'I'd rather vote for a goat!' Christopher Lawrence dismisses Dubbya.

After over a decade as the leading underground Trance DJ and producer stateside, its now time for Christopher Lawrence's debut artist album, All Or Nothing. Having won 'Best DJ' award at the Dancestar U.S. awards indicating his popularity at home, last year's DJ Mag top 100 poll saw Christopher take up the # 35 spot confirming his blossoming global reputation. Last time in Melbourne saw Christopher headlining at Two Tribes, in the Rod Laver Arena, something he remembers fondly. "I loved it. I was playing for Future Entertainment, who always have great production and I love the Australian audience. It's a well-educated crowd musically, and also an audience of my peers, it's not a bunch of kids!" Is the stadium gig something you prefer over more intimate club-nights- "I do now only because they don't happen as often. When I originally started playing in North America most events were warehouse parties, outdoor parties. I'd probably only do 10% of (the larger events), now because of the Administration in the US. There's a policy against raves and electronic music events and festivals. Everything's gone into clubs and so the arena type events just don't happen much anymore. Now I really appreciate it when I do those events."

You've just released the artist album All Or Nothing, how much more satisfying is it to release an artist album over a mix compilation- "It's a completely different thing, cause when you do a mix compilation it's basically a souvenir of a night out and you're playing other people's music when you make a mix. An artist album is all my own music, it's a lot of hard work, but it's a real sense of accomplishment when that hits the streets and you see it in the record store. It's a fantastic feeling!" His favourite track from the album is New Day, "because, I guess, of all the tracks on the album that one reflects the sound of how I feel. It's like putting my head to music!" In spite of being renowned as a trance artist he draws influence from other genres as well. "When I'm working in the studio I bring in records from house and techno. Trance a lot of times is a bit formulaic and so for me to make it more interesting I like to draw from other genres, even drum and bass. There's a track on there Untitled Dub with Noises that I was listening to classical music at the time and that was where the influences came from. I think that just makes a much better-rounded album than if everything sounds the same." There also seem to be psy-trance influences with some of the rolling basslines- "Yes very much so...that's one of my secrets! I love psychedelic trance! In fact the last time I was in Melbourne, we went to the Rainbow Serpent party and I just loved it 'cause psychedelic trance has become to me, one of the best sounds out there. For a long time psy-trance just sounded the same but now the basslines in it are phenomenal."

And the album's predominantly instrumental, in fact only a couple of the tracks have vocals. "I don't really go in for a lot of the vocal trance; a lot of it just ends up sounding really commercial. I like my trance more underground, and that's why the vocals on mine are there for a reason as more a musical element, but also a human element, but I don't like to just use vocals for the sake of it. I like to let the music tell the story as opposed to have somebody singing to me telling me what I should be doing with the music." On six of the twelve tracks that made the album, Christopher teamed up with local DJ & producer Dave Aude, and Warp he co-wrote with Britain's King of hard dance, BK. How was it working with these two talents- "It was good. I really liked working with Dave Aude. He's a friend of mine and he lives here in LA as well so yeah it worked out really well. He comes from a background where he's done remixes for Sting, Pink and a variety of other artists so he brings a lot to the table when we go in the studio. And BK's just one of the best producers in the UK right now. Ben Keen Tags

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