Luke Elliott creates immersive listening experiences where lines between the real and imagined become blurred. His new album, “Every Somewhere,” puts that through a sharper lens, with repeating patterns sending listeners through a sonic prism in search of a sense of freedom. Through inventive sampling processes and organic, fluid compositional approaches, Elliott reframes ideas of whimsy and exploration into an emotive aural monument where anything feels possible. It’s one of the most compelling ambient albums of the year.
“Every Somewhere” is available in digital formats and a two-track handmade 7″ lathe via AKP Recordings HERE.
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As ever, I like to start at the beginning. What are some of your earliest memories related to music and sound? Was there a lot of music around when you were growing up?
Growing up there weren’t any musicians in my family, but my mum, dad & sisters were avid listeners. My mum was a big into soul, always playing records like Gladys Knight and The Pips, my dad loved female vocalists like Celine & Whitney and some rock music like Queen, Yes, and my sisters Ibiza classics, so I think that built the foundation for my somewhat eclectic taste.
An early memory, I am ALWAYS tapping, and always have, even now, I used to keep my mum and dad awake at night because I would tap on the bed and the wall. One time I remember my mum busting into my room late at night saying please can you stop tapping, but this time it wasn’t me, my next-door neighbor had fallen down and was stuck and it was her tapping for help.
Around the same time, I was in the doctor’s with my mum, and I had a piece of velcro on my jacket, and I was ripping it off in time with the music in the waiting room, and a guy sitting there was like he has good timing he should be a drummer (could feel my mum’s eyes roll). My mum was a house cleaner, and one of her clients was selling a beat-up drum kit, so they got me that, but that just made my tapping a whole lot worse haha.
When did you first get interested in playing music and creating your own work? Was there a specific impetus or moment that pushed you into that?
I don’t mean to sound too cliche but I have always had some subconscious drive to play/create music. I asked my parents pretty early on about instruments, and my preschool offered Brass lessons, which I don’t think is a normal entry point, my auntie had an old trumpet, so it was low risk for my mum and dad. I really didn’t enjoy it, especially since the lessons were during lunchtime, and as a 6 y/o playground is more important.
Next came the drums from the previous question, but it wasn’t until I got my first guitar that things clicked in that way, that I could use this as a tool to create. I was probably 12-13 by this point and really didn’t enjoy formal guitar classes at school, and learning what I would have described at that age as “stupid” songs when I wanted to learn Greenday or some shit. My mum did some digging and found a guitar teacher in my hometown, Owen Brinley (Color of Fire, Grammatics) and he taught me in a way that I understood, and truly inspired me through his bands to create music.
Beyond that, where did your interest in synthesizers and electronic music come from?
My interest in synthesizers started coming in my late teens, I went to see The Locust at a venue in Leeds called Josephs Well, it was a formative show anyway, folks in masks and a drummer at the front, but seeing Eric Livingston pulling out wires (patch cables) from a big box that made sounds (Moog Modular) really blew me away.
Electronic music, was starting to become visible to me in that cross-over between bands and dancier music, 65 Days of Static, Metronomy, early Foals, !Forward Russia! but it came into full force when I went to university, I didn’t have my band anymore, and the only way to create or play music was to DJ.
Your new album “Every Somewhere” is described as utilizing sampling, re-sampling, and modular and analog synthesizers. Can you talk a little bit about your creative process for this album?
Yeah, typically when I am figuring out a new body of work, I’m trying to find a formula/process that works at scale, basically, a process that I can tweak “variables” and get different outcomes but because of the formula, it remains cohesive. This creates artificial limitations, otherwise, I just endlessly add layers get annoyed, and never finish anything.
For “Every Somewhere” one of these formulas was always having one layer of time automated delay. Sometimes it’s on the lead, sometimes percussion, sometimes it’s on the field recordings, sometimes it’s on the modular. It appears in every track, just in a different way, so the constant is always using that one thing in that way, but the variable is how it’s applied.
When I talk about sampling and re-sampling, I use it as a tool to move fast, a lot of folks out there start learning to produce via sampling things, but then don’t tend to sample themselves. For me it helps me keep moving, if I’m feeling a synth layer I recorded isn’t right, I’ll throw that into a sampler (Digitakt, Octatrack, Ableton simpler, ppooll) and mangle it. I then do that again with the output of the first “sampling”. I do this on every single one of the tracks on “Every Somewhere” (back to the formula I mentioned above…).
And I absolutely love the use of field recordings on this album – I think it adds so much depth and texture to the music. When did you capture a lot of these recordings? And more generally, what kinds of sounds inspire you to record them for possible use later? Is there anything specific you are listening for?
Aw thank you so much, capturing field recordings is something I have always done but was too afraid to use for some reason. Not to hark back to the dang “formula” (take a shot whenever he says formula – formula) but on this one I wanted field recordings to not only feature but inform/instruct the arrangement of the tracks.
I captured all of these recordings (aside from “Better Start Being”) on one trip back to the UK, for “Every Somewhere” I was selecting recordings that still had human influence on them, cars driving by and people shouting alongside nature, as the theme is very much in the vein of human impact. But this wasn’t a theme I was looking for when I was recording them, this appeared on the listen back. I just record anything and everything when I remember to get out my phone or field recorder and listen back later.
The thematic elements of melding artificial sound and nature are woven into the threads of “Every Somewhere.” What is it about those sonic intersections that interest you?
I think it interested me because it feels woven into the threads of human nature too, humans create a lot of noise, and that noise is both natural (clapping, shouting, talking, breathing), and artificial (cars, machinery, alarms, phone notifications). On “Every Somewhere,” I was trying to look deeply at humans, and a part that I wanted to highlight was this intersection. For example, you’ll hear what sounds like a river, but it’s water leaving the drain from a washing machine.
And deeper into the core themes of the record, can you talk a little about how a postcolonial approach has become an important part of your sound practice, and the ways it permeates the record?
Overall, a postcolonial approach in my sound practice and in my life is to try and challenge dominant narratives & celebrate diversity. The record is definitely a reflection of these efforts, I am trying to embody a commitment to authenticity, respect, and innovation.
The album imagines a new planet unbound from current societal structures – I really love this idea and bringing it into a sound world like this. What inspired this vision, and how do you hope listeners will interpret it?
Before this theme gathered and took shape for me, I was reading about the Colombian Exchange, and this “re-connection” of East and West. I’m no historian, but it seemed to me like the start of colonialism as we know it and all the shit I hate about humanity now.
“Westerners” (& men) go out exploring new worlds, and isn’t that incredible, they brought back Pineapples and all these amazing foods, etc., BUT, at the expense of Indigenous folks. Indigenous folks that lived in tune mostly with nature, as part of nature. But we show up and well here we are. It made me think maybe if we truly learned, and had an equitable transfer, how much better would this planet and society be. So this is where my new planet came in, how about Earth on a different timeline, where it was a complex but fair exchange/transfer. This then made me think about how I could represent that in musical form.
I don’t really have a hope for how folks will interpret it, I still struggle with the fact that people listen to my music at all, let alone interpret it hehe.
What were some of the biggest challenges you had to deal with in making “Every Somewhere”?
Mostly my own challenges around making music, confidence, etc… The things that most artists face. One of the biggest challenges though was a physical one, I met the incredibly talented Richard Burki (Futurephonics) who is a Spatial/Atmos engineer, and he so greatly agreed to work with me to turn “Every Somewhere” into a 3D musical world. One thing I didn’t know, was that there is no “master” on a spatial file, so he suggested “stem mastering”. So before we even started mixing, we had 24 hours of mastering each individual layer (stem) of the whole record, AND, because his compressor was mono, we had to do Right and then Left. This might not mean anything to someone who is listening, but take home that 24 hours of studio time is a lot to not do anything. Though we did just get stoned and chat about stuff, and the record sounds all the better for it…
Looking back on the whole process of making this record, what moments or aspects are you most proud of?
As always, I am most proud of finishing something, it’s not easy to get to this stage, let alone get it out into the world. So I am proud to keep pushing through.
Lastly, what are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
I LOVE crisps (potato chips for the US folk) so what better sound than the opening of a packet of crips and crunching your way through it.
Foxy Digitalis depends on our awesome readers to keep things rolling. Pledge your support today via our Patreon or subscribe to The Jewel Garden. You can also make a one-time donation via Ko-fi.
