Psymedia : Hi Jules! To kick things off, tell me about growing up in the UK. What was it about the psychedelic scene that captured your attention? What made you want to produce trance?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAphid Moon :<\/strong> I grew up in Devon in the U.K. Countryside, which is pretty conservative but underneath there is a strong, surfer, hippy vibe going down much like Cape Town, I guess. I followed the route as most kids do listening to the latest pop bands, in my case growing up with the Beatles, The Police, Blondie, U2, and others. At school I played jazz sax, classical flute and guitar & vocals in my own band. After that my taste went more Indie with bands like The Smiths, The Cure and as I discovered pot I started listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. At Uni, acid house passed me by but the \u201cMadchester\u201d sound which in itself was driven by the new ecstasy craze gave me my first taste of live psychedelia with bands like the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and My Bloody Valentine.<\/p>\nIt wasn’t until I left for London with the idea of getting a band together to conquer the world that I had an epiphany.\u00a0My friend practically forced me to go to a student club night on a Thursday called Megatrippolis in London’s Heaven. I discovered later the DJ’s that night were the Flying Rhino<\/strong> boys fresh back from a season in Goa. I was so blown away by the sounds, energy, lasers and the flashing lights that I ditched the idea of a band and changed my focus; \u201cI want to learn how the hell they do that\u201d was a mantra going round my brain as I left the club.<\/p>\nWithin two months me and my house mate put on our first Psychedelic trance night in London at the Crib in Brixton (now the basement of Mass), which we called Aphid Moon. 12 months later I was DJing goa trance on vinyl for the first time at my own club night warming up for a relatively unknown but fast rising star called Tristan<\/strong>.\u00a0I took a course in Midi programing and 24 track engineering at IMW college in north London and started pooling kit with a friend. By 1997 I had my first Aphid Moon vinyl 12 inch single release with the track \u201cTazmania\u201d. The other side \u201cElectronic Membrane\u201d was written by my mate Cass Irvine, on Interstella Records home of Dimension Five (Cass went on to a very successful career in mastering becoming a partner in Wired Masters and is responsible for the mastering of many successful psy-releases including\u00a0 AMD<\/strong>‘s Big Fish and my Global Culture and Super Collider albums<\/em>).<\/p>\nMy progression from there is pretty much a complete immersion in the psy scene, first weekly then nightly club nights in the 90’s, in london squats, clubs and free outdoor parties. In 1999 I spent 6 months in Japan where I experienced their scene culminating in an 8 week festival tour on the Dream Creation Bus around the European festival circuit just before the Millennium.<\/p>\n
As far as growing up in the Psytrance scene that was it. The serious work of becoming a real psy trance producer happened after that and you can read more about it in my bio. But to answer the the question more succinctly the Psy scene is our movement and I always had a romantic notion that I wanted to be part of an out there artistic movement that believed in freedom of expression. Like the hippy movement in the 60’s & 70’s or the beatniks in the 50’s I think the psy scene has kept many of the same values but also kept up with technology and changes in the modern world.<\/p>\n
Psymedia : How has the UK and global scene changed since you started out?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAphid Moon :\u00a0<\/strong>Not so much I think. People who are entering the scene now creating new small parties are having very similar experiences to the one I had in the nineties. The whole DIY culture is still strong and feeding the movement. However, there is no doubt that the scene is magnitudes bigger than it was. There’s a feeling all genres of music inevitably become a bit of an industry. Saying that, there are so many sub genres in psytrance that it’s hard to pigeonhole it. The great thing is as the older bigger labels become more famous there are a huge amount of new ones being created, nipping at their heels, all with their own sound. I see it as a strong artistic scene which has the ability to reinvent itself.<\/p>\nPsymedia : The UK has produced some outstanding artists with a unique sound. Do you think there are particular influences in the UK that aren\u2019t found elsewhere? Any upcoming UK artists you think deserve a mention? <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAphid Moon :\u00a0<\/strong>London has always had a strong movement and a lot of us arrived at our sound from going to parties almost exclusively in the UK when we first got into it (probably because we were broke). We always had great labels from the off with Tip Records<\/strong>, Flying Rhino, Dragonfly<\/strong>, Twisted<\/strong>, Transient<\/strong>, Matsuri<\/strong> and Blue Room<\/strong>. The Alchemy<\/strong>, Wild Things<\/strong> and Anglo\/South African partnership Nano Records<\/strong> (which I’m sure you all know). Scorb<\/strong>‘s Hat Trick records, Liquid, Bom Shanka<\/strong>, Mutagen<\/strong> and Aphid Records<\/strong> and many more spawned out of the London party scene 24\/7 Records<\/strong> in Austria has its roots here and Zero One<\/strong> in Ibiza has close ties.<\/p>\nI think Mutagen<\/strong>\u00a0are developing a new take on the old Nano<\/strong>\u00a0sound. Mechanimal<\/strong> being their star and Contineum<\/strong> coming up with some interesting new vibes. Hypnocoustic<\/strong>, Neill Moore<\/strong> are developing nicely. From the more underground side of things Forest Psy is quite a new sound taking more of a Wild Things\u00a0<\/strong>approach we have Psynon Records<\/strong> and rising stars such as Mark Day<\/strong> of Blue Hour Sounds<\/strong>.<\/p>\nPsymedia : Lets chat a bit more about your label, Aphid Records. Why did you feel the need to have your own label? What other services does Aphid offer?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAphid Moon :\u00a0Aphid Records<\/strong>\u00a0was really set up purely out of my own selfish desire to release the music which I\u00a0 produced without influence from others, to be completely artistically free. As a producer I have a very strong feeling of what kind of music I like and what I want to produce. Having my own label lets me be a little more self-indulgent but it also has the knock on effect of allowing me to create my own sound without any restraints.\u00a0I also spend time writing tracks with up and coming artists from other labels helping them with production and in effect lifting the standard of the quality of music coming out of the UK.<\/p>\nPsymedia : What are the biggest challenges to running your own label?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAphid Moon :\u00a0<\/strong>The biggest challenge to running a label is time and organization. It is a full-time job running a label, especially as I do the mastering, web marketing, promotion and odd label parties in London. I don’t think I quite appreciated how hard Regan<\/strong> must work to keep Nano<\/strong>\u00a0firing on all cylinders when I first took the task on. At the moment I’m keeping the label small but if we get to the point of affording a full-time label manager then we would expand. However, if an act comes along that fits with the label sound and ethos we would be up for working with them and building a relationship. At the moment we are working with the other UK labels and various artists in collaboration. I am happy with the way things are going for the label at the moment.<\/p>\n