Home News What's On Annual Poll Photos Forums DJs Features Music Venues Reviews Links

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! N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood! Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna

Interview with Phil Reynolds - Part II Reported by Shaezel / Submitted 04-12-02 22:42 We continue our interview with hard dance superstar Phil Reynolds as Phil talks about his productions, his wife Tara Reynolds, which upcoming producers impress him the most and what's in store in the future... read on ! SC: When you and Nick (Sentience) created (instru)MENTAL, did you have any idea at the time that it was going to be such a huge track ? PR: No. It was so funny as well because when we finished it we listened to it and we thought it was alright but we felt we could have done something better. I wouldn't even play it until just before Hard House Academy, there was a new CD player there that I didn't know how to use and I was a bit scared about playing it as well because I didn't know how well it would go down, so I kinda left it. But when we finally started playing it out everyone was just going absolutely mental to it. I called up Nick and said to him "this is going really well"‚ and he says "yeah, yeah, it's actually really good isn't it?"‚ But at the time we both kinda felt we could have done better with it, but if I listen to it now I don't think we could have done. It's just a bit strange, coz that's the first time that Nick had ever done anything like that before, coz he was a bit uneasy about going into the studio with me because he was more techno based and he wasn't into trance at the time either, but then it worked really well. And the good thing about that was, because the A side was so strong, we could sort of mess about a little with the B side. So we kinda experimented and messed about and came up with "DMC". A lot of people prefer the B side to (instru)MENTAL, so in the end it just ended up becoming a really good release, we are both really pleased with it. SC: Are you planning to become a world superstar DJ or are you are just concentrating on the UK? PR: I am trying to branch out as much as possible: I've got 3 tours to Australia next year and I have a gig in Hong Kong. We are hopefully going to do some more in Japan and hopefully in Canada as well. I am playing at HQ's (Amsterdam) again: I played there a couple of weeks ago and it went really well, so hopefully we can try and push for Dance Valley to book me, but it's not up to me, it's up to them, if they think I am good enough to play. I want to be as big as possible, it's not just about the UK, and it's not just about London. I feel that I have got somewhere in London but I haven't really got anywhere outside London. I am starting to now, but if you think about people like Judge Jules and how big they are now everywhere in the world, and you look at me, I'm nowhere near that! So, I don't really consider myself as a big DJ coz I'm not, I am maybe in a small circle but in the bigger picture I'm not. Same if you are thinking about Andy Farley: he's big in this scene and he's big around the country but he's probably not that big outside of it. That's probably more to do with the music as well. Commercially based music is more appealing to a bigger audience where as what we play isn't. We are kinda confined to how far we can actually go with it but you still wanna try your best and get as far as you can. SC: Is there any prospect of you and Nick Sentience returning to the studio together? PR: We did actually do another track but we've still haven't finished it: and that was months and months ago. At present Nick is writing stuff and we keep saying that we are going finish it, but it's getting Nick to actually set a date and say "right, lets do it!‚ But Nick is kinda busy doing his own thing at the moment - he's had some remixes to do and we will get round to finishing it but I'll have to kick his ass to get him to do it SC: Which of your (co)productions are you most proud of? PR: (instru)MENTAL I'd say. That does kinda stand out above everything else. James (Lawson) and I have done a new track called "It's a Dream"‚ which I'm really happy with. Steve (Blake) and I have done a lot of re-mixes, the two tracks which I am most pleased with are "Sonic Cathedral‚ which is supposed to be coming out in January on a Ministry label. It's still not out yet and I don't know what is going on with it. We have also just done a new remix for Ilogik which is a Christiaan tune called Driving you Mad which is just coming out now. Those are the two tunes which are I'm really pleased with of the remixes that we've done. SC: Most importantly, when is your new track HarderFaster coming out? PR: Ah, no idea yet. SC: What? (Laughs) PR: (More Laughs) We've only just done it. SC: Do you have any ideas of when it will come out? PR: Probably not until May or June next year. General SC: What would you say was THE best set you've ever played? Is there a set that stands out where you just went in and the whole place went off? PR: I suppose the best DJ experience would be one of the Frantic's at Camden Palace. It was a few years ago now. I can't actually remember what it was but I just remember that Tony Parsons was playing and as I walked in I thought that the music was a bit cheesy at the time, but the whole crowd was going mental. Walking across the dance floor I couldn't believe it, everyone was screaming their heads off going mental! They were like that the whole night and I was playing last and I have never seen Camden Palace like that in my life. Every single person had their hands in the air just screaming the whole time I was playing. It felt like I was floating off the ground a bit and the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. It was just amazing and I have never had a Camden Palace like that. Things have come close to that but I have never had a crowd just going off like that ever before and it wasn't just my set, it was throughout the whole night. Even me and Tara still talk about that night now, and we wish we could get a night like that again. SC: Can you name any particularly bad f*ck-ups that you've made that stand out in your memory? (!) PR: I can remember the first Frantic at Bagleys where I pulled the needle off the wrong record in front of 3000 people (Laughs) and everyone cheered. I've done that, put the needle back down and turned around and 4 people jump on top of me laughing their heads off. SC: Do Peroxide blondes have more fun ? PR: That would be telling (Laughs) SC: Have you ever been tempted to start up your own night as Andy Farley and BK have with Release? PR: No, because it's a lot of hard work and you don't necessary make any money out of it. A lot of people seem to think that by running a club you earn loads of money out of it when in fact you don't. It depends on how many people you get and depends on who you've got playing. DJ bills can add up to a lot of money and once you get involved with it the scene is so bitchy. The DJ's try and stay out of all the politics that are in the clubs but there is so much back-stabbing going on and there is so much sh*t involved I just don't want to get involved in it. There is a lot of hard work for not so much of a great reward. 9 times of 10, even if it's a successful club, people don't give you the respect that you should get. There is just a lot of jealousy that goes on and I would just rather not get involved, it's just easier just to turn up, DJ and then go home! SC: Which new talents are you most impressed by at the moment (DJing and/or production) PR: DJ wise, I am not in clubs to hear people who are playing earlier sets coz they are the ones that are going to be coming through so as far as DJing wise I couldn't really say very much on those. Production wise, the people that are really doing well now are people like Prime Mover who only this year has started to do really well, Todd Tobias is doing really well, we signed a few of his tracks and James Lawson has been a real star this year. SC: Definitely, he has really come into his own has hasn't he? PR: Yeah, definitely: he is working at home and he's spent like 3 or 4 months really getting stuck into his studio and working really hard. He's not doing any other work other than that, and he's just about surviving on the money he is getting from it. His production has come on so much and you think that he's probably done about 5 or 6 really good tunes this year which other than BK you can't really say there has been one other producer that has done that. I think he will do really really well next year. SC: I know that you and the lovely Tara have been married three years now: how did you first meet? Was she your own personal groupie ? PR: Well no, it was in clubbing but we met at a house party. One of my friends was having a birthday party and I supplied the decks and stuff so I was there all night. I hadn't really been playing that long and I had Skol, Macey and Raymondo playing and I was shit scared about playing coz they were going to be there but we kinda met that night and got on quite well. Nothing really happened coz we were both seeing other people. Then we kept bumping into each other coz I was playing out quite a bit and I used to see her a lot at Fevah and she used to come to Frantic and things developed from there. At that point she had no interest in DJing at all. SC: She is now becoming a very successful DJ in her own right: do you feel that her success is a little bit down to you? PR: Obviously the me teaching her things part has got nothing to do with it because we used to row about it ! DJing is one of those things where you have to train your ear to listen to certain things; you can tell anyone the basics of how to do it but it's not necessarily going to make them a great DJ. Me telling someone how to do it compared to someone else who had just started doesn't make that much difference I don't think. So me teaching her things has got nothing to do with it really, it's down to her as a person, how good she is. Obviously being married to me is going to open a few doors because I'm playing out all the time so she's got all the contacts straight away but she still needs to know how to play properly. For instance if Will didn't think she was good enough to play at Frantic he wouldn't book her: Will's very careful about who he books to play and she's actually proved herself to Will that she's good enough and a lot of people have actually come up to me and said that they think she plays better music than me. SC: Is that like a smack in the face or is that OK with you ? PR: No, because at the end of the day it's all about personal choice: if people like the slightly harder stuff (as Tara plays harder than me) then what one person likes another person doesn't so there's room in the world for everyone. I'm actually pleased for her that if people actually say that then at least it shows that she's getting somewhere with it, so it doesn't worry me at all. SC: As Tara tends to play harder than you presumably there's not much competition between you when it comes to desired gigs then ? PR: No, it's not very often that we play at the same gig. There is some stuff that I play that Tara plays as well, so if we're both at a night and I've got stuff that's my own she might say to me "what can I play", but other than that we don't really worry about it much, especially if we play back to back we spend most of the night taking the piss out of each other really and enjoying it. With that we have to be a bit more careful because obviously there's some things that wouldn't go together as she's playing the harder stuff so we do generally plan out what we're going to play beforehand just to make sure it works. This one time we played at Heaven where we didn't do that beforehand and it didn't go very well and we both walked out going "I'm a bit disappointed by that". It's kind of important, especially with back to back stuff that I think people need to plan out what they're going to play, nine times out of ten people don't and I don't think it necessarily works. Unless you know the person you're playing with very well, like if I'm playing back to back with Nick it generally goes really well, but I think sometimes promoters need to think who they're putting the back to backs with because if it doesn't work with the DJs it doesn't work with the dancefloor. SC: Are you still planning on moving to Australia ? PR: Yes. We keep putting it back simply because things are going really well over here, especially with Tara now, Tidy are working quite hard for her at the moment so she's starting to get a lot of gigs outside London so next year could be really good for her. On a national scale there's only Lisa Lashes and Anne Savage and people are always looking for more female DJs so she could end up bigger than me. So, we're still going to move back but we're probably going to wait until the end of next year just to see how things are going. Also, the longer we're staying here the longer we can save money in pounds and the more we save the more we can put a good deposit down on a house and not have to worry about getting a job straight away so we're kind of just planning for our future really. Also, the scene in Australia isn't as developed as I thought it was going to be, I've been playing there for the last three years now and it's only now in Sydney that it's picking up, in Melbourne it's still the same as it was a year and a half ago really, it's not grown that much. But in Sydney now Frantic's getting over a thousand people turning up and there's a few more people going back to Sydney who used to run clubs over here so there's smaller clubs springing up from Frantic. Sydney's starting to accept the hard house sound now so I think you'll find in the next few year's it will be a really good place to go and play. SC: OK that's about it I think, thank you for your time Phil ! Part I of the interview can be found here. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Shaezel: Universal Language Preview: Interview with Nick Sentience Interview with Phil Reynolds - Part I 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: Newzkitten on 5th Dec 2002 08:41.05 Excellent stuff Shae! And Phil.. keep doing what you're doing.. can't wait to have you over here in the land of OZ! From: Rainey on 9th Dec 2002 15:28.24 Shaezel i like it! Kinda has a 'Hello'/'OK' feel to it. Interesting to read a bit about the D.J himself as well as his work an production. Who are you interviewing next??! From: Shaezel on 13th Dec 2002 11:25.19 Glad you liked it. Not sure if I'm happy with the 'Hello/OK' feel to it tho..... I have someone else in mind, but as yet I have not arranged it so hopefully sometime in the new year I will have sorted it. From: Diesel Steve on 13th Dec 2002 15:09.27 Great interview. I had doubts that there would be any depth, but alas both parts were very insightful. You’ve managed to draw out some forthright and heart felt answers from Phil on where he’s been, where he is now and where he (and Tara) is going. Re: The last couple of comments. Maybe it would have been more professional to have a heavier hand in editing, but I still prefer the meaty contents. Keep ‘em coming (and a Nick Sentience interview would be grand?!). From: Dirk Diggler on 28th Dec 2002 15:33.58 Great series of interviews Shae. Didn't really know much about him but I do now.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. All other content is (c) 2001-2024 HarderFaster.

Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement | Text Mode