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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! | | 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! |
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Lab4: always keeping it real
Reported by kafalicious
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Submitted 16-06-03 21:21
From the first time I saw Lab4 in their debut performance in Adelaide several years ago I became an instant fan; totally blown away by the sight and sound the likes of which I had not experienced in a set before. Since then I have heard countless tales of sweaty dance floor bliss from numerous Lab4 fans…
This Saturday night BK is launching his debut artist album KluB Kollaborations at Frantic's Convergence party being held at Camden Palace. Who better than Lab4 to complete an already solid lineup and be a part of such a momentous occasion?
kaf: As kids you dreamed of being rock stars. How does it feel to have come this far in achieving your dreams? How often do you find yourselves having reality checks?
LAB4: The reality checks usually happen when every now and then we have the time to realise how far we have come. It has taken a good few years, mostly against the tide and a good few kicks in the teeth along the way so we have tended to keep our heads down and just pushed on.
kaf: You’ve recently returned from another New Zealand and Australian tour. Are you noticing any major changes in the crowds with each successive trip?
LAB4: The crowds have always been very up for it over there , the main difference each time we go back is that the crowds are getting bigger and more hungry for the full on onslaught!
kaf: Being an Adelaide girl, I was chuffed to read that you found your set at Utopia one of the best Australian gigs you’ve done so far. What set Adelaide apart from the rest this time and are you excited about performing there again in December at this year’s Enchanted Forest?
LAB4: It is always down to the crowd response and overall atmosphere at the gig, it is nearly impossible to pick a best gig of each tour or each year etc. and every gig of the last Australian tour was really good. The main thing for us this time (in Adelaide) was that we received what felt like a “home coming welcome” from the crowd who were totally up for it from the second we reached the stage and it just got more and more intense as the hour and a half went on. It was also a real honour to play alongside Chris Liberator and Commander Tom who are both good friends of ours but we have never played on the same line up as both of them at the same time before. We are very excited about Enchanted Forest…….
kaf: Something I like to ask of those who have international careers, is to comment on the variances between the hard dance scene globally. Just how do the hard dance party people across the world like it? 
LAB4: The only country that took us a while to get used to was Holland as they have a slightly more “laid back “ way of going for it. The rest of the world (maybe except for the USA) is pretty much globally tuned in to the hard dance scene.
kaf: The next Convergence party BK | Collaborations at Camden Palace on Sat 21 June, is set to be a stormer. Do you have any surprises in store ?!
LAB4: No big suprises but at the moment we are road testing new tunes in the set which are being worked on from week to week and the track that we have written with BK MIGHT be making an appearance…………
kaf: This party is the ‘world exclusive grand launch party’ for BK’s debut artist album Collaborations. Have you had a sneak preview?!
LAB4:No…..
kaf: Being a live show means a lot more preparation than your standard dj set. Care to share just how much work goes into a live show and how much planning goes into changing it?
LAB4: It takes close to a week of programming to set up an entire new set, or a couple of days to change one. The set needs to be checked, loaded into the correct hard disks (from the studio to the live set up), fully backed up onto another hard disk etc. There is also years worth of trial and error that has already gone into setting things up and a lot of tunes (anything that we have already played out at some point) that we can just “drop in” as chunks.
kaf: You’ve mentioned in previous interviews that you can’t take your whole studio with you when you travel abroad. What limitations does that pose? (I’ve been equally impressed with you guys both here and back home!)
LAB4: The main thing for us is that we would love to have all our full stage set with us just so that anyone experiencing our set for the first time gets the full blast! But it is an amazing thing for us that even without our full set, we still get such an amazing response.
kaf: When you played at Logic’s Christmas party at The Fridge last year you had some great visuals. Did you create them and why don’t we see them more often?
LAB4: I think they we created for us by a guy called Jason and Nuroptics (sorry if I have that wrong) ….. If I am correct (the visuals are usually behind us or out of view) it is the same guy who created the visuals for our Laboratory party as well as many others for Logic at The Fridge. We would love to create our own graphics and be sure that when we have the time it will be like nothing that has ever been seen on the club scene before (but that is a while off at the moment)
kaf: The last time I interviewed you guys Adam mentioned that [VIRUS] left you so inspired that you’d already written a few tracks for your next album. How is that coming along?
LAB4: It’s a long way off!! Virus sparked ideas that at the moment, for us warrant a lot of development but at this stage in our careers we are not interested in rushing . Having said that we are hard at work (hence the lack of lab4 releases over the last 6 months) and feeling inspired and excited about a number of different projects.
kaf: I’ve heard that you boys each have a serious toy collection?! So, whose is the best and what’s your favourite?!
LAB4:Collectivly I think we probably have the best toy collection , at least on the club scene! Between us the collections are slightly different, mine (Adam) is a little more sci fi and Lez’s is a little more vintage action man etc. Favorites change from day to day……..
kaf: Who / what inspires you?
LAB4: Films with big visual stuff going on but also films with twisted fucked up psychological stuff going on like David Lynch films and Miike Takashi (Japanese horror stuff – The Audition + Ichi the killer), all kinds of music and the combination of film and music.
kaf: Career highlights?
LAB4:Nearly ten years of them! It sounds really corny but there is usually a high point once a month, I don’t think we would still be doing it if there wasn’t. At the moment we are pretty happy to be headlining the arenas that we are playing in at various Gods Kitchen events purely from working hard and sticking to our guns.
kaf: Any lows?
LAB4: Nearly every day in the studio…… usually followed by a high, then another low, then another high etc. etc. Having to put our record label on hold last year when it had reached such a high point (problems with a distributor – as usual!) was and still is very depressing but fragile is very much on the way back.
kaf: I love your website www.lab4.com and your interaction with your fans both via your website and your e-newsletter. Did you guys design the layout of your website and whose idea was the e-newsletter?
LAB4: The original concept and layout for the web site was ours, based on us both being very impatient with web sites that take ages to open etc. and that are difficult to navigate. We wanted people to come back to the web site often and to be able to quickly and easily access the information that they want. Flashy websites are great the first time you see them but can quickly become tedious. Over the last couple of years the site has been completely in Kym’s hands, who is also responsible for the news letter idea to keep our fan base informed, and the running of the fragile recordstore. The site is always being worked on in some way (at the moment very much behind the scenes), the next main changes and additions are all about a new gallery, more info, and music on the site.
kaf: Any final words for the HarderFaster readers?
LAB4: Over the last 12 months we have heard far too many people saying that the club scene is dying – IT’S NOT!!!!!! Over the last 5 years so many new clubs have started and so now a very healthy scene is spread a little more thinly across so many parties offering the same kind of line-ups – that’s all it is…. All we can suggest is that all you real clubbers out there, keep the faith and support the venues, promoters and DJ’s that give you what you want and what you deserve.
As Lab4 we would like to thank the same venues, promoters, DJ’s AND party heads that are all still keeping it real out there without all the talk about a dying scene, and we will stick to our guns and do our best to continue entertaining and inspiring you .
For the full Lab4 story, news, reviews, upcoming gigs and pix, check their website: www.lab4.com
Lab4 play at the BK Kollaborations Launch Party this Saturday at the Camden Palace - for full details click here.
Many thanks go out to the Lab4 boys and Kym for their time. Also thanks to tom & mental-tessy for the use of their pix 
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Other Features By kafalicious:
Interview with Ingo
Hardhouse Anthems 4 Launch - Interview with Rob Tissera
Searching for the perfect wave with Martin McHale
Interview with Danny Gilligan
Logic: Second Contact - Review
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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a' stevie
best night ever, keep it harrrrd