Al Storm - The Calm Before The Storm
British hardstyle DJ and producer Al Storm is heading to Australia to play the latest hard rave, Unity. 3D caught up with the master of hardcore.
OK, starting with a simple question – what is it that you love about the hard styles more than other genres-
The pace and energy of it all. For me there isn’t any other type of music that can deliver these levels of energy, and commercial stuff always lacks grime! You can get away with almost anything with harder dance music, from filthy distortion to nasty bass and beats – so it’s a definite winner for me!
2008 has been a pretty busy year for you on the production front, releasing three mixes with your name on them. Do you have more planned for the new year-
Album-wise, I think I’ve probably done my fill for the year, but there may be one or two smaller projects – possibly one in Japan – and if we get time to get the Warped Science album project up and running but that’s more likely to be next year now.
What about an artist album- With the amount of tracks you’ve released surely there must be one in the works-
There are a few things in the pipeline. I was planning on one earlier this year but the possibility of something bigger came along so I’ve kept a few things on hold, but there’s a lot of other albums coming up as well over the next few months; Clubland Extreme 5, Hardcore Underground 3, Bonkers and a few others, so a lot of my newer material will be spread across some of those for the time being.
So what’s going on at your label, Warped Science, at the moment-
Warped has taken a bit of a back burner for me recently while I’m working on my new solo label 24/7 Hardcore. Warped has a pretty hefty backlog of releases – up to its 50th – so to keep things running smoothly and to stop my latest offerings getting too old, I started up my solo effort; it’s already looking like it could do really well, first few releases feature myself, Euphony, Breeze, Hixxy, Bang! and Heaven 7, so hopefully it will do as well as Warped has over the years.
We watched a YouTube video a while back where a DJ dropped a track at 1,000 BPM. Have you ever done anything crazy like that mid-set for a joke-
Haha, I’d like to see people trying to dance that fast! But I probably wouldn’t go that far – I tend not to go that hard, but I do like to squeeze in a few short bits of drum n bass into my sets to add a bit of rhythm. It can confuse ravers a bit sometimes though.
Finally, what can we expect from your Unity gig- Got any exclusive tracks that’ll blow our minds-
Plenty! I have been working endless hours in the studio recently – lot of big tracks and remixes floating around so there should be a few tracks people will know but with a bit of a fresher vibe to them, like the remix myself and Marc Smith have just finished off Scott Brown’s Turn Up the Music, which I believe was quite big in Sydney, so hopefully we have done it justice!
WHO: Al Storm
WHAT: Plays Unity at Sydney Showgrounds
WHEN: Saturday 6 December
MORE: powerhouseproductions.com.au