Luke Abbott

Norfolk’s premier electronic explorer, Luke Abbott takes a sabbatical from his Szun Waves trio to offer up the rich, filmic textures of new album, Translate. Hamish Mackintosh catches up with Luke and gets lost in Translation

- Hamish Mackintosh

Luke Abbott has a wealth of electronic experience in various guises be it his Earlham Mystics alias (with remixes for the likes of Jon Hopkins, Todd Terje and Nils Frahm), the electronic-jazz explorations of trio Szun Waves or as himself on brilliant new solo album Translate. Engineered by long-time friend, collaborator and Border Community label boss, James Holden, Translate was recorded in three-day bursts at Holden’s spacious modular laden west London recording complex, Sacred Walls. It’s an immersive and rewarding electronic journey through the musical impulses of a musician/ producer always willing to explore new musical territories. FM caught up with Luke to find out more.

Translate has a real cohesive feel to it. Is that due to the large gestation period?

“I think it comes down to two things really. I made it quite quickly… there were 12 days of recording, which was also the writing period as I didn’t write anything before doing the recording and it was all done in situ. We did that over four sessions, one a month in James’ (Holden) studio in London. I’m based in Norwich, so I’d go down there, set up, stay there for two or three days and work on stuff to see what I came up with. I’d averaged out at about one good track a day… which is a fair hit rate. So, that’s probably part of why it feels cohesive because it was such a short period of time. The thing I think really links the tracks is that so much of the sound is the room sound. It all happened in the same space so there’s a sense of place about the record.”

Having previously interviewed James in his wonderful Aladdin’s cave, how do you begin when making gear choices?