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!

OOOD return to the far depths of psychedelia for Waveform Festival Reported by Tara / Submitted 10-09-08 01:36 After 15 years making music together you could be forgiven for assuming that any band would be content to continue touring their old classics like the Stones or worse, following the Guns & Roses path and taking 10 years to produce anything new of value. Not OOOD. These psy trance pioneers are about to release their new album and have some of their biggest gigs yet to come over the next few months. This weekend they're playing a rare live set at Waveform Festival, then in the days leading up the album launch Rama's at Broken @ the Where?house on Friday 19 September and Colin's playing a DJ set at Roots & BNE presents... TRINITY @ Jacks on Saturday 20 September. It was definitely time HarderFaster hunted them down to the outer limits of the universe where we spoke in deep tongues... OOOD is short for ‘Out Of Our Depth’. How did you come up with the name? Do you OD often? Colin came up with the name at a Pagan party in 1994, when OOOD had only written a couple of tracks together. 14 years on and we’re still out of our depth, but swimming strongly! As for ODing — do we look like the sort of people who take drugs? When did you first meet and start making music together? Please tell us a bit about each of your backgrounds and what inspired you to start treading water as a group. Colin, Nigel and Steve all met each other in Oxford in October 1994, and the group was formed after it became obvious that the music we wrote together was much better than the music we wrote individually or in pairs. Steve and Colin both had experience working in studios and as guitarist and keyboard player respectively, and Nigel was an analog electronics genius and experienced psychedelic synth botherer who had supported Hawkwind at Stonehenge in the ’80s; when we all met Colin had already had his first release on Phantasm so the combination of all our skills was far more than the sum of its parts. When we formed the band, Steve had already known Ramsay for a while, and Ryo joined the gang in 1995 when he moved to Oxford to start his degree, and both of them would hang out in the studio while we wrote. As DJs and musicians they gradually got more involved in the writing process, so it was natural for them to join the band properly when the time came. For a while all five of us performed together as OOOD but Nigel’s involvement got less when we moved the studio to Bristol in 2000. Treading water though? Nah… always moving forward! 15 years is a long time to be making music. In what way has your music changed and evolved over the years? Well the production quality has improved for a start! Moving from an analog studio with lots of knobs and controls on just a few synths, to a virtual studio where it’s all mouse-driven yet with infinite possibilities has definitely had an effect on the music too, although just what that is is difficult to say. We’ve always incorporated influences from elsewhere in our music, but we’ve increasingly opened what we write as OOOD to include genres other than psy trance, as well as trying to widen the scope of dancefloor-oriented psy in general. We’re pushing ourselves harder creatively now than we ever did. Our soul lies in partying together under the stars though, so we’re constantly aiming to evoke the feelings that we had back when we were fresh to the scene. Having released music since 1994, you’re considered pioneers of psy trance. What musical influences have got you where you are today? And who do you consider the other key players on the scene these days? It would be simpler to list the genres that haven’t inspired us collectively; we’re not great fans of soft metal, although even this has its place. It’s harder to say that about R&B, although of course this is a matter of taste! It’s been vital for us not to refer solely to the psy trance scene for ideas and inspiration, but we were all in bands and orchestras of many kinds both before OOOD came along and at times along the way so we’ve always been able to maintain and increase our interest in other music too. There’s no such thing as bad music, only music you don’t personally like! The list includes Underworld, Hardfloor, Jam + Spoon, Noom Records, The Orb, Hallucinogen, Eat Static, System Seven, Goldie, Ozric Tentacles, Progidy, Whirligig + Pagan parties, Led Zep, Motorhead, Herbie Hancock, Art of Noise, ELO, Lee Perry, Leftfield, blah blah blah… Now playing: Muse — ‘Invincible’. Next: Sia — ‘The Girl You Lost To Cocaine’. Your first album ‘aLIVE’ was one of the very first live albums ever released as a debut by a psy act, with the tracks all being recorded at your various gigs. The energy on this album is completely different to something recorded digitally. How have your albums since differed — if at all? Our subsequent albums have all been recorded in the Stooodio which means the performance aspect isn’t quite as emphasised as on ‘aLIVE’. When we made our first album we were still in total thrall to trance but since then our albums have always included other material. ‘aLIVE’ was also written and performed using a pretty basic studio setup compared to many working at the time, and it was only when we began the transition to a virtual studio in 1999 that we started to get access to the tools we needed to make the music sound the way we’d always wanted. You’re renowned for your incredible live sets and have played at most of the top psy festivals and events over the world. What’s been your favourite event to play at over the years? Pre-2000, our favourite gig was at Pagan’s NYE 95/96 party, at Tyssen St. Studios in London; it was such an honour to be asked to perform, and in terms of craziness on the dancefloor and on stage there hasn’t been much to touch it since. In more recent times Glade Festival and Fusion Festival rank right up there, as well as Synergy Project (as was) and Tribe of Frog in the UK and Psychedelic Carnival 2 in Zurich. And then there’s Vortex in South Africa! But smaller parties can also be fantastic to play at, with a much closer connection to the audience, and there’s a little place in Martigny, Switzerland called Club V-SO which is very close to our hearts. One of the very best in recent times has to be the Psychedelic Beach Ball in 2006, when we squeezed our entire setup onto the back of a small truck and played an absolute blinder. There are still many events that we’d truly love to play at some day; we’re very much looking forward to Waveform this weekend, and Universo Paralello in Brazil for NYE, and Boom has to be on the itinerary at some point too... Since you formed in 1994 Nigel Bradbury has moved on to drier land and your old mates Ramsay Melhuish and Ryokan Potier have come on board. How has this changed the sound and dynamic of what you do? Studio-wise it has brought new influences, new inspiration, new talents, new combinations to work in… every combination of writers has a different combined style and this is a big help in our quest never to write the same track twice. Colin, Steve and Ryo very much have their own voices as producers, and Ramsay has a good ear for a sample as well as strong vision as a co-writer; possibilities just keep opening up. On stage it has made a huge change, with Ramsay taking over the playback duties freeing Colin to play more keyboards; Steve and Ryo’s previously-untapped skills as guitarist and drummer made the band’s transition to a more performance-based live format an inevitability. You’re all also members of the Unconscious Collective, where you make very different stuff. What’s the ethos behind the two different projects and how do you see the music between each differing? That used to be the case but recently for the sake of simplicity we’ve said “fuck it, it’s all OOOD”. Previously though we defined the two as OOOD = psy trance and Unconscious Collective = everything else… however there’s quite a grey area between the two and it makes more sense for us not to differentiate between them and just write what we want to without necessarily considering its genre, and just play the appropriate tracks for whatever gigs we get. It also helps when you’re trying to promote just one band as opposed to two, even if they have the same line-up! Perhaps there will be more OOOD chill-out live sets at festivals near you in years to come… You’ve said in an interview that your main goal is to get the dancefloor moving. Out of all the tracks you’ve made and played in the last 15 years, what are your top 10 to make that happen? Narrowing it down to just 10 is difficult! In no particular order: 1: Kundalini 2: Free Range 3: Fluorostani Transcendence 4: Eye of the Beholder 5: Two Dawns Over Baleshwar 6: Heliopause 7: Silence 8: Attitude Engine 9: Slang Thang 10: Smoke A Lot You’re involved with Phar Psyde Records and will be releasing your new album through them. How did you all hook up? And what’s the latest news on your new productions? We first met Paul when he was part of organising the big Tsunami benefit party at the Coronet in London, which we were pleased to be able to contribute to. We kept in touch and hung out at parties and festivals and gradually became good friends with him and the rest of the Phar Psyde crew. We saw the way they were working between each other and with their artists, and that they had huge enthusiasm for it as well as being honest businessmen… that and their eclectic music tastes made them an obvious choice to approach when we were making ‘Fourthought’. OOOD wouldn’t still be going without the family of friends we’ve gathered along the way, and it’s been great seeing the two tribes connect. Speaking of which, the album is out on Phar Psyde on September 26th 2008, and we’re currently working on a couple of new tunes; expect the unexpected when you least expect it! In the last 15 years the ways music is made, played, distributed and promoted has radically changed. How has this affected what you do as DJs, producers, label owners and promoters? Are you embracing the digital age or is it still all about the live set? As DJs, sourcing music has become an entirely digital, online process; as producers the digital revolution has completely changed the way we write, record and mix. We’ve always concentrated our efforts mainly on the musical creative side, and so have never really had as effective a promotional presence as many other acts, but the internet has certainly made things easier in many ways what with forums, Myspace, ReverbNation and the like… but we still don’t have a proper website! Shocking. We do have some interesting ideas about promoting to the free music community though, which we hope to have in place in time for the release of the new album. With the smoking ban and credit crunch, clubs in parts of the UK are now emptying out and with so many squat parties on every weekend, it looks like things are being pushed back underground again. However it’s not all love and fluff in the squat scene either, as there’s been trouble with gangsters at parties killing the vibe and politics between different crews. Where would you like to see the psy scene going in the future and what changes do you think need to happen? Given everything you mention the future of the ‘pay party’ psy scene in the UK (whether legit or squatted) has to lie with responsible promoters who embrace the effort needed to put on safe, friendly events with proper attention to all the elements that make up a good party — appropriate facilities, good décor, decent sound systems, firm, friendly security and well thought-out lineups. Co-operation between promoters is important too, as there’s no point in everyone putting on a party on the same weekend or having the same 4 DJs playing at every party, both of which have been an issue in London. The golden rule though is to enjoy the parties you’re putting on, as this is the foundation of the vibe of an event, and in this regard free parties — indoor or out - are still, as ever, the way forward for the true underground. Colin you’re also part of Voice of Cod with Andrew Humphries, and another underground dance music pioneer, Captain Tinrib, also has an oceanic thing going on. What’s the deal with psycho music and fish tales? Colin: Sounds like OOOD aren’t the only act to be out of their depth… Some bands like Infected Mushroom have attributed free music file sharing to their success, seeing it as advertising their live events. As a band that also produces music, where do you stand on this one? We make bugger all from sales — a couple of hundred each per album, max — but that’s never been the motivating force for us; we write to perform. CDs themselves are a useful way of marking our progress as a band and a good advertisement for our sound, and if our music is shared that only means that more people are listening to it. It’s only recently that we’ve released live recordings onto the net, but judging from the responses we’ve had we will be doing more in future. We have no particular illusions about psy ever being a mainstream commercial genre but it’s where we began and we love it; IM have also recognised this but have moved away from their roots in search of a much larger audience and, feeling able to charge relatively huge sums for their live sets, can presumably make that model work for them very well. Having played at so many of the best psy festivals on the planet and with Waveform Festival almost upon us, what are your top tips for making the most of any festival? If it’s in the UK, bring your wellies! Other essential items to bring are a sombrero, a torch, a bottle of tequila, inflatable toothpicks, David Duchovny and possibly a tent and sleeping bag if you’re so inclined. Don’t make a plan, smile at strangers, pace yourself (or not) and spend at least a little while lying down watching the sky. Having been to so many festivals and psy events you must have seen some hilarious and bizarre sights over the years. What have been the highs and lows and what’s your best story from the trenches of psy trance? Most of the more bizarre stories involve Nigel in some way but the best story of all involves a trans-atlantic flight in 1996 during which Steve was asked by a stewardess to come and assist with a passenger in the next cabin who was “frightening the other passengers… is he smuggling drugs? Because he says he is.” It turned out Nige had necked a bottle of vodka after takeoff; when Steve entered the compartment Nigel was standing up facing the entire cabin ranting about ecstasy, plutonium and the IRA, and pointed at him and shouted “Steve, you know the score!” Hate to think what would happen if he’d done that post 9/11. Watching him mesmerise a policeman shutting down a free party we were playing at was also memorable. Poor copper. Highs — playing at Pagan, Return To The Source, Glade and (soon) Universo twelve years apart but still in the same band with your best mates, being able to spend so many hazy times at so many festivals and having our music reviewed in the Observer as ‘trance track of the month’… Lows — after 48 hours of non-stop work and partying, organising and enjoying a free party, packing the truck with all our equipment and the hire kit only to find it’s stuck in the mud and has to be totally unpacked before it will move. Then, with only two of us left and everyone else back at the afterparty chilling out, having to move the truck, carry all the kit across the mud and repack the truck from scratch. Then turning up at the afterparty covered in mud feeling ‘fairly rough’. It must be quite difficult for you all to get in the same place at the same time these days, which makes your live set at Waveform this weekend even more special. Have you planned this weekend’s set at all or are you improvisers? Do you have any surprises up your sleeves? Until 2009 Ryo is living in Japan so yeah, this gig is a real one-off for us this year and we’re definitely going to make the most of it. We haven’t talked about a set-list yet but we know most of the tracks that will be on there; exactly what we play will depend on the previous act. We probably will have a set-list but we might not stick to it! We don’t tend to plan what we’re playing in each track either as our setup allows us to improvise, which is riskier but much more fun. Colin you’re also DJing at Roots & BNE presents Trinity at Jacks on Saturday 20 September and Rama you also have a DJ set that weekend at Broken at the Where?house. Apart from the obvious fact you’re playing CDs when you’re DJing rather than live instruments, how do your DJ sets differ from your live sets? Colin: When we’re playing live we play our own music and it’s generally psy trance; when we DJ we play mainly other people’s music and are free to play a wider range of genres from breaks, ambient and minimal to dub, electro and all varieties of psy according to the gig. I usually DJ my own projects and collaborations (obviously including OOOD and Voice of Cod) which adds another varied element to our DJing portfolio, so to speak. What have been the highlights of your 15 years in the music industry? And what goals do you have for the next 15 years? Frankly it’s good just to be still here, doing it with pretty much the same intention with which we started. The whole thing has taken us on an amazing journey, introducing us to places we’d never have visited and people we’d never have met, and if it were all to end tomorrow we’d have absolutely no regrets. For the next 15 years all we can hope is to continue growing the band in a sustainable way, and to bring our music to more people across the world. Most of all we want to carry on making the best music we possibly can, whatever that may be. Finally, if a fan sees you at Waveform, Roots or any of the parties you’re going to be at in the next month, what’s your favourite tipple to OD on? Vintage Bollinger, mojitos, cold apple juice, Dura single malts, beerciderwine. But not in the same glass. Photos courtesy of UseYourEars.com and photograhicon.comto be reproduced without permission. Waveform Festival 2008 On: Friday 12th September 2008 At: Liddington Warren [map] From: Cost: Friday from 12pm till Sunday 6am Website: www.archangeluk.co.uk/waveformtickets/toomuchisneverenough/ Ticket Info: www.waveformfestival.com www.toomuchbutneverenough.com Buy Online: Click here to buy tickets More: Liddington Warren Farm, Liddington, Wiltshire SN4 0EB Just off of J15 of the M4 • 1 hour from London • 1 hour from Bristol 2 live stages, 3 dance tents & an amazing chill out on a beautiful rolling hillside with over 130 of the best live acts and DJs in all genres of dance music. Plus the solar & wind powered green village, great organic food, sauna and hot tubs and much more... Flyer: - Region: Midlands Music: Trance. Psy Trance. Prog House. Tribal House. Minimal Techno. Breaks. Liquid Drum and Bass. Dark Drum and Bass. Chillout / Leftfield. DJ's: MAIN STAGE Eat Static System 7 Gaudi Nucleus Roots Zubzub OOOD Widescreen Bonze Zetan Spore Far Too Loud ILS Subsource Orchid Star Mood Deluxe Sick Rebel SINEWAVE Avalon Sunfish MC Xander BREAKS & DUB ILS Breakfastaz Far Too Loud Apply the Breaks Freshold Hexadecimal Tom Real Drum Monkeys Ed Real Liquid DJems Agent Smith Hoffman & Model101 SI Pieman Gacid Atomic Drop Giani A9ent Oran9e Kwalilox Mr. White TRANCE ARENA Laughing Buddha Tristan Fearsome Engine Scorb (tbc) Excession Morganism Hopi Gacid Natzan Pieman Geo Psychosonic Loke Who's Going? (4) : Andy Force, Maria, Stev0b, Tara  Share this :: : : : Follow HarderFaster :: Other Features By Tara: Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden Telling Cosmic Tales with DJ Strophoria Tom Psylicious aka EarthAlien takes 50 Spins Around the Sun: Raising Awareness Through the Power of Music 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: Frank E on 5th Feb 2009 21:13.52 I slept right through that set at Roots.

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