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Features Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters!

Interview with Phil Reynolds - Part I Reported by Shaezel / Submitted 24-11-02 23:16 Frantic and Convergence resident Phil Reynolds is one of the biggest stars of the London hard dance scene. His trademark driving uplifting hard trance sets have become the standard for tearing up dancefloors all around the Capital since he appeared on the scene 5 years ago and with productions including 2001's seminal '(instru)MENTAL', 2002's storming 'Vinyl Addiction' and upcoming 2003 anthem 'It's a Dream' he's led from the front in the studio as well. HarderFaster met up with Phil before his sets this weekend at Convergence and Frantic... Background HarderFaster: Can you just summarise for us how you first got into DJing ? Phil Reynolds: Well, it was probably about six and a half years ago that I first bought decks, not necessarily to DJ but just because I was really into the music and I was going clubbing all the time anyway. I used to buy loads of different mix tapes by different DJ's : Paul Oakenfold, Seb Fontaine, all those kinds of people. I just used to find that those mix tapes weren’t quite the right music, some bits were, some bits weren’t so I thought it was a bit of a waste of my money buying these tapes, I may as well just buy a pair of decks and start messing around and practising at home. But I had never really wanted to DJ. I was just really lucky, once I bought decks and started playing I seemed to pick it up very quickly. When I listen back to what I used to play it sounds terrible, but at the time it sounded alright to everyone there. (Laughs) Some of my friends were involved in clubs, so I played for them within 2 months of having decks and I played on a local radio station, just the local BBC station that no-one probably listened to at the time. HF: BBC Radio 7 or something? (Laughs) PR: No, BBC Radio Nowhere I think it was. (More laughs) But that's basically how I got into it, like I say I was into the music long before I had decks. It was only once I had met Will (Frantic) that... I'd been clubbing with Will, then we hadn’t seen each other for a long time before I bought the decks. He didn’t know I'd bought them and he didn’t know I'd taken it up. Frantic only started coz he wanted to do a birthday party with one of our other friends, and he asked me to play. The other two DJ's were also in the same position as they had just started, not really played out in London anywhere and we were just playing for our friends, so it just kinda took off from doing Frantic really. HF: Cool, so you say your influences were Paul Oakenfold and... ? PR: Paul Oakenfold, Faithless, Tony de Vit and those sorts of people. TdV was the biggest influence as I started DJing, but before that I used to like Paul Oakenfold. I used to go to the Gallery every single weekend on Friday nights and Steve Lee was the legend there, coz he used to play the most wicked last sets. Even though the rest of the night was rubbish, we used to hang on for Steve to come on. HF: What was your first major gig? PR: Well Frantic was my first gig although the first club I ever played at was the Soundshaft. Frantic was the first event I actually really played at, I was so bloody nervous coz I was playing last and it was a whole bloody room full of all my friends in London and none of them had ever seen me play before. So I had to go and sit outside for about half an hour before I started playing coz I was so nervous I couldn’t even put the needle in the right position because my arm was shaking too much! I had to kinda hold one arm to put down the other to lower the needle! (Laughs) HF: So that was about 6 years ago then? PR: Well, that was about 5 years ago, as that's when Frantic started, but I got decks about 6 and a half years ago. I didn’t really start playing out that much in the first year. When I went to Ibiza about a year before that with loads of people from Manchester, they used to get me out to play at house parties for them and they used to play for about 6 or 7 hours. It was always great fun and it was great experience of playing in front of people. When you first buy decks and start DJing at house parties they are the best thing to go for coz people are much more forgiving, if you make a mistake, who cares? You just get on with it and its great experience to do that. HF: Who played at the first Frantic? What were they (and you) all like? PR: The first one we played in China Town at The Clinic and then for the second one we moved to Club Innocence - at the time it was quite a big club which Sunflowers were doing stuff at. Me, Jeff Rush and Amile were the first 3 people and they kept that the same for a while, it was only really 3 or 4 months later that they started bringing other people in. The first one only held about 150 people and that sold out in 75 minutes so we thought we could probably do it properly in a bigger club. We kind of averaged between 200 and 300; it was never really really big. We had two events in December, one of which we did with Spencer (Freeland) because Spencer was promoting another bar at the time so we did a joint thing with him and it didn't do very well. It did OK but it didn't do as well as it could have done and we had John Fleming playing which cost a lot of money. The next one we did was on Boxing Day that year and a hundred people turned up so if the January one that year hadn't done well then Frantic would have folded because there was basically no money in it. We really needed to do well at that one and luckily 700 people turned up. We were working really hard to make it a success, it had all the right elements there, it just seemed that at that time Australians latched onto the whole hard house thing and they just latched onto Frantic, and that was it, it kind of exploded from that point. Music HF: How would you say your music style has changed over the years? PR: When I first started mixing I was playing stuff like Paul Oakenfold and people like that play, a lot more laid back, uplifting trance whereas now I'm playing a lot harder stuff. But it also depends on the music you've got around at the time as well, my musical styles changed depending on what’s being produced. I used to play a lot more European trance with the longer breaks whereas now I’m playing a lot more of the UK style of hard trance. At the moment obviously there's not much hard house around so a lot of the hard house DJs are changing their style just because they can’t get all those records. It all depends on what’s around at the time to what your style is. I always go for the uplifting stuff but I also like it to be really driving as well so that's why I go for the harder end of the market rather than the softer end. HF: Can you say what qualities a particular tune has to have to make it into your record box? PR: Generally it has to be uplifting, it doesn’t have to be really banging as long as it's well produced. I generally like nice big build-ups and breaks, the hands in air get 'em all going tunes that really kick when they come back in. HF: Taking a particular tune as an example, why for instance have we never heard you play Miss Shiva - Dreams ? PR: I used to play it all the time. I was one of the first people to get that record! HF: Oh, really? We've never heard you play it... PR: The funny thing about that record was, Paul Glazby had done a bootleg of it and I got it from somewhere, I can’t remember now where I got it from and at the time it had just been signed to Virgin for VC Records. Matt Williams worked for VC and I said to him I've got this bootleg of Miss Shiva Dreams and he was like we've just signed that‚ and I said that I thought Paul Glazby had done it. I ended up phoning up Paul Glazby and almost got into trouble over it but what they (VC) said was that he’s actually done a really good job of it, can he redo it again. So he redid the mix and that’s what the final one came out like, so I was one of the first people to have that track. I do play it every now and then but it was one of those tunes which got played so much, you kind of end up leaving it alone for a while although there’s been a few Timeless’s where I’ve played it. HF: While you're one of the top DJs on the London scene, how's your profile outside London going? PR: Well this year I’ve been working really hard on trying to get a national profile. It’s still really difficult; it’s like starting out all over again playing outside London. I'm pretty lucky though, I’m playing at events like Sundissential and Insomniacz and places like that, the bigger events and lots of the smaller events as well. Hopefully next year I’ll be playing once a month at Sundissential and that kind of helps raise the profile because not only do they do events in Birmingham they also do events in Leeds as well. I’ve found now that as I’ve played at Sundissential three times a lot of those people are coming down to see the big Frantics in London. So my profile in Leeds is growing quite a bit now and every time I play there everyone seems to know who I am so it’s moving up quite a bit. I’ve found the further north I’ve gone the less people know about me so the more I’m playing the more people start to know me. Generally the northern crowds only follow the DJs that they actually know so if I’m playing one room and there's a well know Northern DJ in the other room they won't even listen to me, they'll just walk out and go next door. That’s now starting to change as people are getting to know who I am but its really really hard work and even now I'm only just starting to be recognized outside of London. The production helps as well, but most clubbers don't buy records, I reckon it’s still going to take at least a year or so to get a proper national profile so I’ve just got to work hard at it and just hope it all works out in the end. HF: I noticed your sets earlier in the year were a lot darker and not as uplifting and driving as before... why was that? Was that a planned change in your style? PR: That was just more about the music that was around at the time. There wasn’t so much uplifting stuff around and everyone was going towards the darker stuff and there was a lot more techno being introduced into music as well. Now everyone seems to have gone back to the uplifting stuff and there’s some really really good tunes out there as well. This week I’ve even bought four records and I never usually get four records a month and two of the tracks are really really good. I think there's a lot more producers around who are doing the more uplifting stuff and there’s not so much hard house around so you get all the hard house people complaining there’s too much trance around. If you’re into hard house you probably don’t like trance and vice versa. Whereas before there was a lot more diversity now it's mostly trance so for those kind of people who don’t like it they’re not being catered for which isn’t really the promoters fault. They’re still booking the same DJs who were playing hard house last year but of course because there’s no music around they’re having to play what’s closest to their style so unfortunately there’s not as much diversity in the clubs. Production HF: What have you and Steve Blake got planned for the Impact Showcase at Convergence ? PR: We haven't sat down to discuss it actually, because we've been working hard with the label being re-launched after the distributors Infectious went bust earlier this year. Tara (Reynolds)'s and Steve (Blake)'s track "Ignite" is coming out this week so we've finally got that sorted out but it's taken us two months and we've got five more releases to go after that. We've also had quite a few remixes to do lately so we've been busy sorting out the label and not really thinking about it. Tonight is the first time I've thought about what I might play, we'll probably play a lot of the Impact stuff that's going to be coming out but we haven't really discussed it. We'll probably end up playing some of the old stuff as well as showcasing some of the new stuff. Phil Reynolds will be appearing twice at Frantic meets Sundissential at the Camden Palace on the 30th November. For full details click here. Part II of our interview with Phil Reynolds will appear next week Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Shaezel: Universal Language Preview: Interview with Nick Sentience Interview with Phil Reynolds - Part II Tolerance 1st Birthday - Review The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable. Comments: From: tom on 3rd Dec 2002 09:24.22 Hmmm Phil played Miss Shiva 'Dreams' and Ian M 'Dreamer' on Saturday at Frantic

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