Border Community Showcase

Producer Luke Abbott, who's based in Norfolk, England, is seriously well qualified to create unique beats. He has a masters degree in electro-acoustic composition, but university isn’t the only place he cut his skills. Abbott’s passion for left-of-centre music was sparked by his father’s extensive vinyl collection. “Being exposed to a lot of different kinds of music when I was young had a big influence on me,” Abbott explains. “It gave me a taste for obscurity and let me know that there was music out there that you weren’t going to hear on the radio.”

Abbott has resided on Border Community, James Holden’s genre-defying electronic music label, since early in his career and seems to be enjoying the current living arrangements. “I sent in a demo and I was just kind of lucky that they listened to it and I was even luckier that they liked it,” he explains. “It’s kind of like a creative family, but most of all we are all just good friends and that’s a really nice way to keep things.”

Holkham Drones, Abbott’s debut LP, was released on the label in 2010, and true to Border Community form, the album is hard to pigeonhole. “Holkham Drones is quite heavily influenced by '70s German krautrock and experimental electronic music,” says Abbott. “I suppose I was trying to use the structure of dance music to explore other sounds that I was interested in. It’s not by any stretch of the imagination a traditional dance record, but it’s got blueprinted techno behind it.”

It was a long journey for Abbott, with one of Holkham’s lead singles, 'Brazil', taking a year to complete. “Actually, I don’t really ever consider things to be finished,” says Abbott. “But I work in a live situation and that’s a really good place to experiment with things.”

This month, Abbott will bring said live situation to the Chinese Laundry as part of the Border Community showcase that also features Fairmont and Avus. It's a must-see for fans of the record, as Abbott is known for delivering unique sets each time he plays. “When I play live there is no set expression of the way things are. I try to change things as much as I can.”