Luke Slater: Music without humanity is a paradox
03/01/2007

“Programs like Ableton definitely take away any real feeling from the mix, they take out the human element and if you erase that, then you’re left with the problem of having to add something else into the mix that actually isn’t human. Music without humanity is a paradox.”

With paradox meaning either ‘a statement that seems to be contradictory but in fact may be true’ or just ‘a statement that contradicts itself’ (Oxford English Dictionary), Luke Slater’s argument is not immediately clear, though he’s clarifies straightaway.

“Pianos are not tuned mathematically; if they were scientifically tuned they’d sound terrible. That sums it up for me,” he continues, “I never use any software when I mix, sticking Ableton in it would just make it boring.”

The topic’s arisen as the UK techno don is discussing his latest mix album for Fabric (Fabric 32) a compilation he put together ‘on a chilly November afternoon’ with minimal preparation or practice,' as Luke’s keen to stress.

“This is a mix I did in the club when it wasn’t open, a couple of bits I did edit out, but that’s all,” he insists, “Which is what I wanted.”

“There were a couple of sound engineers in the room that’s all, and I just put myself in the headspace of the club when it was open which wasn’t hard at all. If I’d done when the club was open to the public, I swear I would have had somebody coming up to me for a chat in the middle of it, or someone else spilling beer on a record or the power would have gone off. I didn’t want to risk it.”

“I didn’t want it to be over-produced,” he continues, when probed about his instant approach.

“You can try too hard at something, you can overdress it, embellish it, but that’s not the purpose. This is what I do, why try and make it into something else? With me, what you see is what you get.”

As well as mixing Fabric’s latest compilation CD Luke recently released a 4 track electro-tech EP Head Converter featuring him singing proper vocals for the first time- which he’ll be reproducing in the new year on tour with a band.


Skrufff (Benedetta Ferraro):, what stage are you at with your live performance?

Luke Slater: “Two years ago I really wanted to play live again but the options were either going for the pure electronic thing with all the gear on stage which we did a few years ago or to put all the gear into a laptop, which we did the year after. I decided at that point that I didn’t want to go on stage with a laptop, to me it looks absolutely crap, there’s no contact with the crowd and I really don’t like that. I want to keep my music electronic but I also want some real feeling to come out of it, and the best way to strike a compromise was to form a band around the electronics. From that point we started rehearsing and last year we did a few performances too and it held up well.”

Skrufff: Who’s in the band?

Luke Slater: “James Ruskin is handling the electronics, we have a drummer and a live bass, plus the whole percussions section which is really important to me. I handle the synths, vo-coder, vocals and move around the stage a lot really. I nearly fell off the bloody thing at Fabric, because it’s so small. I nearly stage dived. But I’d rather put my whole self into it, whether it works or not, than do it half-heartedly. I just enjoy it, so what the john tesh.”

Skrufff: You appeared on the cover of Fear and Loathing 2 smoking a cigarette: you still smoking and does it affect your voice?

Luke Slater: “I do still smoke, yes. I’m not sure if this will affect my voice… Rather than calling myself a singer though I prefer say that I express myself vocally.”

Skrufff: I remember seeing you at Nag Nag Nag few times over the last few years, do you still go clubbing much?

Luke Slater: “If I’m not DJing I tend not to go out. To be honest, I’ve never been big on going out, but if I’m in London I might pop down to Nag still, for example, because it’s midweek and I really like it down there. I like to find strange places; I’m not really a raver. . . . (pausing for thought). I suppose I was a raver in the beginning but the fact is that DJing has been so exploited now, I swear everyone I meet either is, or wants to be a DJ.”

Skrufff: Why do you think that is? Is it too easy a profession perhaps?

Luke Slater: “I think the majority of people do it for the birds and the booze. But it’s not really why I do it.”

Skrufff: Sure, but a guitarist or a singer in a band would equally get that… so why people would rather take on DJing than learn to play an instrument?

Luke Slater: “I don’t know, but then again I can’t knock it. When I was very young and I first got my decks in my room, all I did was learning to mix. Maybe the legacy just continues. The funny thing is that now I don’t even own a pair of Technics. I have five decks, three of which are broken, and the other two are mis-matched. I just play out, I can’t stand it to play a home.”

Skrufff: Your biog says you’ve been involved in music for 27 years, how do you view the whole ageing process?

Luke Slater: “I went through a period a few years ago when I suddenly found myself being older, but not that old. I fell into this kind of void where I didn’t know if I was young or old and the issue of where I was became quite important to me for a while. Then I suddenly came to accept what was happening and I was happy about it. The older you get the more you get to know yourself and accept your good and bad points. I’m at a stage now where I enjoy being the age I am. I definitely wouldn’t go back to being a teenager again, though in some respects, I’ve never quite managed to get out of it.”

Skrufff: It’s a great feeling to be able to make a living doing what you love . . .

Luke Slater: “It is great and I realise that as a payback all I can do is to always give 100%. That’s how I justify me getting away with not having to do a 9 to 5.”
Skrufff: Have you ever had a 9 to 5 job or any other more prosaic jobs?

Luke Slater: “I cleaned aeroplanes for a while and I was also greengrocer. I used to stand outside in front of the fruit and veg display, handing out plastic bags. I think being a greengrocer was one of my favourites apart from what I do now. I’m a closet greengrocer. I’ve got a lot of time for market stall holders.”

Skrufff: Paul Oakenfold talked this week about getting tired of spending all his weekends in airports and wanting to get into film production- ever feel the same?

Luke Slater: “Travelling is a real mini cooper. I’ve never enjoyed flying, so that’s my penance if you like. DJing is the good bit. Now that airports are subjected to such a level of security it’s even worse. I thought just recently, whilst I was going through the airport checks, that I really should knock this on the head. There’s something morally wrong with all of this and maybe I should travel by train from now on.”

Skrufff: Do you still carry lots of vinyl?

Luke Slater: “Yes, vinyl and CDs. I’ve cut down on travelling though, say if I’m going to Australia, I’ll go for a month rather than a weekend, because I really cannot justify all those hours on a plane otherwise. Maybe that’s my way of slowing down.”

Skrufff: Last year you told Australian magazine 3D World that you’d only recently started reading books, read any good ones lately; are you still avoiding non-fiction?

Luke Slater: “I didn’t read books for years, but since I started again I have books everywhere. One of the first that got me back into reading was ‘Bad Wisdom’ by one of the KLF guys. I’m more into novels than say biographies; one of the few biographies I’ve read was about Truman Capote, who wrote ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’; I could relate to him, he lived a mad life in New York and was way ahead of his time. Other than that I’d read any thriller, just to get away I suppose. Without art and music I couldn’t exist.”

Fabric 32: Luke Slater is out of Fabric in January; Head Converter EP is out now on Luke’s label Head Converter.

http://www.fabriclondon.com

http://www.lukeslater.com