- Luke Slater continues to be something of an unsung hero of dance music, although if Fear And Loathing Volume 2 is anything to be going by, that status could be vastly elevated soon.
I've been listening to this for some time now, and it's clear that so much more thought has gone into this than your average ‘bob a job’ collection. It’s scrupulously planned, programmed to feel more like a musical journey than a collection of unrelated tracks.
The voyage starts with Planetary Assault Systems and the seemingly timeless chord that underpins ‘Long Lost’. In fact, Slater waits until the fourth track before introducing anything approaching a kick drum, stringing the tension out and building the expectation. Gradually the basslines assert themselves, and the momentum builds with tracks from Holden, High Tide and Porter Ricks, leading to the majestic ‘Matala Bobo’ from Brotham States. The coolness of Agoria’s ‘Caraibes’ holds little clue to the approaching bassline of Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Hot On The Heels Of Love’, steered via the mixing desk of Carl Craig. This gorgeously warm track is worth the price of the disc alone – who said techno can’t be emotional?!
After this climax the mix gradually subsides but the quality remains, with Lump 200 contributing a couple opf highly distinctive tracks.
Strap yourself in for CD2 though, as it’s a lot faster, dirtier, and funkier. Chris McCormack’s ‘Saturation Point’ is a superb early track, opening up into a widescreen chord progression, and classics old and new rub shoulders as Renegade Soundwave’s ‘Biting My Nails’ leads to Alter Ego’s ‘Rocker’. The whole thing kicks off massively with Martin H’s ‘Anja’, and pumps iron with the drum workouts of Paul Mac and Daniel Jacques. DJ Misjah adds a jacking groove with ‘Life Is Music’, and the funk well and truly hits the fan for Joris Voorn’s ‘Incident’, taken over by a huge piano riff.
This is a storming release from Resist and Slater, full of great music and executed to perfection. Any aspiring DJ could learn that the key to all this seems to lie in the planning – the fact it’s extremely well mixed too is the icing on the cake.