out for a while: Luke Slater – Freek Funk [NovaMute]

Artist:
Luke Slater

Title:
Freek Funk

Label:
NovaMute

Cat#:
NOMU57

Release Date:
20th October 1997 (original release date for physical items)

Format:
CD, vinyl, download & streaming

Tracklist:
01.
Purely

02.
Score One

03.
Origin

04.
Score Two

05.
Are You There?

06.
Score Three (Message from Hulal)

07.
Engine One

08.
Freek Funk

09.
Zebediah

10.
Bless Bless

11.
Filter 2

12.
Time Dancer

13.
Score Four (Black Cloud Over Zin Vortex)

14.
Love

15.
Black Cloud (Epilogue)

16.
Walking The Line

Press Info:
Something of an unique talent, Luke Slater does not run with the pack. Shunning the obvious and adopting the different, Slater has forged an eclectic album of esoteric techno, chilling ambience and funk driven grooves. ‘Freek Funk’ is the album that so many have striven to make, an album that smashes the nuances and particulars of the techno genre into little pieces, rearranging them in a strange pattern to create a truly original album of polar opposites and polyrhythmic twists. ‘Freek Funk’ indeed.

A self-motivated individual, Slater stands alone, looking in on a scene he has helped to mould. Unconcerned with the vagaries of fashion, Luke is all the better for his almost isolationist position and is left to mould a rich and rewarding blend of sound that owes as much to his own frantic imagination as to the techno tradition.

Boasting an output as frenetic as the Dagenham Ford motor plant, Slater has progressed through a series of guises and labels at a rapid rate. From his newly forged relationship with NovaMute, Luke has etched out an album, ‘Freek Funk’, that is the perfect remedy for techno’s current painting-by-numbers attitude. Seemingly never content nor happy with its course, the album progresses, twisting and turning and spitting out warped takes on familiar themes. Simply passing it off as another techno album would be absurd. Luke Slater has much more to offer.

‘Freek Funk’ sees the ascension of a prodigious talent to his rightful position. Opening with the funk-driven ‘Purely’, we are then transported to ‘Score One’, a darkly futuristic soundscape which melts into ‘Origin’ and ‘Score Two’, a bubbling mass of weird sounds and deep beats. The trip continues throughout the album with the warped relatives ‘Scores Three And Four’, popping up intermittently throughout proceedings with the stealth of a John Carpenter score. Electro gets a nod with ‘Are You There?’, with its rich string arrangements and soothing waves of bell chimes this is a ‘Tour De France’ for the 1990’s. ‘Bless Bless’ is a different creature altogether, a spacedusted silver surfer’s rare groove anthem. Onwards to ‘Time Dancer’, where James Brown meets Liz Frazer on a car production line – ethereal industrial funk if you like. And not to forget the stellar beauty of ‘Love’ that ranks alongside UR’s ‘Amazon’ as a track to break hearts at 40 beats and the otherworldly madness of ‘Walking The Line’, a jazz odyssey that conjures forth the Saturnalian spirit of Sun Ra.

An untouchable album by an untouchable talent. Luke Slater, the future starts here.

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