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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 |
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Timeless 1st Birthday - Review
Reported by tom
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Submitted 21-05-02 11:48
To start with I have to say that Frantic had a lot to live up to with Timeless after the last two that I attended. Timeless II was one of the best nights I've ever had out and number 3 was the party that really kick-started this year's clubbing for me. It's billed as the night that 'takes you back', playing all the past anthems that got us into clubbing in the first place alongside the odd future classic. Quite surprisingly in London's slightly incestuous scene it's not a concept that's been copied by any of the other promoters as Timeless events have become more eagerly awaited by clubbers than even the regular Frantic nights are.
First impressions on getting into the Palace were good. No, forget that, they were great. It's become almost a ritual of mine at the Palace to stroll leisurely down the tunnel from the cloakrooms to the balcony feeling the sound levels build and build as you make your way down. Towards the end you start to see the lighting effects and then bang, at the exit the full-on effect hits you with an instant rush  Lovely, there's a laser installed in the Palace again... as with the Heat party that was here it's supplied and run by Laser Attraction. I freely admit I'm a member of the ALA (Alcoholic Laser's Anonymous for those not in the know  ) and some day, god willing, I may be free of the desperate urge to see lasers in clubs but damn if it doesn't enhance the night for me. I reckon it adds just that little extra 10% to the atmosphere in a club and at the end of the day it makes even my shaky photography look good 
Clearly responsible for much of the party atmosphere when we arrived at 11pm was the 3 hour back to back pairing of Steve Hill and Jon Knuckleheadz. Between them these two are pretty much guaranteed to kick-start any party... classic after classic was rolling out from the speakers over the already mostly full dancefloor, there was no time for stopping by the bar for a warmup drink, chat or even a bottle of water it was just a case of throwing the bag into a corner and diving straight into it. Yet again I was regretting arriving at a Timeless party late, it's one of those events where things kick off right from the beginning, there's no 'wait till the pubs close and the venue fills up' periods it just goes off from the beginning.
In what seemed like just a few blurry minutes Spencer Freeland had stepped up to the decks to replace Steve and Jon armed with a list of suggested tunes as supplied by HarderFasterers... but first we had the pleasure of listening to Spencer deliver his intro which like Nick Sentience at the last Timeless he'd produced beforehand. It was an absolute treat, giving us two massive buildups which had everyone in the Palace reaching for the roof, people shouting and screaming and then dropping into a fairly unexciting section to follow... and then finally delivering the goods the third time around making the wait seem all worthwhile as he cranked out the first real tune of his set sending the place raging. Absolutely loved it, had that feeling of the DJ messing with your head, teasing the crowd to wind them up even further rather than giving them what they wanted straight away; clubbing needs much more of that  What followed was 3 hours of exactly what I think everyone wanted at Timeless... just tune after tune as Spencer worked his way through a record box jammed full of anthems  Was it 3 hours ? Felt like 3 minutes. This whole 3 hour set thing has worked so well now for Frantic, first with Phil Reynolds, then Andy Farley and now Spencer Freeland all stepping up to the mark and delivering top, top draw sets.
At 3am I made my way upstairs to hear Frantic Sydney resident Yoshi's set... the black and white room was packed full and just a little hot but the crowd there were lapping up his wicked DJ'ing style. When I was in Sydney we used to regularly follow Yoshi about, we always rated him as one of Sydney's best hard house DJ's and now I remembered why. His style behind the decks is like nothing I've seen before, occasionally slowly scratching seamlessly on one deck over the top of another, mixing in tracks really early on and every move made seemingly completely casually but with total accuracy, inspiring to watch.
Finishing offf in the B&W room, resident James Lawson took over from Yoshi and even though I had every intention of going down to hear BK after Yoshi had finished I found my feet locked in there for the duration of his set; I think he's one of the most under-rated DJ's in London and I'd love to see more of him in the capitals' main rooms especially as his long list of original productions and remixes are now staple contents of any respectable DJ's record box. I got to hear a couple of his upcoming tunes on Sunday and they are absolutely storming, the kind of tracks where when the main part of the melody comes in you stand stunned in the dancefloor, look at the person next to you and ask 'what the f*ck is this !!!??'
Closing out Timeless was Trade resident and industry veteran Ian M. You didn't need a watch to work out that he was about to come on: 5 minutes before the end of BK's set you could hear the pitch slider on the deck being rudely shoved up at least 5 bpm... it was going to be one of those sort of sets then  Never having been out clubbing in '96 or even been near Trade I didn't really know what to expect but as it turned out I was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting totally relentless hardest of the hard house but in fact we got some tunes that were pretty danceable for me although there comes a point where you're trying to bounce at 160-165 bpm and you realise that actually you look like you would if you're short-circuiting the power rails of the nearest tube line... in my case that's true anyway
I have no doubt at all that at what Ian M. does he is one of, if not the best and most experienced person in the scene. I totally respect that he is completely uncompromising in delivering sets that exactly represent in undiluted form his playing style so I guess I'd address this to the promoters - is the set he played what the majority of the crowd really would have wanted from a closing set at a Timeless event ? When the average lifespan of a clubber in London from first arrival to hanging up their dirty Nike's and swapping the glowsticks for pipe and slippers is about 2 years, I didn't think that finishing on a '96 Trade set was the best way to finish the night on a high for most people there...
Finishing off on one of the tunes of the night and one that's been pushed back into the limelight by it's upcoming re-release and remix by BK on Tidy, Tony de Vit's 'I don't Care'. It's an awesome track that sounds like it's made up of almost 3 tunes in one and still after all these years it did the business at 6am on Sunday morning... hands in the air, lights up, closing time, last few minutes at Timeless moments where your mind aches for just one more breakdown, build up and blowout... and gets it twice over.
Still a great night overall and one that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to others in the future, for me Timeless is about as good as London clubbing can get
The next Timeless will be in August and full details will be in our What's On guide as soon as we get them.
The next Frantic event is the Mainframe Outdoors Experience on Saturday 1st June.
Relevant links:
Frantic UK
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Other Features By tom:
Interview with Guffy
Interview with Energy Dai
Interview with Tara Reynolds
Interview with Anne Savage
Interview with James Lawson
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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Comments:
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From: TearZ on 21st May 2002 15:31.02
Nice review Tom Not sure about the ALA analogy though. Alcoholic Lasers - do you get drunk when the standing directly in the beam's path? I guess you do!
From: tom on 21st May 2002 16:18.38
mmmm it was a stream of consciousness type comment...
From: tidyrichard on 21st May 2002 22:37.54
wicked night - dont think the taxi driver was happy about the puddle of sweat i left in his cab - yuck - what a tune 2 finish with !!! a total anthem
From: argh_01 on 22nd May 2002 09:09.17
we got there at 11 did we? so, what's your secret - how on earth did you keep track of time so well? or did you just make up that bit?
From: Andy T. on 22nd May 2002 09:19.10
Add your own comments about this feature here !
From: Andy T. on 22nd May 2002 10:02.52
A "spot-on" review mate. Wish I opted to see James Lawson instead of BK. Felt that, although Ian M and BK are considered great DJ's, they didnt didnt play for the crowd at all. Still a great night, but nowhere near the brilliance of earlier timeless events. Spencer should have got the closing set !
From: argh_01 on 22nd May 2002 10:12.25
yeah - putting the hardest stuff at the end is a bit of a funny approach isn't it, coz it's when ppl are perhaps starting to fade a little and need a big CHOON to pick 'em up... or is that just me?
From: tom on 22nd May 2002 10:20.12
argh - used to be a nightmare till I discovered the digital camera timestamps all the photos
From: bananaman on 27th May 2002 14:03.00
TIMELESS classics I though????. What aload of bull!!!!. Most of it was recent tunage. BK dropped a few, Fireball, 9-Bar and that was about it. TDV's "Get loose" had to be the pinnicle of the night but that should of been the way it was from start to finish. No "Andy Farley-Concentrate", "BK-Higher", "Black as Black", JS:16. Next time a Flyer promises me classics I'll be sure to proceed with caution!!!!. If those really were "The tunes that got people into clubbing" im surprised the place wasn't full of 15 year olds!!!
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