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 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!

To satori and beyond with Adam Lab4 Reported by Psylicious / Submitted 02-07-08 13:29 Being described as the Iggy Pop of the industrial music scene is certainly one thing! But talking about dropping ‘The Witch’ into his set to tempt those infamous Pendle Witches out of cover from their dwelling up on Pendle Hill in the heart of Lancashire at this year’s Shamania Festival is certainly another! But the question is, will he do it? Headlining this musical sorcery alongside Dave The Drummer and Chris Liberator on the alternative stage hosted by Leeds based event Riff Raff will certainly ensure that the stage sound system is pushed to the limit, taking no hostages - witches included! Better known as Adam Lab4, Adam Newman is no stranger to the global harder dance floor scene. Since Adam and Les followed their own paths 18 months ago, after the Lab4 departure, a lot has transpired and flowed into full fruition; from setting up a studio in France, a record label and three out standing musical projects along with his debut album release A+D+A+M Lab4 ‘Drink Me’, out now on his own label Test Pilot Recordings. So now before Adam heads up to Lancashire in August for the Shamania Festival (www.shamania.com), here is Adam Lab4…… Adam, it is great to catch up with you since the Lab4 departure. How have you been? Very well thank you. I’ve been pretty busy since we finished Lab4 18 months ago but also had a little more freedom which has been quite refreshing. I loved the whole Lab4 journey but it really was an all consuming affair that left practically no time for anything else. No doubt since your final gig as Lab4, you’ve had time to reflect, foresee and have a well earned kind of rest? Yes. The whole ‘reflection’ is still going on in many ways, Lab4 was 13 years of my life that went pretty fast in quite an intense way! I can’t say that I have been working any less but the ‘rest’ has been more in the form of not having my life quite so rigidly structured as Lab4 demanded. It took a while to get used to doing gigs alone which I confess isn’t as much fun during the driving and sound checking parts, but I’ve pretty much found my new groove now. I also now have my studio in the middle of France and mostly live there, which has helped me reflect and move on but is also very inspiring from the point of view of writing. There’s an amazingly healthy electronic music scene there that we seldom hear about here [in the UK]. Musically you now have three projects on the go: namely A+D+A+M Lab4; The Judas Coven; and The Horizontal Instrument. What are the elements behind each of these projects and how do they differ musically from what you are known for on the harder dance floors? My main objective with my new ‘freedom’ outside of Lab4 was to start working on lyrics and song structures while making use of a lot of the experience gained from pushing things as far as we could with Lab4 over the years with regards to making sounds and experimenting with song structures etc. The Horizontal Instrument was the first project that I started working on which was me going back to my roots in many ways, but also just giving myself complete freedom to write whatever came out without worrying about whether it would keep people on a dance floor or be ‘radio friendly’ etc. The whole project started out very experimentally but has gradually developed into a very commercially viable project over the last few months thanks to my new guitarist (Paul Wisby). The Judas Coven came about one day when I was feeling that everything that I had been working on was a little too ‘mature’ and ‘nice’. So I created an alter ego and used the project to vent some pent up anger and gripes through the lyrics, as well as mixing up my influences from Jeff Mills and Ritchie Hawtin to Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails and Portishead. At present The Horizontal Instrument is my main project, Judas is on the back burner for a while and I have also begun work on a very commercial album along the lines of David Guetta, Laurent Wold and Bob Sinclair (as yet untitled). I notice you were described as being the Iggy Pop of the industrial music scene with your project The Judas Coven, how does that make you feel? Well it was a cool comment! I think partly to do with the fact that I lost almost 2 stone in weight rehearsing for a month to play drums for Proteus at Gatecrasher/Laserpoint in Finland, as opposed to me being anywhere near as talented lol! It’s a pretty good follow on from Lab4 being called ‘The Ozzy Osbournes of the Dance Scene’ by Mixmag a few years ago! So have you simply spanned your wings further and in turn pushed the boundaries you are so famous for pushing? Or would you say since loosing the Lab4 ball and chain around your ankles from countless gigs, travelling around the world, producing, keeping the sound fresh and let’s be honest, little ‘you’ time — has given you this lease of fresh injection? Well to be really honest, with Lab4 we never really set out to push boundaries, with me and Les working together, it just worked that way. We would basically just be having fun in the studio with sounds and riffs and get carried away with how mad and evil something might sound really loud in a club and I think just having come from such a different background to most of the DJs and producers on the scene (the fetish and industrial scene) we just made very different judgements with regards to what would be cool or not. Pretty much the only rule that we had with Lab4 was that if you were feeling creative then you should just write whatever is coming out at the time — the results of those creatively free moments being on the series of ‘Devilution’ albums that we released. Later on with Lab4 this became more and more difficult because of the intense gigging and all the extra business that went with it, as well as the fact that people came to expect us to push boundaries which became more and more difficult. Once you’ve kicked someone’s head off, it’s off so you have to work out where else to kick em!! I think we reached the principal at the last Hard House Academy (2006) with our drum & bass cover of Frank Sinatra’s version of ‘Fly me to the Moon’ with Les on guitar, me playing drums and our friend Titan, the 8 foot tall robot taking lead vocals for us!!! The best thing about my ‘post lab4 life’ is that I now have that freedom back in many ways and funnily enough, having four projects on the go has made me so much more prolific in my work just from having all that creative freedom back again. You have also set up your label ‘Test Pilot Recordings’ that is also behind your debut ‘solo’ release, Adam Lab4 album ‘Drink Me’. Tell us a little bit about this? Well I had spoken to a few labels about releasing the album (‘Drink Me’) but after one of the last remaining large distributors went under at the beginning of the year, not only were labels afraid of manufacturing CDs and then giving them to a distributor who may also go under before any money comes back from the sales, it was also becoming a way to risky situation for me as an artist. I still believe that most people would prefer to buy a full CD album rather than just digital downloads and so decided that the state of the music industry didn’t have to mean the end for smaller independent artists releasing CDs. So I set up my label, at the moment purely for my own releases but again it was really another exercise in giving myself the freedom to just do what the hell I want because it feels like a good plan at the time. The best thing is that my new CD has out sold the digital downloads by thousands already! LONG LIVE CD ALBUMS!!! You are already underway with your second album; when do you plan to have this released and what sound direction will this second album transpire? I am aiming for early 2009. ‘Drink Me’ came together really quickly at the end of last year but I fully intend to just allow the next album to take as long as need be. I started work on it after a track that I wanted to use for a mix CD was not available for licence. I couldn’t find any other tunes that I wanted so I wrote a new tune that came out really well and figured I’d get the ball rolling a little for the next album. The track is called ‘Pure Disco Shit’ and will be exclusively available (until my next album) on the new Frantic Mix CD which has been mixed by me, Proteus, Anne Savage, Cally Gage , Pick Up & Rise and Audioheadz. It’ll be released at the end of August (plug, plug lol!!!) I also want to record a new live CD later this year (probably at Hard House Academy) for a December release and want to get some of the next album tracks in the set ready for that recording. Now that I have the freedom to be creative with my other projects I also now have the freedom to just let the A+D+A+M lab4 project be just good fun, Lab4 style hard dance music. I don’t feel that I have anything to prove and really just got re-inspired by remembering how I felt back in 1994 when we started writing Lab4 tunes... so basically it’ll be more of the same. Coming up you have two major gigs, Ground Zero in Holland (30,000 people) and Hard House Academy in October (the first in two years). No doubt you will be looking forward to pushing these sound systems to the limit? Yes!!! Both events are going to be massive productions with new tracks, fire, stage sets and some big surprises. We started the production meetings for Hard House Academy almost two months ago. It’s going to be an unbelievable event. Away from the DJing side of things, what ammunition do you have primed for Adam Lab4 Live and how well do you think this will be received in Holland as well as Hard House Academy? I haven’t played in Holland for two years but I’m pretty sure all my new tunes will go down well. I am very confident that Hard House Academy will be the high point of this year for me. One of my goals for 2008 was to be on stage at Brixton Academy again but to be honest I didn’t think it would happen. It’ll be a little different being on such a large stage alone, but if the ideas that I am working on all come to fruition I think it’ll be all I’m hoping for! I have some ideas and plans that have formed off the back of my gigs with The Judas Coven and from working with Proteus over the last two years. August sees you as one of the headliners at the UK festival, ‘Shamania’ where you will be playing the alternative stage hosted by Leeds based event, Riff Raff. You must be looking forward to playing at a festival that is within the shadows of the Pendle hill, famed for its Pendle Witches? Yes! I think I will have to drop the Lab4 tune ‘The Witch’ in my set somewhere — see if I can tempt any of the Pendle Witches to join me for my set! Riff Raff has always been a real favourite for Lab4 and for me too, so I’m also looking forward to hanging out with the Riff Raff crew for the night. In recent years the UK festival scene seems to be going from strength to strength but in turn still keeps the music underground. What is it about the festival vibe you enjoy the most? There’s just something so good about the vibe of so many people being gathered in the open air, regardless of the weather etc. all for the same reason — the music and to share it with their mates, followed by all the memories that then follow on. Adam, it has been great to catch up with you here on HarderFaster. I’m also really looking forward to seeing you at the Shamania Festival. Before we finish here, is there anything you would like to add? I would just like to thank everyone for the continued love and support that I have received post Lab4. For all the emails of support and all the chats and drinks that I’ve shared with people at gigs this year. I would also like to send a big hug to Les Lab4 and wish him all the best with the numerous projects that he also has on the go! Anyone wanting to keep up to date with what I’m up to, please be sure to join my mailing list at: www.adamlab4.com Love + Respect, Adam lab4 xx Additional info: Adam Lab4: http://adamlab4.com/http://www.myspace.com/adamlab4 Shamania Festival: http://www.shamania.com Pendle Hill: www.pendle.net/about.htm Pendle Witches: www.pendle.net/Attractions/pendlewitches.htm Photos courtesy of Adam Newman. Not to be reproduced without permission. Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Psylicious: Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino Initiating a ‘Digital Domain’ with Savage Circuit Breaking into your Unconscious Mind(s) Expanding Your Senses with Odo7 Talamasca ‘Make Some Noise’! 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: MATT HANDY on 17th Jul 2008 11:33.52 Top stuff

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