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Features
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| 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! |
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Getting Friendly with Lee Haslam
Reported by Adam Symbiosis
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Submitted 28-03-07 19:21
Lee Haslam has contributed immensely to the direction of clubland since his second track Music Is The Drug hit the heights in 2002. Since then he has dropped many a remix bomb, appeared on compilations worldwide and of course had a celebrated stint at the helm of Tidy Two, home to many a hard trance classic.
Yet now he’s decided to move to pastures new. Or maybe it’s just rediscovered. As you’ll see over the following interview his is a taste and a career that has evolved and diversified. From beginnings not unlike many of you today he has achieved much in a very short space of time. His career in clubland started around 12 years ago as a trance head and where else to get that fix but at Gatecrasher. The love of the music quickly developed and from those early times up to 1999 he was already playing week in, week out as a club resident at venues like AD43, Eden & The Warehouse in his home town of Doncaster. But it was the year to follow that would then define a dramatic change and ignite a passion for hard trance that would see him release some of the biggest anthems of our time.
It’s clearly obvious that he’s continued to develop his trance sound and now it’s morphed into a having a tech base to it. As always people’s tastes change constantly but to start I wanted to know how Lee thought developments in trance moved with his tastes? “They say that music is the soundtrack to your life,” he began, “And I really do believe this to be true. My musical tastes throughout my whole career have changed and I’m sure it will continue to change but the one certain thing is that trance has always been a major part of it. Obviously as a DJ and producer you are constantly on the look out for fresh inspiration and sounds so it was only a matter of time before my career would change again. It was around 2004 that I started to get itchy feet and pull away from hard trance, I just woke up one day and had lost the passion and drive for the sound that had made my name. I guess I just needed to find that excitement again because for me the hard trance sound was becoming very obvious and uninspiring. A lot of people may say that it was my job to make it inspiring again but to be fair I just felt it was the end of the road for me in that sound. It was also around that time that I was thinking about my future. In 2004 I’d lost my dad and was already thinking about what I wanted to do as a DJ and producer and running my own label was one of the things high on the list of things I wanted to achieve.”
He concedes that there may be many people who disagree with his thoughts on the subject, but I think there will be many more people who would be happy to say that hard dance has lost its way somewhat, with familiar sounds and similar beats infecting the output of substandard producers, “You could almost predict what was going to happen, when and what sounds would be used. When I started at tidy in 1997 there was such a plethora of styles and productions from Signum to Trauma to Jon The Dentist to Untidy Dubs. There was something for everyone but as time went on the hard trance sound took over and most importantly record labels really started to struggle with sales as file sharing got worse leaving them with no option. They had lost the ability to push the boundaries and experiment with new tracks, remixes and ideas. What they released had to be obvious “hands in the air” anthems as that seemed to be the only things selling at retail, which meant for me the genre lost its way. It had lost the groove and originality that attracted me to it in the first place. It is very difficult to break the mould of a tried and tested formula, especially of one which you know works and sells records but when I was still hearing tracks sent to me that sounded just like Music Is The Drug from four years prior or constant re-works of classics it really started to get me down. The genre wasn’t progressing and developing, it was constantly looking at the past and emulating it or updating it rather than pushing forward and being different and that just wasn’t me any more.”
The no rules, no formula approach to tech-trance then was the draw bringing Lee to a realisation of his dream, setting up Digital Remedy and now his own night in Doncaster called Lee Haslam & Friends. “I set the label up before I left tidy in October 2006 as it was important for me to develop a portal where I could release my music on a regular basis. I was getting tracks picked up by other labels but it could be six months before they were released and I wanted to be releasing ten singles a year, it just wasn’t viable for me anymore. With Digital Remedy I have the makings of a very strong label and with the wonders of digital downloads I can sell my music across the globe relatively easily. Couple this with all the contacts and experience that I’ve gained so far in my career and I think it would have been foolish of me not to do.” If you are a fan of Lee’s work then Digital Remedy should be your first point of call as it’s primarily for his own productions but that’s not to say you won’t find other choice tracks released, just keep your eye out for anything from “euphoric to progressive to tech trance.” Interestingly enough you’ll also find his fiancée, Amber D, setting up her own label D’amour Recordings to showcase her new house sound. I wondered what it must be like to be both getting married and embarking on new labels together. The answer, of course, was “Great!” With the happy day coming up on the 2nd of August 2008 there’s a long way to go but Lee’s mindful of all the work that’s going to go into such an important day but before that you could always help them celebrate at their unofficial engagement party this weekend at his new party.
The idea, he tells me, of the new party is quite simple. It is just to put on a “bloody good party” along with pushing himself and his label forward. It’s also giving something slightly different back to the people in the north. If you haven’t already noticed the party launches on Sunday, which you might find is an odd day to run a party. “Sunday clubbing is not something that has been done that well by that many people,” he concedes, “But I am confident that it will work else I simply wouldn’t be doing it. Tech Trance in my room is going to be the focal sound but I will be constantly using my night to push new sounds and exciting up and coming talent as well as for me this so important. In the house room again I want to use local talent and one or two headliners so as the event progresses you will see a mixture of very well known names and up and coming DJ’s. Doncaster is hardly the clubbing capital of the UK but it is my home town and I know a lot of people there. The venue is the best in the town and is owned and run by some good friends of mine so it felt the right thing to do.”
It’s also exactly for the reason that Sunday is such an odd day to run a party that might make a success of this venture. Harking back to the days of Sundissential at Evolution and the wrongness of it all, it’s a vibe that Lee wants to recreate. “When you tell people it’s on a Sunday it always gets a cool reaction. It’s not on too late if you’ve got work the next day and if you don’t then you can have a full day of it. There isn’t much going on in the north of England at the best of times but with everything that I want to achieve with the event, Sunday felt a good day to do it on. It starts at 4pm so you can have a few drinks in the chilled bar area where local legend Adam Sharpe will be doing the pre club warm up, then at 6pm the main room and house room open and will remain open till 1am, that’s 9 hours of music for people to get involved in.” There’s also the small matter of prices too, but anyone thinking of going will be pleased to learn that if you get in there early to sample the warm up it’s completely free, though if you turn up later you’re still only going to pay a fiver, a bargain if you think of who you could be seeing, so why not forget the Sunday roast?
If you’ve done any travelling recently you will have realised that across the continent tech-trance is absolutely massive, so who might we see gracing this small part of England? Fabio Stein, Sean Tyas and Richard Durrand are already popular names that pop up along with bigger draws like Sander Van Doorn and Marcel Woods but the key thing at the moment is keeping his feet on the ground and concentrating on getting a few good events under his belt before anyone boards a plane. “It’s important to me to initially use UK based talent and that the night builds a good reputation early. I want people come to every event because they know they are going to be in a good “family” atmosphere and be listening to great music no matter who is playing. That’s the vibe I am looking for! The club hold 500 people over two rooms so it is going to be a very intimate affair which is perfect for what I am trying to achieve.” You find UK talent well represented at the first party, with Shaun Maertins, better known as Shaun M from tidy, launching his new tech-trance guise. A close friend of Lee’s, they share the same musical tastes and have known each other for years so it seemed only natural to have him on the line up. There’s also the matter of having rapidly rising star Michael Dow appearing. There’s a direct comparison between Lee and Michael as the latter has now moved from his early dalliance with hard trance over to tech trance and is now pumping out some of the most talked about productions and remixes on the scene at the moment. “Michael Dow for me is one of the hottest properties in dance music at the minute,” Lee explains. “He is a top lad who has his head screwed on and it is this kind of talent that I want to support and push at my events. I don’t think Michael has moved styles in any way; he can be very eclectic with his productions. That has been proven recently with releases on tidy & Nukleuz as well as the almighty Armada, which is an amazing achievement. I think if you sat him down and asked him to write a track though it would be trance but he does have his own style, which I love. He fuses the melodic and the techy together very well and I have always supported his material. Not many producers can do all that and as well as he does so for me Mickey has a very bright future ahead of him and it is an absolute pleasure to have him on the line up.”
To wrap up, seeing as Lee has been so influential in dance music over the last few years, I thought he might have some words of wisdom for anyone thinking of taking part in our producers’ competition. “Be true to yourself and be original,” he tells me. “Everyone needs inspiration but it’s how you apply that inspiration that matters. I get lots of material sent to me and a lot of it is good but it is very easy to accept something as OK or good. You should always try and push yourself to make it amazing. If you think something could be better then do it, never settle for “it will do.” Other advice I would give is work on the hook of the record and the plot. The biggest tracks are often very simple but one thing they all are is memorable and that is the hard part. Be it a massive riff or a vocal or a simple bassline, these are the things that get people singing your tune in their head and makes for a big record. Hope this helps guys and good luck!"
Adam Symbiosis 
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Other Features By Adam Symbiosis:
Godskitchen Xmas Party: Reviewed
The Big Chill: Reviewed
Tiësto at Victoria Park: Reviewed
Lilly Allen: Reviewed
Digital Society May 2009: Reviewed
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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