Slate is the name used by several unrelated musical acts. One is Professor Jonathan Wayne Mills, an American composer of orchestral music who begins his musical career in 2005. He integrates electronic instruments and environmental sounds into programmatic and thematic pieces, and teaches a class called Principles of Music and Programming at Indiana University for non-music and non-computer science majors. The course links music composition with computer programming, and he forms the Cardinal Skies Ensemble in 2010 to give his students an annual performance outlet. His influences include film composer Alan Silvestri, classical composers Bach, Dukas and Ligeti, and electronic artists such as Terry Riley and Wendy Carlos; he also has broad tastes that include noise and names Tina Turner’s live performance of “Addicted to Love” at Wembley Arena as a favourite. Another act using the name Slate is a synthwave artist from Santiago, Chile, formerly known as Suite Breath. This project begins in 2016 and specialises in darksynth with a metal background, drawing inspiration from artists including Brut and Pert. A further Slate is a Welsh post-punk band that starts in 2022.

Turntablist

Slate is also used by a turntablist associated with the track “X Marks the Skratch”.