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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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Review: Frantic vs Logic (The Scala, 15th May 2004)
Reported by Olly Perris
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Submitted 18-05-04 20:16
Two of the biggest hard dance promotions collided head on to give their faithful clubbers a synthesis of the best that they have to offer. The Scala was turned into a mini-battlefield, decorated with both Logic and Frantic's respective colours, and the line up of DJs represented the first major promotional "battle" of 2004. It seems that a fantastic night was had by all, as 1,500 of London's most faithful hard dance clubbers descended on the Scala for a night of fierce, hedonistic hard house...
This was my first visit to the Scala and it was somewhat of a maze at first, with seemingly endless corridors leading in tower-fashion to the top of a very tall building, leading to 3 different rooms. Upstairs, the Dirty DJs battled the Oblivion DJs, and in the downstairs room (the main arena), Frantic took on Logic. Once I had actually found my way around and located the nearest bar (always essential in clubs, obviously!) the venue was one which was quite small, yet wielded a lot of intimacy and charm. The decor in the main room was brilliantly done, with Logic and Frantic's various insignia dotted around the various balconies and stages on the dancefloor, and with the DJ setup placed high on the main stage. The warm-up task in the main room was given to Kutski, a very talented hard-trance-scratch DJ - think the bastard offspring of Eddie Halliwell and Phil Reynolds and you wouldn't be too far off! Scratching and chopping his way through tunes such as Guyver's rework of the excellent Stimulant DJs 'Scream and Shout', Kutski served to warm up the crowd in fantastic style. Although the Scala was fairly empty by this point, with many deciding to take to the bar rather than the dancefloor, the arena was slowly building in anticipation for the next DJ, Andy Whitby.
Much has been said in the hard dance press recently about Andy Whitby and there has been an extreme amount of hype, with many referring to him as the "saviour of hard dance". As he came to the decks, there was a certain amount of anticipation leading up to his set, and he delivered in an absolutely unbelievable way. Making full use of the tricks avaliable on the Pioneer DJM600 mixer, Andy chopped and echoed his way through future anthems such as Greg Brookman & Serge's 'Frozen' and Ingo & Eseni DJ's 'Scare Tactics' whilst hyping up the ever-filling crowd with hard trance anthems such as Dave Holmes' 'Devotion'. To finish the set, Andy sent the crowd into overdrive by dropping in some bouncy hard house. In an age where bouncy hard house has come, disappeared and been hastily forgotten by trendy hard house pundits, it seems implausible that the hint of a bouncy bassline could arouse a London Frantic audience into a huge cheer, but it happened! As Andy dropped in Tony De Leon's remix of the classic 'Black Is Black', a tune that received utter contempt from the hard house media two years ago, the Scala erupted into a frenzy! Andy really read the crowd beautifully and managed to keep the energy up right through to the conclusion of his set. The set was enjoyed by all and most clubbers there described it as the best of the night. Andy Whitby is here to stake his claim as one of the best new talents in hard dance and, given this performance, this should be an easy task for the youngster!
Andy handed off to Vicious Circle's Ben Stevens, who managed to keep the energy levels pushing into the red by dropping a huge crowd favourite, Baby Doc & SJ's 'Ploughmans Lunch', alongside contemporary classics such as Paul Glazby's 'Motherfucker'. Playing very much in the Glazby-esque vein, Ben pumped up the now-filling crowd with a fantastic array of tunes. With all this hard-as-nails house, it seemed like the night would progress too quickly, but Rubec was on hand to serve up some hard trance to restore the euphoric sentiment to the crowd. Tunes such as Pienaar & Bamford's 'Darkside' and 'Black Magic', along with their reworking of the classic 'Destination Sunshine' sent arms and emotions aloft simultaneously, with the atmosphere and vibe generally extremely happy. Upstairs in the "Top" room, Chris Vincent and Shaf De Bass were keeping the small, yet intimate gathering contented with some vicious hard techno and ferocious beats.
Back downstairs however, and at 2am on the dot, the VJ screens behind the booth suddenly all changed. A scene from the Matrix played, with Nick Sentience preparing his Live PA act. Just as the Matrix scene hit a climax, Nick burst into his Live PA with his future anthem 'Afrotekno', fusing some fantastic industrial breakbeat loops with the tribal rhythms on offer. He managed to add some fantastic breakbeat sections to the breakdowns of some of his most well known works, including the fantastic 'Discotech' and crowd favourites 'Instrumental' and 'Cause & Effect'. Nick also included some of his earlier work too including his remix of Vitae's 'Energy Flow' and the massive remix of Praga Khan's timeless classic 'Injected With A Poison'. Accompanying the set was some fantastic VJ work and also a constant shower of silver glitter paper, which heightened the atmosphere and provided exactly the right ethos for Nick to do what he does best - bang out some of his most famous classics. There can be no doubt that Nick Sentience is one of the most forward-thinking, innovative electronic producers of our time, and this PA served to be a fantastic showcase of tunes from a man who remains still very humble and down-to-earth, despite his enormous success. With the PA ending on the remix of the infamous 'Fucking Hostile', the VJ screens once more changed and with an enormous thunderclap of party poppers and sound effects, a scene from Terminator graced the screens.
It was time for Proteus, the Finnish legend who is really beginning to make an impact in our humble island. This was infact the first time I had seen Proteus play, and I was completely blown away from his stage presence. I recall once how I (now infamously) described The *Ting* as being someone who had the energy of "A kangaroo with a butt-plug". Imagine mutating this Kangaroo to the extent that its bounce factor reaches abnormally huge proportions, and give it a silver mask, a giant cape, a haircut which would give L'oreal scientific nightmares, feed it an extremely hot Vindaloo, and you'd still only end up with half of what Proteus is. As Arnold Schwarzenegger resided over the decks, Proteus stood in a very eerie, almost God-like pose, complete with his black cape and frightening eerie mask concealing his face. As the Terminator scene ended and his first tune started with an enormous cheer from the audience, Proteus proceded to bounce, hop and leap out of his stoid persona and move around the decks with fantastic agility and speed, performing some of the fastest deck spin-backs I have ever seen! If Red Bull ever needed a front-man for their advertising campaign, they need look no further than Proteus, a man with more energy than the National Grid. As the BPM's got faster, Proteus worked his way through some of the finest Finnish hard trance, a scene cruly underrated by the British media but so well recieved by the UK crowds. The tunes came so thick and fast that I had trouble keeping up on the dancefloor, but Proteus kept going and going like the Duracell bunny on pro-plus. A fantastic set from someone who managed to install such energy into the crowd and someone who literally leaves you absolutely breathless to watch.
Frantic's Phil Reynolds and his Logic adversary Ilogik followed in a b2b set which struggled to follow the pure energy of Proteus's set. The tunes did however come thick and fast, and it was great to hear some older anthems including the huge RR Fierce & DMF 'Rock Da Spot' alongside modern anthems such as Rebirth's "R U Afraid'. By no means was this at all a bad set, it just didn't logically flow after Proteus 180bpm stompathon. Putting Proteus on after this b2b set would have made slightly more sense, although nevertheless Reynolds b2b Ilogik gave the crowd some much-needed respite, whilst still serving up the energy in vast proportions. Upstairs, Danny Luu was giving the crowd some energetic trance anthems, whilst before this the harder faster beats of Matt Clarke filled the dancefloor and created a wicked, friendly vibe. Although the "Top" room remained fairly empty throughout, its fair to say that the talent on offer from all of the DJs concerned was a fantastic showcase, and it was good to see them represented at a major Frantic event.
To conclude, Caroline Banx finished the crowd off with a disappointingly mediocre set. Repeating many of the tunes played already by Ben Stevens and mixing them fairly badly in some instances, Caroline lacked the stage presence and energy of her formers and played, in the words of the immortal Simon Cowell, a 'distinctly average' set. Again, perhaps an earlier set time would have benefitted her undoubted talent a lot better, as the crowd were pretty much zapped of responsive energy by the enigma that is Proteus. Nevertheless, she bought the crowd to an end with some big hard house numbers including Daley & Alex Calver's 'Go Bezerk' and a repeat of the huge 'Ploughmans Lunch'.
The night was definately a fantastic night however, despite the average performance of some of the DJs on the card. The decor was fantastic, and a massive hats-off to Frantic for really putting effort into the little things, such as the Balloon drop during Sentience's Live PA and the paper confetti poured onto the crowd at random times during the night, which always came as a nice surprise. Frantic's next massive promotion is HHA: The Live Edition at Brixton Academy on the 29th of May. Featuring K90, Nu Energy and Lab 4 live, alongside Andy Whitby, Andy Farley and Justin Bourne b2b Ben Stevens, along with 4,500 insane clubbers, this promises to be an event not to be missed.
Tune of the night: (Ben Stevens/Caroline Banx) Baby Doc & SJ - 'Ploughmans Lunch (Paul Glazby Remix)' (Resurrection Records)
Set of the night: Andy Whitby
Best moment of the night: Proteus' arrival onto the decks and his awesome stage presence.
Worst moment of the night: That twat who kept blowing the air-horns off to every single tune. Great at first, funny the second time, annoying by the fifty-eighth time.
Thanx to HouseGuy for use of the photos!!! Nice one geeza! 
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Other Features By Olly Perris:
Addiction @ Hidden preview: interview with Sean Tyas
Interview with Ian H & Matt B of Momentum
Interview with Pierre Pienaar aka P.H.A.T.T.
From a young gun to an industry lion: Heat/HF Xmas Payback(2back) Party preview with Spencer Freeland
Party techno, party music, party animal! The lowdown on hard dance’s newest prodigy, Jamie Taylor
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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. I have to thank KB for a wicked b2b.