Luke Slater Makes His Miami Debut With 40 Years of Experience in Tow

In a 2000 interview, ostensibly during a rave, England's famed DJ/producer Luke Slater stepped off the decks and spoke into a microphone. With speedy percussive patterns droning in the back and people flinging their hands up to the music, a boyish Slater waxed philosophically about how he plays. "If you had to sum me up," he paused to think, "I'm a person who likes it pretty hard, mate. I like the hard stuff. What is the world without the hard stuff?"

Speaking to New Times from his home in England, Slater takes the opportunity to clarify. "I think I should've inserted into that I like hard stuff with groove," he chuckles. "I always liked stuff that had some groove really happening into it. When things get really regimented and soulless, I tune off. Dance music, early house and techno, always had a groove."

Slater's foray into DJing began in the 1980s, playing hip-hop around Bristol. His love for technology, hardware, and Detroit pushed him into techno, spending the last 30 years playing and serving as a resident at the greatest clubs in the world while producing phenomenal euphoria-dripping tunes and bone-crushing techno.

Nonetheless, even legends still have bucket lists. For Slater, he will be ticking off one notable goal that incredibly has never been met: playing in Miami. "I've been through Miami to get to Colombia," Slater confesses. "I'm really curious about this gig. I'm going to keep an open mind, see what the crowd enjoys, and see how it goes."

He can finally cross it out on Saturday, July 20, when he spins at Jolene Sound Room downtown.

Slater will bring the sounds that have defined his career to Miami, whether as the kid drummer, hip-hop DJ from days of yore, or his myriad electronic music aliases. There is Luke Slater, the fast techno DJ, and his '90s noms de guerre: Planetary Assault Systems, a faster, febrile techno DJ, and L.B. Dub Corp, a speedy though looser and more experimental dub-centric project.

All three will be in attendance for the Miami gig and provide a rare clash of icy techno sounds against the usual disco and house fanfare heard at Jolene.

This is not to say Slater's music cannot be playful. Like any DJ worth their salt, Slater sees dance music and his approach to it as cyclical. Some years, it's always dark and brazen; other sets can be funky and delicate for the weekend warriors to enjoy. "I think there was a period at the end of the '90s where the kind of harder and faster sound wasn't working for me," reflects Slater. "I was rethinking the hard techno approach."
He explains that his track selection has never changed. "I don't have anyone who downloads promos for me. You lose something doing that. I throw all the tracks through Traktor. You get sent so much stuff these days, but I love seeing what's going on."

There is no better example of Slater's elasticity than "Love." Produced for his 1997 album Freek Funk, sugary synths float above a fast beat and a deep, hazy vocal sample. A mere few minutes into "Love," Slater can give even the most stubborn listener lost in a rush of euphoria.

In 2019, he recruited Burial and Marcel Dettmann to remix "Love." Slater also put his own spin on the track with a Planetary Assault Systems remix.

"Remixes are tough," he admits, who has done countless throughout his career. "I took on a lot of remixes because many people wanted them, so I took time just to do remixes. It can take me months to finish a remix because it's not my music per se, and I find it easier to write stuff fresh. It's surprisingly grueling. I think because it's the result of trying to be good enough, especially if the track is good anyway."

Slater's most recent project was resurrecting his L.B. Dub Corp alias after a five-year hiatus for Saturn to Home. Released in May, the eight-track album features vocal work from Robert Ownes and Miss Kittin. It's dub-laden and deep; other times, it delves into soul-searching melodica, all while keeping the album fit for the club as well as the listener on the train.

"It's really varied. I think part of that album was about bringing those rhythms from my past, going back even further than just DJing, into something new," Slater explains. "You can recognize the house part of it while also having dub, a little bit of Italo disco, and Balearic music. People tell me they like it, which means a lot to me."

The sounds change and technology advances, but Slater doesn't dwell on any particular "golden era" or think one dance epoch is above all. The fact that the sound changes and endures is proof that Slater has made an impact.

"People come up and talk to me about the '90s. It kind of manipulates your time," he says. "I suppose one of the great things musically is that I have a really large back catalogue of records, and I think that catalogue isn't the same as before and that it went away. Any age of record is king of current to a degree; it's represented the same way in front of us on a computer as a new record."

Luke Slater. With Elias Garcia and Ultrathem. 10 p.m. Saturday, July 20, at Jolene Sound Room, 200 E. Flagler St., Miami; 305-603-9818; jolenesoundroom.com. Tickets cost $11.22 to $14.02 via dice.fm.