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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!

Trance for the future: Ruben de Ronde brings Armada to Johannesburg Reported by SunnyAli / Submitted 07-05-08 11:48 Ruben de Ronde is one of the new school – the generation of talented, up and coming DJs and producers to emerge from the Netherlands, arguably the spiritual home of trance – and he’s doing a damn fine job of injecting some kicking, screaming new life into the genre. From humble beginnings listening to dance mixes on Radio EDM, just ten years later he is one of Holland’s most in-demand new producers, remixers and DJs. Oh yes, and he’s been snapped up by the mighty Armada, the label of no less than world No. 1 DJ Armin Van Buuren, to manage its international releases and partnerships. He now describes his style as “going beyond trance”, and is adding techy, acid lines and complex layers of bass into his tracks. His remixes of killer tracks like Mr. White, by Swedish producer Marcus Schössow and The Twist by Michael de Kooker have won him high praise and have been played by names like Paul van Dyk to the UK’s Judge Jules, while his own productions include recent release with fellow producer Jinx, Sunny Day in Paris, which entered the Dutch dance charts at number 30. He’s now in demand further afield and has played sets at clubs like London’s legendary Turnmills as well as gigs in the Ukraine. So when Armada’s South African label partner Sheer Music asked him to pay a flying visit to Johannesburg to play the legendary Slippery N Wet party at trance club ESP, HarderFaster jumped at the chance to ask a few tricky questions about where on earth trance is going. So, Ruben – tell us about your visit to South Africa. I got approached by James and Shane [of Sheer Records] to come here and play. I liked the idea – I’ve never been to South Africa and thought I’d like to see the place. I’d heard from friends that it was brilliant here, so I had to take the opportunity to come and visit. I’ve heard that South African clubbers are more into their fast paced music than in Europe, where most DJs are playing between around 120 and 128. My productions are around 130 bpm – I haven’t touched 140 bpm in ages! You’ve talked about your sound as going “beyond trance” – what style of music are you playing these days? I would say between progressive house and trance: as long as it’s got some catchy melodies in there. But it still needs to have the punch of a trance track, so it’s danceable and not actually like elevator music – you know, the music they play in fancy restaurants. I aim for music with punch, melodies, and of course it needs a good bassline and some perky percussion. How did your big break with Armin Van Buuren’s label Armada come about? I actually used to work in the events department of the Heineken beer brand, on events like Dance Valley. I was already in the music business with my own label Statement and I was DJing quite a lot in the Netherlands as well, So I’d met Michael, the owner of Armada a couple of times at parties and had emailed him regularly. But then, one night, Heineken was sponsoring an event where I had to hand over an award to Armin for the Best DJ of the Year. As I walked in I saw Michael and he just offered me the job! Within two weeks I was working there. How closely do you work with Armin? Well, he’s not really in the office that often! He’s travelling a lot right now. But, I help him out with finding new tunes and stuff like that. You produce and remix quite a bit and have worked both on your own label and with Armada, but you’re now playing out at ever bigger events – would you describe yourself as a DJ or a producer first? Which gives you the biggest buzz? It’s a mixture – when you’re DJing, you get ideas for producing, so actually my production is all based on dancefloor material, what will make people dance. Not producing for producing, but producing for DJing, that’s how I’d describe it. You make tunes that you can use in your sets. That’s what I want to do. That sounds like it puts you more in the DJ category? Yes, well I started out as a DJ almost ten years ago [embarrassed chuckle], and then started producing around four years ago. So I started with DJing and from there I began thinking about making my own tunes to play out in my sets. Are you moving into production more and more now then? Actually you need to have productions these days even to get booked for DJ gigs, because if you don’t get your name out on tunes nobody will even notice you. You can be a fantastic DJ but if you don’t have good productions you won’t get on. Another very interesting thing you’re seeing more and more these days is young producers that are only used to producing, but who then suddenly get requests to play out as a DJ. And they sometimes really don’t know how to DJ – so it’s all the other way around. Is it sad to see people playing less and less on vinyl and more using CD and digital formats? Well, I have a lot of vinyl’s, but I have to say I don’t use them any more. Of course it’s nice to have your own productions out on vinyl, but in the end it costs a lot of money and it just doesn’t get sold – it’s just not practical any more. On the plus side, for producers it’s now taking a shorter and shorter time between finishing a track and getting it released. You used to get your track signed and then you’d wait almost a year before the vinyl was out, but now vinyl’s disappearing and it only takes about four months. There are now thousands of digital record labels releasing music – what’s this doing for the dance scene? Is it making it harder to get noticed as a producer, and is it harder to track down really good new tracks? I think you do lose out on good music just because of the volume of new stuff out there, yes. You used to go to a record store and the person working there would know your style and would show you everything they had that suited you, whether it was on small or unknown labels. Now, though, you tend to only grab stuff from the big labels because they have a lot out, and they have the big producers. And you might miss out on a great tune on a small label because there are so many, that’s the down side. There are millions and millions of digital record labels now and the bad side is that more and more, we’re seeing producers who have made some track and think that if they have their own label, suddenly everyone will buy it. But, they don’t even know what it’s like to have a label, to have the network to get the tunes out. You see that after a couple of releases they go down. It’s a lot of work to have a label running properly. Beatport is working on it now: it’s kicking out small labels because they aren’t even selling releases. And really, if you release a track and it doesn’t get signed to the label you really want, because it isn’t good enough, it won’t do any better if you release it on a label you’ve created! You do a lot of remixes – how come? I do a lot of remixes. I just finished the remix of Lost Language for Aly and Fila, It took me AGES to finish, way way too long! Now I can concentrate on other things, I’ve got to start a couple of new remixes people have requested. I really enjoy remixing – it’s great fun. The Aly and Fila original track is really fast, uptempo trance, so I took it down to more dirty content with a dirty bassline, which was quite hard – it’s probably why I struggled so much. But I’m really happy with how it turned out. People often ask me to do a remix like I did for Mr White, which did really well, the tune with Marcus Schössow, because I think it was a fresh sound. Ferry Corsten put it on his compilation, so did Cosmic Gate and Markus Schulz. A lot of people wanted to have that as well. What about South African DJs? Have you thought about collaborations with any here? It’s definitely something I’ll look at for the future. ESP resident James G made a track called Elastica – ESP Elastica – that got released on Armada and I really like that tune, so maybe I’ll collaborate with him. It’s so easy now to work with people outside your own country, because it’s just about sending over a file and opening it on your own computer. What’s next for trance, do you think? South African clubbers tend to think trance has had its best days and it’s now all about electro and funky house sounds – is this really the way music is going? I think 2008 is going to be a great year for trance, because there’s more and more producers that are really able to make fresh tunes that really sound great, are really catchy. I’ve seen it myself – over the last two years in the Netherlands there haven’t been any parties playing trance, but now suddenly you’re seeing it again. There will be a revival, because the young kids are coming up with brilliant tunes and they’re playing all over the world, it’s really cool to see. I think trance is dying down, in South Africa as much as everywhere else around the world and it’s being replaced by funky and electro sounds, pretty much. But then again, there are always years where trance is popular and years when it isn’t. In 2001 and 2002, trance was everywhere, whereas the last couple of years it has died down. It’s just a matter of years going by and it will come back up again. Harderfaster.net would like to thank Sheer Music South Africa for the assistance in interviewing Ruben de Ronde. For more information on Sheer please visit www.sheermusic.co.za or email shane@sheer.co.za Photos courtesy of the Harderfaster archive. Not to be reproduced without permission. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By SunnyAli: Darude's whirlwind decade No sleep for Rachel Auburn In the Presence of Carl Nicholson Frantic Timeless 8 – totally worth ruining Valentine's Day for... It's like Origami, but with power tools..... One Awsum Xmas Party 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. Comments: From: *antixa* on 10th May 2008 11:34.09 Hellova interview Ali

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