#17 Deeper Into Outer Space | Luke Slater
“I remember how we walked into this club with UV light everywhere, the people in there seemed like they were from outer space. It felt like I’d come home…”
Past, present and future sounds are all strands bound up in the electronic music of producer and artist Luke Slater but staying in his lane isn’t something he’s known for.
Contemplative and considered in conversation from his studio, Luke’s discography consists of an extensive collage of musical styles - none perhaps as colourful as the collection of tracks showcased on his new record, ‘Saturn to Home’, this time released under the alias of L.B. Dub Corp.
Featuring Robert Owens, Kittin and Paul St Hilaire among his collaborators, the record taps into a love of electro, dub, new wave, psychedelia, even ska - just not the techno that this artist is so revered for.
“I was acutely aware that I was going to the left hand side of what I do with this album,” Luke says. “It’s a divergence I’m often unable to stop, but has got me into plenty of interesting situations all through my life, just doing things even though they can be high risk.”
It’s a roll of the dice that has paid off with ‘Saturn to Home’, one of the most eclectic and exciting releases in a musical career that has spanned decades and seen Luke unleash over 20 albums.
Name-checked on Daft Punk’s ‘Teachers’, a revered DJ known for his affiliation with Ostgut Ton, FACT previously wrote, “if there was a Techno Hall of Fame, Slater would be in on the first ballot”. His influence as a bastion of all things alternative and electronic looms large.
“I started to become more like a producer than an artist on this album,” Luke says. “I was in Trevor Horn mode with these voices appearing across the record, I wanted it to be more about them than me. I don’t always play things safe in the studio and the outcome of this felt really good.”
Teenage club revolution
If the record celebrates where he’s been, then it’s blueprint can be traced to Luke’s clubbing experiences, activities that have shaped him since he was a music-obsessed teenager. Back then, he saw nightclubs as places to discover new music, not to “wear a Rick Astley suit, drink as many pints as you could and try and chat someone up”.
Instead, Luke’s most important clubbing moments were in the capital towards the end of his teens. It was in London where he found spaces that offered him something more substantial than a place to go and get obliterated at the end of the week.
“I was 18/19, and roped in a few mates as I’d heard about this place, Soundshaft next to Heaven,” he says of his adventures. “I got word that this was really cool, so we all went to this night called Troll.”
“I remember how when we walked into this club with UV light everywhere, the people in there seemed like they were from outer space. It felt like I’d come home. I listened and the DJ was mixing records, it was really early house, I was like fucking hell man, this is really what I’m looking for.”
Some of Luke’s friends were sceptical about the club’s magic, leaving Luke to return the next week on his own, this time with a mixtape he’d made. He handed it over to the DJ and ended up with a gig. This was his gateway, the moment he immersed himself in London’s club scene, a world where he still exists, creates and plays.
“It was probably ‘88 and this club set the standard of what I expected to get from this experience,” he says. “I left home, moved to London, slept on the floor of someone’s flat and just started DJing every week. It was the birth of so many things.”
Back then, Luke fueled his sets by hoovering up vinyl from shops scattered among Soho, places like Blackmarket and Hitman Records while going out clubbing on nights when he wasn’t playing to clubs including Spectrum and Rage. He also went to the outdoor raves dotted around the M25 too.
“When I heard about the parties around the M25, it wasn’t like, ‘oh yeah this is part of this cultural revolution we’re all involved in’. It was more like; ‘Why the M25?’” he laughs.
“I wasn’t a regular rave guy, I remember doing a few and getting tractors across fields, no one knew who would be playing, and they felt like a bit of a mess but I remember them being quite good fun. But the M25 thing wasn’t my revolution - it was the clubs and the music that came before that sent me on my way.”
Transition into producing
While he was busy DJing around London, Luke’s ambitions evolved into finding a way to start making music, overtaking his desire to play in clubs.
Around 1990, through a friend of a friend, he managed to find his way into a studio in Hammersmith with the opportunity to create sounds. Turning up with a collection of samples, this was the first time he’d passed the threshold of a real music studio.
“They had all the gear there, the engineer was Edwin Starr’s brother which I thought was extra cool,” laughs Luke. “I just wanted to talk about ‘Happy Radio’ - but he wasn’t up for it.”
“We tried to put something together but it was intense, as I didn’t want someone to be in charge of engineering and putting together the tracks,” he continues. “I was trying to explain that I wanted a certain sound or distortion but what I was into was too far removed from anything that a big studio knew. We were talking about punk DIY from our side, they were coming from a very fully-formed, ‘this is how you should make a record’ point of view.”
Among the many moving parts at the time during the early nineties, Luke also ran a record shop in Brighton. Looking back, a line can be traced through his movements but in reality, everything was more random and new without any sense of linear progression.
“I was just coasting it to see where everything took me,” he says. “There was no structure to anything at the time. The only thing that I knew I wanted to do was make records.”
Techno futures
Fast forward to the present day, and Luke has witnessed the full arc of electronic music culture, from its genesis in the clubs, then fields to where it is now as a huge commercial behemoth, spilling out in all directions from 3D digital worlds to festivals, casinos and beyond.
“Throughout the nineties, I would always talk about techno as the future,” Luke says, “How at the some point it would become the foundation for music. Now it’s kind of a question of be careful for what you wish for because the way I see it, that has happened. But I’d be a hypocrite if I said it shouldn’t be so commercial.”
It was in 1993 that Luke began touring, getting booked to play all over the world. His reputation may have been shaped in the UK but his status as a DJ and producer really kicked into overdrive once he started getting these international bookings. However, rather than being influenced by the places he visited, he sees himself as someone who would bring his energy and sound into them, leave his electronic music mark on a town or city before moving onto the next.
“I became an export really. I’m very proud of the UK for what it does musically,” he explains. “I think some of it stems from how hard and messy it is to live here, it breeds this kind of creation that is so important, I love that.”
“In my mind, I’ve always tuned into that, the slightly oppressive, hard graft of the UK. If you go to Holland, everything is so lovely. Sometimes creativity doesn’t always come from things being great. I was a sufferer in that way, I didn't like being too comfortable.”
Saturn to Home
Luke’s new record as L.B. Dub Corp - the first under this guise since his ‘Side Effects’ album in 2018 - offers an aural smorgasbord of contrasting sonics, drawing on electro, dub, reggae, new wave, everything he loved until house music crashed into his conscious.
“I was at this point where I wanted to see if I could pull stuff from my history that I could use now,” he says of the record’s jumping off point. “It had to work for me musically rather than be a kind of sound that I’d just chuck some vocals on top of.”
Perhaps most notably among the record is the cast of characters Luke managed to assemble behind the microphone. Robert Owens, known for his work as Fingers Inc with Larry Heard, is a true icon of dance music and appears on ‘You Got Me’.
“Robert Owens, he’s a hero, like the Prince of house music, he’s been such a huge influence on me. When I got hold of him and he was up for working on the track, I was like: I can kind of die happy now.”
“For me, it felt really special, particularly as he really went for it as well. I had about 20 tracks of vocals and it naturally gelled, I’m so happy with how it came out.”
Luke bumped into Kittin at a gig he was doing in Spain at a point when he was struggling to find a vocalist for what would go on to become the album’s eponymous title track.
“I was walking out of the venue, and realised that the lines had been lined up here, so went back and told her I could hear her voice on this piece of music,” says Luke. “She took it away, did her thing and it’s worked out so well.”
For an artist synonymous with techno, this is not a pulsating collection of tracks aimed solely at the dancefloor. Instead, it’s a more expansive way of doffing his cap to where he’s come from and some of the artists who have inspired him over the course of his musical adventures.
“This album is how I was formed before techno right up to the early stages of house,” he says. “I am paying homage to everyone who influenced my career like Robert, the dubbier aspects of my music, of how important dub was to techno and house, the way those producers worked mixing desks is the same way as techno acts. I really wanted to acknowledge those things that shaped how I got to where I am now.”
Gear and palettes
Much has been made of Luke’s playing the drums on the record and he bolstered this with the an arsenal of equipment he has at his fingertip. Still, he’s not married to tech or equipment. To him, inspiration and ideas are far more important than the tools he uses to harness his creativity.
“I’ve always gone with the John Lennon quote, give me a couple of spoons and I’ll make a tune out of it,” Luke says. “I really like that idea that if you’ve got something in your head and you have something in front of you, then you can create a rhythm or noise, I’ve always been like that.”
Luke’s approach is eclectic too, with certain tracks on this album starting on a laptop in between gigs or delving into old recordings which he sampled. One of his favourites is ‘Only the Good Times’, a track featuring the sample of a wheelchair-bound street preacher from Eindhoven, Arnold Knox.
“This guy, he was quite a celebrity in Eindhoven,” says Luke. “I like street preachers, it’s easy to say what you want online now, but it’s much harder to say what you want and take the good and the bad that comes with it in person. I’ve always found this inspiring, even if I don’t agree with what they say.”
Luke went to visit Eindhoven and recorded some of Arnold’s speeches. The audio sat on his phone for a few years before revisiting it for this album, then, as he was building the track, he discovered that Arnold had sadly passed away.
“The track became this ode to him, this spiritual idea of life, and by the time I finished it, I was in tears man,” Luke recalls. “Seriously, I’m not kidding, it really hit me, the whole journey of life started happening around me.”
“The album has been really strange like that, these ad hoc connections, it’s been a ride, a great ride and it’s been different to how I sometimes put together records. For me the whole album has been like eating a good meal, I’m so happy with it, that counts for a lot when I feel like it’s come together well.”
New futures
With the record now imminent (due for release on 24th May), the rest of 2024 will see Luke undertaking more music, travelling, and DJing. As a seasoned clubber, artist and live performer, he’s optimistic about the future of nightlife at a time when the prevailing headlines are full of closures and decline.
“I’ve lived my life in clubs and events, I’ve been on the road since 1993, the longest time I’ve had off when the pandemic happened,” he states. “My whole life revolves around them. What I see out there now in clubs, it’s more in tune with the vibe that I feel should be there - maybe I seek these experiences out, but that’s what I see and hear.”
As far as Luke is concerned, cities and towns have always been in a constant of flux since he’s been DJing and producing. Evolution is a wave that we all need to learn to ride, just as he’s been doing for more than 30 years.
“I’m not a fan of the way money has shut down venues due to developers,” he says. “It’s been happening for decades - I’ve seen it happen - but if you start talking stuff down, you don’t go anywhere. The nineties were pretty shit, it was the music, ideology and culture that got me through it mainly man, that’s what saved me. It’s got to go on - just cos things change, it’s not the end - it’s changing and things change all the time.”
Visit lukeslater.com for more. ‘Saturn to Home’ is released via Dekmantel on 24th May.
For more on club and rave culture, you can order a copy of my book, ‘Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture’ via the Velocity Press website now.