It’s no secret to anyone that 2002 has been a difficult year for electronic music of the progressive variety. If I had a dollar for every time I have read or have been told that progressive was dead, well I would probably be able to afford that Rane mixer and CDJ 1000 on my Christmas list with no need for any help from Santa.
Well maybe it has been a disappointing year for many of the Super Clubs of the world but if you look over the quality of progressive music originating from Australia in 2002 things look as promising as ever – one of those things in particular is Luke Chable.
Some of you might not think you’ve heard of Luke Chable, but chances are you have. If you don’t know him by name, then maybe you’ve heard of him as Quest or part of Digital Mind Control (Luke and Ivan Gough), Dark Alley (Luke, Ivan Gough and Phil K), Lo Step (Luke and Phil K) or more recently as part of ACL / 21st Century Fux (Luke Austin Leeds & Martin Accorsi). If you’ve bought any progressive compilations in the last few years, chances are Luke has had a hand in some of the tracks on them – to date he’s been licenced to eight compilations internationally, most recently this year on Phil K’s new Balance CD on Stomp as well as Dave Seaman’s Melbourne Global Underground 22.
Not bad for a 23 year old from Eltham, Victoria really.
At the tender age of 10, Luke’s family purchased an Amega computer. Instead of playing games (well I’m sure he probably had a few), Luke discovered that he could make music. Being a bit of a Star Trek fan, he found a bunch of samples from the series and started writing beats around them. This experimentation continued for a few years until the computer was eventually sold – but the seed it seems was sewn… Over the next few years, at the insistence of his Parents, Luke tried his hand at both Piano and Violin, but neither seemed to really stick.
Luke began writing tracks again in his mid teens and once old enough to attend clubs began frequenting Melbourne’s Metro, eventually becoming a promoter there. During this time there Luke would hassle long time Metro resident Micky B with new tracks he had made on CD. To his surprise at the time, Micky started playing them.
After school Luke decided to follow his interests in Media and Graphics beginning study at Victoria University. Going into the course already with a fairly extensive skills base due to his inquisitive nature, Luke felt that he wasn’t getting out of it what he wanted and left after six weeks and started to concentrate on his music.
(when Gavin Keitel drops some Digital Mind Control at Sunny next time just remember that last sentence)
Around this time Luke hooked up with veteran Melbourne producer Ivan Gough who helped him get signed to Andy Van’s label Vicious Vinyl with his first track – Accelerator, which ended up being included on Sandra Collins‚ Cream compilation (among others).
What strikes me about Luke is his passion for what he does. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why his tracks manage to stand out above much of the formulaic “bog prog” which has begun to take over record store shelves. Maybe it’s also the narratives that he plays out through his music. The idea for Sealers Cove, his debut under his own name Luke Chable, grew from the beach of the same name deep in Victoria’s Wilson’s Promontory. “To get there you have to hike for ages through all of this dense jungle – then all of a sudden it opens out to this amazing beach cove”.
So I asked Luke what tracks inspired him? What did he regard as good examples of the progressive sound? Two tracks come to mind, probably not surprisingly man of the moment James Holden had a hand in both of them – “Better Make Room and James Holden’s remix of [b]NYCU’s Loki are two tracks that I love. Both have these amazing bass lines with bit of subtle melody over the top of them”. Listening recently to Thinking Of You, his new collaboration with Austin Leeds and Mark Accrosi as 21st Century Fux you can definitely hear the influence.
So what’s in store for the future? Luke currently has a deals with Melbourne based label Zero Tolerance as Luke Chable, as well as Kasey Taylor’s Vapour Recordings under the guise of Quest. He’s also about to embark on a new drum and bass project called Ten Four with another one of Australia’s big movers in the last year Nubreed as well as continuing his fruitful association with Phil K (in Luke’s opinion one of the most under-rated DJs in the world). Making waves recently on all of the dance music forums across the internet was talk of Luke’s recent bootleg remix of Sasha’s “Cloud Cuckoo”. Some have gone as far as labelling it one of the best remixes of a Sasha track ever. Word is that the man himself now has a copy of it and perhaps we may be seeing a full release of that next year also.
Luke has also started DJing over the last few years. Locally his performances have been limited but he’s been behind the decks a fair bit more internationally. Has he got any ambitions there? “The last set at Summerdayze would be amazing. There’s not much better than that as far as I’m concerned”. I think he might have a hard time wrestling that one away from Mr. Quinn for a little while however.
