 29/03/2007 Luke Slater is a big name in techno, and he's the latest DJ to add weight to Fabric's compilation marathon. After two 'Fear and Loathing' collections, this finds him brewing a single, heady techno mix. With more aliases than an MI5 agent, he's a tricky man to pin down musically, but in the dead of Fabric nightclub on a cold afternoon there he was, nailed to a chair. Words: Natasha Siggers
You were the first to do a Fabric mix in the club itself. Did you have a big audience?
No, only one or two people! I was gonna do the mix on a night there but I thought one of the styluses would go, or there'd be some guy dropping beer on the records!
What's special about the club?
At Fabric I can get away with being diverse, people there are into that kind of thing.
Has techno always been consistent in your view?
No, it suffered in the mid 90s in the UK. There was a period of no diversity in the clubs. I’d be diverse in my sets, then some guy would come on and play the same type of stuff all the way through. I remember thinking, "note to self - don’t ever do that!"
What's your aim when you play live?
There's no way I’d go on stage with a laptop, so I wanted to introduce live drums, percussion and bass. We strip the tracks back and build them up with the live instruments, keeping the electronic track, but adding the human element to it.
What's the reaction been?
Happily the last date I did at Fabric was such a blinder! There were a few mistakes but that didn’t matter as it was such a release. We want to try and do that with the new album.
How's that progressing?
Well me and James (Ruskin) are working on it separately at the moment, then gathering our things and putting them together. Hopefully it’ll be done soon.
Is it really true you've been to watch ballet?
Well last year Bergheim in Berlin teamed up with a ballet company and put a show on in their club. They also put their feelers out for a fifteen minute piece, and I’d written a lot of plain stuff so I put it together, like a fifteen minute symphony, and it was sadly beautiful. I've never been interested in ballet, but I’d go and see something if it was a bit darker!
LUKE SLATER'S FABRIC LIVE ALBUM IS OUT NOW (FABRIC)
TEXT: BEN HOGWOOD
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