Planetary Assault Systems

Planetary Assault Systems is the most enduring alias of British electronic musician Luke Slater — a producer who started drumming at twelve, turned to synthesizers as a teenager, and released his first track in 1989. Under this name he built the harder, more percussive end of his catalog: bleepy, polyrhythmic, industrial-strength techno rooted in early Detroit but bent toward something more psychedelic and funk-inflected, with a signature sound identifiable inside a few bars. A long-running resident at Berghain and a fixture at Dekmantel, Fabric, and Fuji Rock, Slater has released P.A.S. records on Peacefrog, Ostgut Ton, Token, and his own Mote-Evolver imprint across three decades without once sounding like he was chasing what the genre had already decided to do.