark and menacing thanks to its freeform rhythmic ferocity, while opening single ‘All Exhale’ motors along courtesy of a rabid electro beat and fazed vocal stabs. Opening track ‘In The Pocket’ and the ambient beauty of ‘Weave Your Web’ show that Slater has not fully disassociated himself from the weirded-out funk of yesteryear. Yet throughout proceedings are powered by the snarl of the kick drum and cymbal with a healthy dose of Slater’s wildly unique sound. Part Sun Ra part Mantronix and part Underground Resistance, ‘Wireless’ is another massive leap for Slater. An album that will astound as much as confound from an artist who refuses to sit still and do as he is told. Give praise to the lord and all hail the return of Luke Slater. You’ve been missed.
