Wham Bam Thank You Slam

It’s hard to think of a more seminal British dance act than Slam. Sure, names like The Chemical Brothers and Basement Jaxx will be reeled out for their respective re-inventions of breaks and house music, but for sheer life long commitment to a sound, Orde Meikle and Stuart McMillan take some beating. After all, it was Slam who discovered Daft Punk, releasing the French duo’s first EP on their Soma label. The long running imprint has also been the home from home of other massively important artists, with Envoy, Percy X, Funk D’Void, Silicone Soul and Maas (Ewan Pearson, not the German rubber face progressive DJ) all starting their career on Soma, A&R’d and developed under Slam’s careful tutelage.

Let’s not forget either that Slam’s ‘Positive Education’ is still one of the best and most powerful British dance records (though Orde and Stuart will claim they’re Scottish first and foremost), a record that still holds up well despite it being ten years old.

Similarly, records like ‘Stepback’ and ‘Dark Forces’ had a massive effect on club land, uniting the jacking house sensibilities of Chicago with the musical depth of Detroit in one steely funk pincer movement. That the duo and their Soma label have been credited as one of the prime movers in the development of tech-house, a scene that thrives in the seemingly divorced environs of London, says a lot about the impact their surprisingly small output – six EPs and one album in ten years – has had on British club culture.

While Soma recently celebrated their one hundredth release lately - a collaboration between Slam and James Lavelle’s UNKLE project – Slam themselves have been very quiet over the last year but now they do have finally surfaced again with a new album, Alien Radio. As Orde Meikle explains, the long awaited follow up to Headstates wasn’t delayed on purpose; remaining true to themselves, Slam had to wait until they felt the time was right to record a second album.

"When we finished Headstates we wanted to move on to other projects," Orde says. "It isn’t a conscious thing, but it’s something that other people always point out to us. We don’t think about the gap between our releases, we just do it when we feel the time is right. Slam is more special, deeper than the other music we make and the right head state has to exist for us to do it."

With a promise that the third album won’t take as long to arrive, Alien Radio will do very nicely in the meantime. An amalgamation of deep, Detroit techno, wide screen electro and funky, house grooves – "our musical influence; when we first came onto the scene things weren’t quite as categorised as they are now. It’s all house music to us, part of a bigger picture and it helps to keep your ears open" – the album also features vocals from former One Dove singer Dot Allison and Tyrone, whose uplifting ’80s style vocals is on the forthcoming single, the radio play-listed ‘Lifetimes’.

So is this new direction a sign that Slam are looking for a big hit and want to leave their underground roots behind?

"No way, we’ve always wanted to use vocals," Orde answers unflinchingly, adding "we see our music career as a learning curve and because we’re synonymous with instrumental techno it was a brand new experience for us to work with vocalists. Usually it’s just Stuart and me with our heads down behind the machines and Dot and Tyrone, who we heard singing on Felix Da Housecat’s ‘My Life Is Musik’ track were always people we wanted to work with. The vocals introduce a whole new artistic element, and though we weren’t sure how it would turn out we thought it was a risk worth taking.

“At the moment, the last thing techno needs is another instrumental dance album and it’s something we’ve been contemplating doing for a long time. Having said that, we didn’t want to work with just any vocalist, it had to be people we had some kind of connection to. It would have been easier to pluck someone off the shelf who has a big name, but it’s vital for us to work with people we respect."

If there’s still any doubt that the duo have their feet firmly rooted on the ground, then why continue to host two residencies in their hometown, Glasgow, when the whiff of the big bucks of the international circuit beckons, or how come they haven’t gone for the easy option in the studio and made cheesy dance music?

"Luckily, we’ve never had to play the commercial game, " Orde says explaining that "we’ve never been in this for the quick gain; believe me, it would have been easy to do and there were many times where I imagined a Mercedes parked in my drive! It’s the same with Soma, we couldn’t have done it any other way. Being honest and keeping ourselves excited by music is the most important thing to us; none of the success would have come if we hadn’t held dear to those principles. I don’t think we’ll change now.”

‘Alien Radio’ is out on June 11th on Soma