Luke Slater – Alright On Top

I love everything Luke Slater has done. This release is much maligned and the most 'pop' Slater has produced, but I really enjoy it. Pop electro. Don't be a snob. Get involved.

Quite possibly the biggest misstep in Luke Slaters career. Thankfully it didn't end his career there and then, but it did appear to herald the end of his time at Mute Records. Which in itself is a bit of a shame because I thought he was a good fit for the ethos that surrounded Mute at the time.
Simply put, Ricky Barrows vocal style just does not fit with the style of music and production Luke Slater and Alan Sage cooked up for this project. While the music is probably some of the fuzziest and most commercial sounding that Luke Slater has ever put his name to, its still too full on and too strident for Ricky Barrow and leaves him floating around the mix of brash beats and analogue driven synths sounding lost, out of sync and out of energy and makes the juxtaposition of both artists respective duties on the album to extreme for cohesion.
I wouldn't call it all "Straight RUBBISH", because the production and musically you can hear their is something worthwhile there to listen to, if Ricky Barrows vocals were stripped out and if the album had been completely instrumental. I don't think it would still make it one of Luke Slaters better outings, but I think it would pull it back from being "Straight RUBBISH" to maybe just Luke Slaters weaker albums and an indicator of what he would later release and to much better effect, under the LB Dub Corp project.
All is not lost for the album as it stands though and its saving grace lies in the final track, Doctor of Divinity, which is an epic builder of unadulterated techno with Luke Slater and Alan Sage in top notch form, just adding one layer atop another until it feels like the whole track is going to explode until they pull the rug out from under the listener and start again. Doctor of Divinity alone is worth the price of the album and in my humble opinion, a sparkling moment that Luke Slater can be very proud of.

So, I'm just wondering WHY is this tagged as electro? Not even close. If you are looking for electro, This is NOT what you are looking for!!! Straight RUBBISH!!

So basically all I can do is reiterate the disappointment that Ricky Barrow brings to this album. I've heard Luke Slater perform this with a different singer when he was promoting the album, and the singer who performed with him on those nights was far, far better. Ricky has neither the range, nor simply the style for this kind of music. His laid back stoned sound might work on less precise music, but it just falls flat on this.

I also don't rate the vocal production, it's very basic.

Shame as I love the music...

My first taste of Slater was from his video for All Exhale. I bought that album, and it was awesome - techno and breaks and brilliance. So I was excited to hear that he had a new album out. I got it and I was confused.

After returning to this album from some time away from it, I think I understand what happened. He fell for a clubber girl, and wanted to woo her, or he thought he could win her back with this album. Just look at the track titles. Or listen to the songs - they're all about some lost love. Let's start with the first lines of the album:

Now that I feel no pain when I think of you,
I could look back in time but it won't change the view.
It's a superficial life we lead that brings me down,
I can tolerate you now you're not around.
Try to blame me for everything that's happened,
Try to frame me for everything that's been ..

All this over a dancy beat. Not that "All Exhale" didn't make me dance, this is straight-up club-hit style beats. According to an interview, Luke wanted to do an album with vocals for a while, but I really think they don't help much. Ricky Barrow's vocals do very little for me. They are much flatter than the otherwise dynamic, interesting (if a bit more pop than I was expecting) production of the music. Sometimes they completely clash with the music, as with "Take Me Round Again" - really upbeat, except for the vocals, which are flat as always.

The only major variation from this is the last track which is more in the vein of techno, but it's not enough to save this from being simply a notch above average. Mr Slater, please leave this dancy silliness to other artists who do it better, and return to really interesting music.

An "album with songs" — as Luke Slater described his third album on Mute — from techno's best trackhead? Purists and DJs can rightly despair that tracks from Alright on Top will take much more concentration to slot into their sets next to Ben Sims or Millsart. Still, Slater giving over half the album to vocalist Ricky Barrow (formerly of the Aloof) turns out better than expected, certainly a radically different album than his others. Slater's distinctive style of pummeling electro-techno is still audible, though occasionally he's content to simply recycle a few electronic pop conventions rather than explore new ground. "You Know What I Mean" rages like any post-millennial electro-industrial band, while "Stars and Heroes" works in sequencer territory reminiscent of Giorgio Moroder disco or Depeche Mode synth pop. Alright on Top does have some amazing productions ("Only You" and "Searchin' for a Dream" especially), but too much of the album is ruined by Barrow's trite lyrics and over-reaching delivery. ("You Know What I Mean" begins: "I'm here/Looking for nothing looking at someone/Maybe you got what I need.") Barrow fails at his frequent attempts to hit the heights of legendary falsettos from Horace Andy to Marvin Gaye, and rarely succeeds at his quest to summon the stoned beatitude of Spiritualized's Jason Pierce. It's admirable of Slater to dive right into the world of vocal/production collaborations instead of simply dipping a toe in the water, but tapping a better vocalist would have produced much better results.