Luke Slater Smokes Out Political Correctness

British techno-electro star Luke Slater has included a controversial new photo on the artwork of his upcoming Fear & Loathing 2 compilation CD, which features him brazenly smoking a cigarette.

The heart-throb tobacco fiend poses moodily with a hand-rolled reefer across two full pages of the CD's accompanying booklet, some four years after he rowed with renowned anti-smoking advocate Moby, when the duo performed together in London.

"A member of his crew tried to stop me smoking in my dressing room at the Scala, which I absolutely would not do," Luke told Skrufff soon after the incident. "I believe it's my right to smoke in my dressing room, so we had a little "thing' about that," he recalled.

While Luke's clearly maintained his unwavering commitment to tobacco, musically, he appears to be continuing to change his mind, not least according to the press release accompanying Fear & Loathing.

"Although Luke is generally regarded as a "techno' DJ, on this album he tried to distance himself from this tag", the release explains, "and explores a truly wide range of electronic music across various micro-genres".

In practise, this means the album starts off in downtempo, ambient mode (via late night gems like Planetary Assault Systems' Long Lost and Nathan Fake's The Sky Was Pink) picking up towards techno more on CD 2 (including tracks from Paul Mac, Mr G and Mark Williams). Missing, however, are tracks from his favourite rock bands Radiohead and the Beatles ("one of the best love songs ever written is "A day in the life', he told Skrufff in 2002).

"Radiohead have made such a difference to me, because they bridged this gap between rock, indie and electronic songs and brought production into what they were doing," he said. "They really inspired me, as a band who's managed to successfully bring an electronic synth into a rock song."

http://www.resist-records.co.uk (Fear & Loathing 2 is out shortly on Resist Records, while Luke Slater plays Fabric on February 5)

http://www.moby.org/info/ar-lmm.html (Moby on smoking: "Tobacco use has killed & harmed more people than all human wars combined . . .')
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