- People associate Laidback Luke, AKA Luke Van Scheppingen, with different sounds depending on their age. If you're a teenager in 2016, you probably know him as one of the key names in the world widely referred to as EDM. If, like me, you're in your late 20s, your first introduction was likely during the glory days of electro house, when Van Scheppingen shared bills with DJs like Boys Noize, Soulwax and Busy P. But if you're pushing 40, you might know him for something entirely different—serious house and techno. Relatively stripped-down and percussive, many of Van Scheppingen's early, mostly sample-based tracks are timeless, and range from cheery, garage-tinged rollers like "Daydream Funk" and "Sweet Sensation" to bass-heavy techno weapons like his remix of Green Velvet's "The Stalker." These tracks, and plenty of others, still get played by DJs in our world today.
Unless you were born before 1980, you've probably never seen Van Scheppingen play a techno set. He says he used to spin the way a lot of other DJs from the Netherlands did during the '90s, with quick, Jeff Mills-inspired transitions and relentless energy. If you were at New York's Flash Factory between 2 AM and 4 AM on Saturday morning, when he swapped EDM for the '90s techno he began his career with, you'd believe him.
The set, which began with a massive breakdown and a burst of white noise, could be separated into two halves. The first was mostly about big moments—not far from the way DJs like Adam Beyer, Len Faki and Joseph Capriati play. Basically, it was the sound of an EDM DJ playing techno. The second half was a different story. The selections became loopier and the transitions seemed longer, making the overall vibe more hypnotic. The flashy mixing was still there (one particularly nice trick was fading in a new track's highs, then filtering them away for a moment, only to slam the new track in fully a few bars later), but the sound became more streamlined—less breakdowns, less white noise.
Running through a mix of classics (Surgeon's "Badger Bite") and psychedelic modern tools (GoldFFinch's "Bis Repetita"), Van Scheppingen seemed more relaxed, as though he was finally able to do what he'd planned to do—play proper techno. He spent less time interacting with the crowd, and more time scrolling through folders on the CDJs. Even with the scratching, it could've been the sound of 7 AM at Berghain. But that's the thing about gifted DJs—it's not what they play, but how they play it. Just like Ben Klock was able to swap techno for house and rock Panorama Bar in September, Van Scheppingen was able to win over sections of the crowd more used to hearing Afrojack and Diplo with purist techno.
It's hard to imagine how adored Van Scheppingen is without going to one of his gigs. When he's on the decks, dozens of people in the crowd vie for his attention—the poses and hand signs are done partially to please them. There's nothing like it in house and techno (I've never been at a Marcel Dettmann gig where someone held up a note reading something to the effect of: "Time for a pic after the show?"), which makes you think that keeping these diehard fans happy is a job on its own. But the crowd's behaviour changed according to the music. In the first half, it was all about fist pumps and whistles—the kind of thing you'd expect at a festival. Later on, the same people I'd seen doing the Laidback Luke hand sign and screaming requests from the dance floor were dancing with their eyes closed and swaying to Jeff Mills' "The Bells"—possibly for the first time.
