Not So Slack

"I've literally moved here a week ago,” Janette Slack says down the line from Hong Kong, her new home. She sounds as if she's still getting her head around her new surroundings but Slack's not one to dwell on anything; after all, she's had a big year – she was evicted from her home in London due to city planning, she ended a ten-year relationship, released her debut record, Torture Garden Sessions, and now she's moved to Hong Kong. “There's so many of my things in boxes,” she says in her English accent not without a tinge of an American twang.

“It's crazy because I've lived in London for fifteen, sixteen years, which is pretty much half my life – well a lot of my adult years. I went over there with a suitcase, a couple of records and my decks and I've obviously accumulated sofas and clothes and so [a lot of it has] been getting rid of things and keeping the special things and packing stuff… a lot of my stuff doesn't actually arrive here until March. At least I'm on tour a lot of the time while I'm waiting for that stuff.”

Slack says “it's nice to be on this side of the planet” and is looking forward to touring Australasia. “I've played everywhere in Europe and I've ticked all the boxes I've wanted to – I don't want to sound like a wanker – but then there's also this side of the planet too. There's Bali and Thailand and Australia and those places are so far to get to from the UK. It's even closer for me to go to Miami from here now. Underneath the badass there's a little bit of sentimentality under it all; I want to be closer to my dad. My dad lives here [Hong Kong]. Him and my mum came to my album launch party last December and they came to a New Year's Eve gig of mine on the top floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Hong Kong, which was on the 118th floor and you're looking down at the fireworks (laughs). It was such a beautiful moment. I haven't spent New Year's Eve with my parents since I was thirteen years old. I left home when I was seventeen and I've been DJing ever since.”

Indeed, Slack moved to London shortly after finishing school, worked in bars, became a roadie and tended cloak rooms at clubs. In fact, her job managing the cloak room at London's famous fetish club Torture Garden led to her residency at the club at which she's DJ'd for several years now. Earlier this year, Slack released her debut record, Torture Garden Sessions, a project that was in the making for a long time. “The whole reason I did Torture Garden [Sessions] was because a lot of people were curious as to what music gets played there. Music-wise, I just play what I play but I can be a lot more experimental [there] because the production is so epic.

“I'm trying to write more stuff that signifies what I play out now because the Torture album was good, but I finished that album a year and a half ago and I started it around four or five years ago. Most of it is original material but I actually wrote four times the amount [on the record].”

In terms of the sound Slack is hoping to create and play more of – it's all about glitch-hop, funk, electro and swing. “I love the tempo,” she admits. “I still love Torture Garden… but you evolve and you grow every six months so it [the record] signifies me at a certain time and place and I just wanted to get it out. I really love what Sticky Buds is doing and Pegboard Nerds, their track Frainbreeze is just epic. I'm going to release an EP by Easter. The album took me so long to do I'm probably just going to release mini albums now.”

Torture Garden Sessions will also have a place in Slack's world; after all, she worked as a DJ instructor, model, TV extra and more to make the over $80,000 to fund the production of the record. The club itself is also a very special place for Slack, who has obviously spent a fair amount of time there over the years. “What I love about it is that there's no VIP room,” she says excitedly. “We have people like Dita Von Teese and Circus du Soleil performing there, so everyone is on the same level. There are some couples that I see there who have been together for forty, forty-five years. And as a girl, you don't get your ass pinched there; you're very safe. They've got Torture Garden police and they make sure everyone is having a good time but they also make sure everyone is comfortable. They spend about three or four days setting up the venue as well. They've got real trees there so it smells of a forest. You feel like you're on a movie set. It's just like an adult festival, like Burning Man without the sand.”

Playing at Torture Garden also marked a period in Slack's life where she decided to let go of her tomboy look and embrace her strong feminine side. “Before Torture Garden I'd never really worn a skirt at a gig,” she says, matter-of-factly. “I was always so self-conscious that I was a girl [DJing]. In all the pictures I've got baseball caps, bandanas, boys shirts, and at that point I'd been DJing for seven or eight years and I just thought 'fuck it, I DJ on three decks; if that's not enough…' It got to the point where it was like 'I can DJ, I'm not a gimmick, I'm going to express myself.'”

Slack is super pumped to be playing Breakfest this year alongside some of her favourite acts. “I'm just focusing on making sure I play a kickass set at Breakfest because I love all those guys; I know them and they've all been very supportive and I've known some of them for five to twelve years. We've always had a good time when we've jammed together or when we go and get sushi when we're crossing paths when we're on tour. A lot of the time when I headline in a club somewhere I'm playing most of their material and now that I'm going to be sharing a stage with all of them, it's like 'dammit, what the hell am I gonna play?' (laughs).”

She admits Perth “feels like a second home” to her, acknowledging that it's the people who make the place. “Australia is so far away from the rest of the world and then Perth has its own thing going on. I just love how people get down. I remember when I first went to Ambar in the mid-noughties. It was so cool to see girls in dresses and Philly [Blunt] and Micah were playing and it was cool to see these girls literally letting their hair down, kicking off their high-heels and dancing their asses off. It's so cool because sometimes with other clubs, people are more concerned about their appearance – they don't want to get sweaty. Perth girls love to get down and I love that. Whenever I come to Perth I always like to get there early. Last time I came, I came a week before my gig to just hang out.”

Aside from focusing on her set at Breakfest, Slack is hoping to tour Vancouver and Miami next year along with countries closer to Australia. “It's just trying to coordinate it and trying to figure out when I am actually going to do this and write my EP,” she says. As for the EP, it's on hold until all her studio gear and life in boxes arrives in March next year. “I've offered to do sound grabs and sound-bites for iPhone apps because you need something to fund [the fact that] nobody really buys dance music. I'm just doing a lot of my own edits at the moment, just customising a lot of the tracks. I don't have my studio with me now, I've only got the studio at the games animations place that I'm working at right now. There are twenty-five animators and I'm the only DJ who's got a makeshift studio there. I'm just making use of what I've got until everything arrives.” Despite the big move and the big year in general, Slack is pretty happy with life. “When I reflect, I'd give 2013 a nine and a half out of ten really,” she concludes, laughing.