PMC has announced that following an exhaustive selection process, producer and DJ Luke Solomon has outfitted his North London studio with a pair of PMC6-2 monitors for his studio in North London, replacing the PMC TB2s he owned for nearly 20 years.
“I love the sound of these monitors and really appreciate the fact that they are non-fatiguing,” Solomon says. “Maybe it’s an age thing but listening at loud levels for a long time can be exhausting. What I like about the 6-2s is that they reproduce the bass really clearly, even at low levels, so I can stay in the studio for longer. They are a great pair of speakers.”
Solomon, who set up the dance label Classic Recordings with Derrick Carter in the early 1990s, is also one half of Freaks, a production team he established with Justin Harris. Under the Freaks moniker, they’ve turned out a slew of singles and albums on their own Music For Freaks imprint, including the hit single “The Creeps,” which was released into the mainstream by Ministry of Sound with a new vocal featuring Stella Attar. Solomon, who has also had success as a solo artist, is currently head of A&R at Defected Records and its sister labels.
“Working behind the scenes with other artists made me realise that I felt more comfortable in that space,” he says. “I have moved away from feeling that the spotlight needs to be on me. Producing for other artists is a very selfless thing because you have to get into their heads and try and understand what kind of music they want to make.”
Among the many production credits to his name is the Black Girl Magic album, which he produced for US DJ Honey Dijon. He describes this as a labour of love and one that took two years to complete – the album was finally released in 2022 on the Classic Recordings label. It was during that period that he and Honey Dijon were approached by Beyoncé’s record label and asked to submit material for her current studio album, Renaissance, which was released at the end of last year. This was during the pandemic whe he, like many other music industry creatives, had retreated to the studio to write music.
“Beyoncé’s people told us that she wanted to take her new music to the clubs because she was convinced that, after the pandemic, people would want to go out and enjoy the club vibe again,” he explains. “She asked Honey and I if we wanted to collaborate, so we set about writing songs and creating concepts built around drums and samples and music that came from our world, which Beyoncé wasn’t familiar with.”
Eventually two of these ideas were chosen and ended up on the album as the tracks “Cosy” and “Alien Superstar,” both written and produced by Solomon and Honey Dijon. Moving from the dance scene into more crossover projects is another reason why he wanted to upgrade the monitoring in his own studio.
“The work I’m doing now doesn’t rely so much on low end, bass or where the kick drums sit,” he says. “The PMC6-2 monitors give me very accurate reproduction across the whole spectrum and from that point of view they are really interesting speakers. At Defected we have PMC8-2 monitors in the studio and I love them, but they would have been too large for the room I currently have at home. All the same I still dream about owning a pair one day!
“I bought my TB2 monitors on the back of the success of The Creeps, which meant there was money around at the time to invest in studio equipment,” he continues. “They became my staple. I went through a lot of tweeters – totally my fault – and I also had the crossovers changed at one point, but throughout the years they stayed with me. What always impressed me was the support I got from PMC. Their factory isn’t far from my home so I’d drive up there whenever I blew a tweeter and get them fixed. The staff couldn’t have been more helpful, and the customer service was awesome. I’m a big fan of supporting local businesses and I do like the fact that PMC is a UK company.”
