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Features
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| 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 | | A Catch Up with John Phantasm ahead of his upcoming set at the Tribal Village 4 Day Outdoor Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! | | 'The Maestro that is Tristan talks barn owls, Shazamming and keeping it Psychedelic ahead of his upcoming performance at the Tribal Village 4 Day Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022! | | DJ talk with Psyrenzo ahead of his debut set at Tribal Village, the Steelyard this Friday 14th January 2022! | | TENZO aka Overdrive talks freely about launching his new act which will be showcased at Tribal Village, Steelyard on 14 January 2022! | | A long overdue catch up with JourneyOM ahead of his next Tribal Village party this Friday 14th January 2022 at the Steelyard, London! | | Goa based party animal and artist extraordinaire Nirmal talks punk concerts, metal sculptures, flying and rippin' it up on a High Tide! | | DJ Wired talks to us about the Rise of the Hope and parties, ahead of his upcoming set at Tribal Village on 14th January 2022! |
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Frantic XMas Ball: Have Yourselves a Messy XMas!
Reported by bunny
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Submitted 18-12-02 15:27
Christmas Day has become through time-honoured tradition a quiet and peaceful occasion set aside for relaxation and contemplation; a time for snuggling up with your loved ones and winding down gently from 12 months of hard work and harder weekends... *HOWEVER*... The rest of the yuletide season is nothing but one big, long free-for-all party uproar and what better way to kick off this year’s festivities than with the 2 rooms full of the finest DJs and dancers that was the Frantic Xmas party? 
10pm and it’s a quiet start (not to mention chilly, an ultra-efficient air-con system meant everyone stayed comfortably cool towards the end of the night but major movement was required early on to keep your muscles warm), probably down to all the ramshackle meet-ups currently being arranged in the Purple Turtle next door (which is kinda why we manage to miss Guffy’s opening set, sorry about that). Nothing’s stopping the early birds from getting down to business though and with Ali Wilson rolling out a fast and funky set featuring samples from classics such as Sub Sub’s Ain’t No Love, Ain’t No Use, the complaints are pretty thin on the ground – hey, just means there’s all the more space to stomp in! Plus when you’re surrounded by your perfect partying partners enjoying the first big bounce of the night there’s precious little else you need to get you well and truly in the festive mood 
Ok, so Christmas itself is still a fair few days off yet, so perhaps that’s why there was a disappointing lack of festive clothing (umm, yeah alright, myself included) and decoration on display. There were a few Santa hats dotted about here and there and the odd pair of horns but for the most part it was more Cyberdog than Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – although by the end of the night there were several red eyes in the house But you know what? It’s not what’s on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts and I know everyone I met had their hearts set on a merry little Christmas as they’re heads soared ding-dong merrily on high...
Back to business and Daniel Bailey takes control of the decks at 11 and fires the music headlong down the more progressive branch of Hard Dance (with the odd helping of techno cutting in to help it along the way). From the upper balcony all the way down to the stage the crowd’s really starting to look promising now and thanks to the swelling dance floor and ever-increasing body heat the temperature can only go one way for the rest of tonight, so when an early spin of Red Snapper gets the crowd roaring and the stomp-factor soaring the mercury’s soon in hot pursuit...
By the time midnight struts into view the floorspace of the Palace is like the Loch Ness monster; you know it exists but you’d have a hell of a time trying to catch a glimpse of it. The Reasons? Well, you see, it’s an answer of 2 halves:
1. There’s the now constant stream of people who’re launching themselves with relish down that sparkling landing-strip entrance and into their winter wonderland-weekends.
2. Tara Reynolds has just kicked off her set and yep, you guessed it, it’s bouncier than a World Champion ping-pong playing kangaroo that was raised on a diet of Red Bull and Coco Pops
Tara’s is the first truly ‘up’ set of the night and what a cracker (sorry) of a set it is! Playing with her trademark style of storming beats and streaming melodies it’s the relentless energy that pulses through herself and her music that truly invigorates the place, to the point where you’re working so hard you can almost see smoke rising from your joints... The twin peaks of the set for this Bunny were the fresh and fierce collaboration with Steve Blake, Ignite (you only had to look at the reaction it got to know it’s a future classic) and SHOKK’s Isn’t It All A Little Strange? still delivers by the truckload with one of the ultimate breakdowns and build-ups in Hard Dance. An hour and a half flies by like a heartbeat ‘til before you know it she’s handing over the headphones to the more than capable hands of HQ’s head honcho, Tom Harding.
Taking the edge off the euphoria in favour of his characteristic pounding, tumbling and rumbling tunes, Tom deals out a royal flush of thumping tracks that guarantee there’s no respite in sight for tonight’s kings, queens and jokers of clubs With a beat that growls along in the background like a panther with anger management issues, this is a set that’s strictly not for the faint-footed – as highlighted by mean and moody track The Jungle, a thick chunk of tribal, tropical tunage that plunges deep into the most basic part of you and hammers hard.
As the little hand of the clock slides past 4 O’ Clock it dawns on me that so far I’ve completely neglected the new mellow heaven that is the Funky Rom AKA the Black’N’White bar. Slinking out of the main room with the promise that I’ll be back in time to catch the second half an hour of Ian M.’s set, it’s time to head on up for some fun and funky house, brought to us (through a little experimentation) from a B2B set by Guffy and Shan.
Now here are two DJs more commonly associated with the fast and frenetic world of Hard House, so it was perhaps to be expected that any attempt on the funky side of things would probably keep to the more upbeat numbers than the real funked-out grooves. But that’s not to say that it was just a typical HH set in disguise; for the 45 minutes we spent shimmying away in the sauna (it does get pretty damn sticky up there when the room’s in full-flow) the rhythms took us on quite an extensive journey, roaming from near Hard House through to some lighter beats and more than once delving deep into the funky stuff For someone’s who’s not exactly the greatest fan of the more down-tempo side of dance music I’ve gotta admit I’m quite impressed by what I’m hearing but the fact remains I can only groove for so long before the urge to go nuts takes over again and it’s only fair that I should catch some of Ian M’s set
So back down in the madhouse once more but thanks to our most appalling timing of the night we get there just in time to see Ian disappear from the DJ booth for good. Bollocks! Only to be replaced by the grand finale showdown of Andy Farley B2B with Phil Reynolds. Brilliant! (In true and traditional Fast Show-stylee!) Hope you’re all primed and ready for 2 hours (2 hours!!) of the most magnificently messy mayhem. Ladies and gents, take your positions and glowsticks at the ready please...
Hmmm, maybe glowsticks aren’t such a good idea after all. Truth is that by 10 minutes into it the whole lot of us are flinging our arms around at the kind of speeds more commonly associated with Harrier jump jets; more than once I saw a shaft of fluorescence go hurtling across the dance floor in a wild and desperate break for freedom. Down at floor level things aren’t much calmer as a tangled mess of combats, skirts and shorts twist and tumble to the gorgeous hooks of Soultaker, Khemical Imbalance, I Don’t Care (featuring an excellent and impromptu dose of pat-a-cake from Tara Reynolds, yep, you were spotted, hehehe!) and a dozen other floor-fillers I was too busy stomping like a hooligan to make a note of! (BTW found a new ideal spot to get going on the dance floor; up on the speaker podiums on the main stage. Only slight hang-up lies in constructing the perfect balance between bouncing like mad and stopping yourself from falling the 4 feet to certain pain on the dance floor below ).
Suddenly it’s 5.55 and a look of total incomprehension splatters across the Palace – how the bloody hell did that happen? I swear it was 4 o’ clock only a moment ago... Guess if there’s only 5 minutes left then we’d better start winding down, hey? Only the show’s not over ‘til the DJs say it’s over so when one of the definitive dance tunes of all time, Tony De Vit’s Are You All Ready? hammers out of the speakers all hell breaks loose one last time.
Then it’s time to stumble out, bleery-eyed and cheery-hearted, into the crisp December twilight, content in the knowledge that another year’s celebrations have gotten off to a marvellously chaotic start. Thanks to Frantic there’s a warm flow of Christmas cheer flooding through Camden Town this morning as a stream of satisfied clubbers drift away to coffee shops, chill-outs and afterparties. And so I’m offering this simple phrase, to everyone who’s made it through this review: although it’s been said, many times many ways... Messy Christmas to you.
Details of the next Frantic event can be found here.
Relevant Links
Frantic UK
With thanks to Sim Pat for the use of his photos 
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Other Features By bunny:
It's about music - interview with Alex Parsons
Monkey business as usual: interview with Shaf De Bass
Twistathon – Twist’s 12 Hour 1st Birthday Bonanza
Zoology's 2nd Birthday - Review!
becomeone: Unified in Sound - 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.
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Comments:
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From: Tara Reynolds on 18th Dec 2002 20:12.52
Thank you very much Bunny for your positive comments about my set. It made my day!
From: [Swe]Johannes on 19th Dec 2002 22:31.06
You were worth it tara. Generally one of the best evenings music wise for me at camden
From: UFS… on 20th Dec 2002 16:29.15
Crackin nite allrite + a gd start 2 da end of year celebrations... Fab review sweets, + Tara yr pat-a-cake is not up 2 scratch... or was it me;-) Messy Xmas 2 U all!!!
From: JezB on 20th Dec 2002 16:42.09
That was one hell of a night. Me and a friend were pretty much the first people thru the door @ 9, and the moment we were in there, we were stomping our little hearts out. Way to go guys!!! A perfect saturday night if ever there was. 
From: Diesel Steve on 8th Jan 2003 18:36.39
Pity you didn't make it upstairs sooner Bunny. But if I may, my funky addendum to your review.
Like anything in its infancy, it takes some dedication from the already converted faithful along with time to iron out some creases to create a great club (room). That is, the crowd and atmosphere was a little thin on the ground during Matt Williams’s pre-midnight opening set and Guffy and Shan were two harder DJs struggling to produce satisfying grooves for the closing set. Thus the crowd needs to discover the beauty of tough funky tech house and more specialist DJs are required on the bill.
The launch of Frantic's Funkaholic Room was still considered a success though due to, you guessed it, another brilliant set by none other than those two nutters, Mark and Adam, a.k.a. The Trophy Twins. Spinning tunes ranging from the almost cheesy (very sparingly) to the barely funky (almost hard house dare I say it) and drawing a smiling gyrating crowd. And I did spy Tara up there after her main room set, looking like she was enjoying herself too.
Anyway, I was completely funked up.
From: bunny on 9th Jan 2003 10:26.42
Steve, any comments from such a leading funkmeister as yourself are always greatly appreciated!
+ also big thanks for another display of that fine kung-fu dancing on the balcony at the end, now I know why it's become the stuff of legends!
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