Five years after his last album release, Luke Slater returns to Ostgut Ton with a new Planetary Assault Systems long-player, titled Arc Angel. The release will follow on from his upcoming release as The 7th Plain on Ostgut’s new A-TON sub-label.

After 22 years Luke Slater’s Planetary Assault Systems keeps exploring space and time with different musical means. Staying true to the project’s initial mission statement, Slater comments on the new yet familiar musical direction: “For me music has to go forward. I’d feel I was cheating by sticking to tried and tested formulas. There’s a valid use for these, but this album has its own agenda.” With Arc Angel, Planetary Assault Systems departs to new musical frontiers by focussing on melody, but staying rooted in the purist values of techno that Slater shaped over his career.

While the album title may sound like a reference to spiritual matters, it hints to rather secular affairs. Arc Angel is a postmodernist, non-comfortist techno album, catering as much for club contexts as for accessibility in new melodic terms. Long-standing Slater followers will connect to the release, whereas the LP opens space to new listeners at the same time.

In the tradition of Slater’s previous albums with Ostgut Ton—The Messenger (2011) and Temporary Suspension (2009)—its musical motifs radiate around polymorphic and extraterrestrial sounds, using contemporary instrumental language, but putting stronger emphasis on compatible musical phrases. “With this album it was very much a case of limitation and focus around the idea of alternative melody,” Slater says.

“I love music that takes you somewhere new. All music for this album had to pass that test. At the same time I wanted to re-root the foundations of what I see as techno into that and focus on melody, rather than a track just being a beat. I moved the work of the track from the beat to the upper frequencies making them more important. I think we’ve learnt how to do the big straight beats now and I like trying to push things further without becoming abstract for the sake of it.“

Although Arc Angel started as a blank page, Slater continues his sonic explorations as heard on the recent Mote-Evolver-released 12“s – No Exit EP (2013), Future Modular (2014) and The Eyes Themselves (2015).“Arc Angel is the following album from that series of singles—there’s regression and progression going on at the same time.”

Despite its musical richness, all gear had to fit onto a small table. “I love software, hardware, technology; but because we have almost endless choice of sound creating devices it now drove me to using very limited and focused equipment by choice to express each track. Actually taking influences from the way an original Blues guy might have used an old guitar and a stomp box, yet still make very organic and spiritual music. He has the guitar, the box and voice—I have the 909 and 808, which have always been the main drivers of Planetary Assault Systems.“ The writing part itself was disconnected from the production and mixing period in Slater’s UK studio, allowing for a more reduced yet flexible set-up and revisiting individual parts of the album at a later point without major changes.

While the album’s 20 tracks will be available digitally as individual pieces, Arc Angel will also be available as a single, continuous mix and a mixed three LP and two CD version, all taking the album’s intended way of perception and Slater’s ethos as a DJ into account: take a ride through one evolving movement.

Ostgut Ton will release Arc Angel on September 30. Stream its closing track, “The Last Scene,” below via Boiler Room.

Tracklisting [Digital]:

01. Cassette
02. Angel Of The East
03. Tri Fn Trp
04. Sonar Falls
05. Interlude 1
06. Message From The Drone Sector
07. Merry Go Round
08. Interlude 2
09. Behind The Eyes
10. Bawoo Bawoo
11. Interlude 3
12. Revolution One
13. Interlude 4
14. Blue Monk
15. Groucho
16. Interlude 5
17. The Rider
18. Max
19. Interlude 6
20. The Last Scene
21. Arc Angel (continuous mix)