In The Studio With
Adding a lick of paint to his first new Lukid album in ten years, Danny Turner chats to Luke Blair about ditching his pursuit of perfection
Puzzling, complex and yet still oddly accessible, Lukid’s 2012 album Lonely at the Top suggested an electronic artist approaching the peak of his powers. Few might imagine, therefore, that Luke Blair would abandon returning to Lukid for a further decade. Instead, the North London-based producer became hot property in the world of advertising sync, whilst side-stepping into the self-described functionality of drum & bass/jungle with Jackson Bailey, under the name Rezzett, alongside his own Refreshers side project.
The only other constant has been Blair’s monthly show on NTS Radio, allowing him to keep abreast of the latest cutting-edge sounds in dub, hip-hop and electronica. All of the above have fed into Blair’s belated return as Lukid, which serves as a timely reminder of just how comfortably he sits among his peers. Tilt is a refined and sophisticated re-arrival, with piston-like beats underpinning monochrome, sandpapered patterns and gorgeous melodic refrains.
Do you seek out the work of other artists as a form of research to keep up to date with what’s current or relevant in electronic music today?
“I guess listening to any music is research because it’s all going in and influencing me. Part of the reason I work on NTS Radio is because it forces me to find stuff that would be easy to forget if I didn’t do it for a living. But I don’t look for techniques unless I’m doing something very specific – I’m not really that technically minded, although I do genre-study the jungle stuff because it’s a bit like learning a language.”
Was composing for film and TV something you actively sought or did you suddenly find that people were approaching you for projects based on your solo work?
“That whole world is tricky to navigate because a lot of it is about who you know. In my early 20s, I was a runner for a branding agency and met a few people who went on to do film and video within the advertising world. They knew me and my music, so they’d hit me up and ask if I had anything suitable for a particular project. It’s nice to have that discipline alongside my solo stuff where there are no deadlines or briefs.”
What are some of the pros and cons of making music in that world?
“It’s a good way to earn a living in music, especially as there are not that many ways of doing that these days, but you have to be willing to be very versatile, make lots of different types of music and take comments from clients who don’t really know anything about music. You also have to be willing to work quickly and be a cog in a wheel, which can be quite nice when it’s balanced against working on your own stuff.”
You have two drum & bass/jungle side projects, Refreshers and Rezz
