Luke Solomon

Luke Solomon stands as a vital though frequently overlooked presence within dance music circles. Based in London, this DJ and producer has issued a steady stream of refined yet approachable house recordings shaped by disco, post-punk, and jazz threads. He helped establish two enduring and widely admired house imprints: Classic, launched alongside Chicago house legend Derrick Carter in 1995, and Music for Freaks, operated jointly with Justin Harris from 1999 onward. Alongside Harris, Solomon forms the left-field house duo Freaks, responsible for four full-length releases that began with 2000’s The Beat Diaries plus dozens of singles, among them “The Creeps (Get on the Dancefloor),” which reached the Top 10 of the U.K. singles chart in 2007. Several mix CDs bear his name, among them 2001’s Thanks for Coming By… (with Carter), while his own ambitious solo albums include The Difference Engine (2008) and Timelines (2013). He has also acted as A&R director at Defected Records, guiding numerous underground club tracks toward chart placements and Grammy nominations. Solomon belongs to the disco-house collective Powerdance, whose first LP, The Lost Art of Getting Down, surfaced in 2017.

His entry into DJing occurred while he was a Middlesex University student in the early ’90s. A shared bill with Derrick Carter sparked a friendship that led to the 1995 founding of Classic. The label soon justified its title by issuing foundational recordings from artists such as Herbert, DJ Sneak, and Gemini. Solomon simultaneously forged an enduring alliance with Justin Harris; beginning in 1996 they issued material as Robotic Movement and the Electric Imbalance Allstars, yet the Freaks project ultimately gained the greatest traction. After singles appeared on Phono and Plastic between 1996 and 1997, and after Solomon’s 1998 mix-CD In Motion, the pair placed further singles on their newly formed Music for Freaks imprint in 1999; “Turning Orange” additionally came out via Playhouse and turned into a club staple. Freaks’ debut album, The Beat Diaries, arrived in 2000 and was rapidly followed by Meanwhile, Back at the Disco… in 2001. That same year Solomon and Carter delivered the double-CD mix Thanks for Coming By… on Classic.

By 2003 Freaks had grown markedly productive, generating both original material and remixes for the Streets, the Human League, Markus Nikolai (“Bushes”), and many others. The third Freaks album, The Man Who Lived Underground, emerged that year, while the left-field electro single “The Creeps (You’re Giving Me),” issued by International Deejay Gigolo Records, became a substantial underground success. Four years later a revised version titled “The Creeps (Get on the Dancefloor)” appeared on Ministry of Sound-affiliated Data Records and climbed to number nine on the U.K. singles chart. Around this period Solomon embarked on his solo path. After the 2005 label retrospective A Classic Decade—a double-CD mixed by himself and Carter—he issued several EPs carrying titles such as Ghouls, Ghosts, and Monsters on imprints including Rekids, Crosstown Rebels, and Cajual across 2006 and 2007. His debut solo album, The Difference Engine, surfaced on Rekids in 2008; an updated edition, The Difference Engine Redux, followed two years later. He also co-produced and co-wrote Damian Lazarus’ 2009 full-length Smoke the Monster Out together with Arthur Jeffes (Penguin Cafe).

In 2011 Classic resumed regular vinyl releases following a period when it had functioned chiefly as a digital outlet. Solomon put out the full-length Minor Digital Experiment under his occasional alias the Digital Kid in 2012, along with the mix CD Cutting Edge. His second album under his own name, Timelines, appeared in 2013; unlike the Detroit techno and post-punk leanings of his first long-player, Timelines featured lushly arranged vocal house material. Freaks delivered their fourth album, Psych, on Italian label Rebirth in 2014. Solomon and Freaks have continued to release singles regularly on Classic and Music for Freaks as well as on labels such as Optimo Trax and Circus Company. Solomon has also mixed several volumes of his Unfinished Business series, a 2015 compilation on Strictly Rhythm (Strictly Jacked!), and two volumes of 4 to the Floor Presents Nu Groove that survey the catalog of the short-lived yet highly influential New York house label Nu Groove Records. He further took part in Powerdance, a nu-disco collective that includes Al Doyle (Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem), Danny Ward (Moodymanc, 2020 Soundsystem), James Duncan, and additional members. Their debut full-length, The Lost Art of Getting Down, was self-released in 2017.