The free party scene down in the New Forest has certainly seen some crazy action in its time and that’s exactly where Ephexis producers Adam Goodlet and Alex McDougall met up and the wheels for the Ephexis launch were set in motion!

Adam Goodlet’s electronic musical journey began when he got turned on by the sound of Industrial Energy and Psy Trance .Now being well and truly gripped by a love of dance music, Adam set up his own studio and Live PA, then began on getting his Hardcore speed hard NRG sounds out to the world.

Then, going under the guise of ‘Father’ he took to promoting his hard acid style boat parties; booking DJ’s around him such as the likes of Sota Suzuki, Sharkey & Kevin Energy whilst sailing up and down the Solent (the estuary by Southampton) His musical abilities were now going from strength to strength. But things still weren’t complete…..new local artists were needed…..

Alex McDougall had now seriously caught the buzz of free rave parties. He already had an extensive musical background and had taken in styles such as Leftfield Electronica, Psy Trance and Drum and Bass. He decided to form his experimental live act Aum 3 with Dave Hook, subsequently involving, Steve Guy-Gibbons and Loren Warn to be the vocalists.

Having discovered Alex on the free party scene, Adam booked Aum3 to play at a boat party. Then, after having written a couple of tracks together, Adam and Alex agreed to start the Ephexis project. The result? a live act that now had a hard dance underground sound that they could truly call their own! Consisting of hard and chunky NRG, energetic breakbeats and raw hardcore energy; they became one of the most exciting underground, live acts on the rave circuit. They’ve already had such success as playing at the Godspeed rave in Sydney in front of 10,000 ravers and Mayhem in Brisbane, and play on a regular basis in Finland, for events such as the FINRG tour, and Konemetsa festival.

Now on Saturday the 9th June, they get ready to seriously do the business, performing at ‘B2T’ the second birthday party! You can’t get much more of a raw, underground venue than the Sanctuary in Birmingham, where they’ll be playing a style of hard stuff which just can’t be categorised! With everyone getting so hyped up about the event, we thought we might catch up with the Ephexis front men Adam Goodlet and Alex McDougall to find out how they are going to take the roof off!

Adam Goodlet and Alex McDougall

Club birthday parties are always very special events and ‘B2T’the second celebration is looking like no exception. What are you most looking forward to about it all?

It’s always great to play to a new crowd – especially up north, because they are always up for it!!

This is of course going to be your ‘B2T’ debut and you are going to be headlining in the main room. Ephexis have been tipped for great things and here is your chance to shine! How is your live performance really going to stick in peoples memories?

The instrumental elements of the live PA always make an impact o the crowd – live drums and guitar usually lead to an awesome response from the crowd.

The harder sound of music has always been massive in the Midlands and the Birmingham clubbers are known for being unpretentious and always up for it. What type of great atmosphere do you reckon that’s going to have on the night at Bounce 2 this?

This is precisely why we think we will go down well at this event, as this is the ethos behind us, and the tunes since the beginning. Should be a really good match!

It’s not only the main room where things are going to be kicking but the action will also seriously be going down in the Extreme Hardcore room, plus there is the “Battle of the brands” going on and the groovier stuff with Funk 2 this meets Funk Deluxe. What do you think about the night as a whole?

We think that it’s great when events aren’t stuck up about the music that is going to be playing – taking a non generic approach to the musical line up of the event is right up our street!

You’ve had several tracks released so far such as ‘Epic’, ‘Traction’ and ‘Perpetuate’ what other productions are being planned at the moment?

Apart from working on a new range of hard dance, and psy trance tunes for release and the live PA, we’ve just had a new freeform record release on Nu Energy, the Psymbiosis EP.

You are also very much into engineering and have your own studio for hire, even accommodation in remote parts of the forest get included in the package! Can you tell us a bit more about your studio side of things?

We’re real audio snobs, and have spent the last couple of years designing and building two powerful studio installations. Both meticulously treated for acoustics and ergonomics, to create a perfect environment for being creative, and having fun whilst producing the best audio results. The studios are available for hire, with our services, for very competitive rates. And we are also about to start offering an online mastering service to polish peoples tracks to a professional standard for release.

Playing live is of course an incredibly skilled job and its much more involved than simply doing the normal DJ thing. Can you give us a rundown of what type of preparation is involved when you first get to a club? And what type of equipment do you use?

Preparation for the live PA begins when we start writing a track: we take into account how it is going to be performed live, and make allowances for this in the production stage. We piece the live set together using Ableton Live, importing tracks / loops / samples created with Logic Pro. This is all mixed live with guitars, drums and synths. All of this involves a lot of preparation and leg work, but seems to be appreciated massively by our crowds.

Your job is not just playing music at an event, but an essential part of it is standing there at the front of the room getting the whole crowd whipped up in to frenzy and really building a great atmosphere. How do you manage to do that?

We always put 110% of our energy into our live performances, ensuring an energized and powerful performance – in fact , we challenge any other live act to sweat more than we do on stage!!! LOL.

So besides more production and more gigs what else can we look forward to coming courtesy of Ephexis?

We currently are working on live visuals to go alongside the PA – With interactive 3D videos and live camera inputs. This should bring an exciting new element to the live PA that people haven’t seen before.

And finally come ‘B2T’ the second birthday bash, what tunes of yours can we expect to hear that are going to get the place stomping like no one’s business?

We are really looking forward to playing our new tunes ‘Tank’ and ‘Smart Bomb’, as this will be their live debut! They have had some play from DJ’s such as Adam Lab-4 and Kevin Energy, and received a great response – so we are really looking forward to seeing what damage they do in a live PA!

Remember to catch the most exciting emerging live act going Ephexis working their magic @ B2T the 2nd birthday party @ The Sanctuary, Birmingham, Saturday 9th June!
©Greg Lynn 2007

Feature by Greg Lynn