Kundalini Trance Parties

Colin Bennun – keyboards, Steve Callaghan –synths & guitar and for the past 5-6 years Ramsay Melhuish – samples & effects and Ryokan Potier – drummer have been official members of the band.

I went to my first rave in 1987 – I was only 15 at the time – it was in a warehouse in Bristol, I can’t remember the name of the party – but it was filled with smoke and pure acid bleeps, it was an amazing experience, pure sensory deprivation – that really turned me onto electronic music. I got into the rave and free party scene and by the early nineties was a regular at pagan. When I met Colin I took him to one , it was a particularly psychedelic night– and at one point Colin came up to me and said ‘‘OOOD’’ ‘‘were all out of our depth’’ and it stuck.

We were all musicians and dj’s before the band… after studying music technology in London; I moved back to Oxford where I met Colin one day….he came bounding in to my house and up the stairs….white as a sheet because he was being chased – it was a case of mistaken identity but quite an entrance. We got talking later and he played me some trance he had been writing…I played him some trippy dub I had been writing and we decided to work together. Nigel, another friend, joined us then too …he had graduated from Oxford Uni and was a mad musical genius making his own synths and jamming live acid journeys , we wrote some of my favourite oood tunes together. Ramsey was a friend of mine from collage who was a great dj , we started putting on parties together . We then met Ryo who was just getting in to his dj’ing but it soon became apparent that he had a gift for dj’ing and musicianship. After moving from Oxford to Bristol Colin and I asked Ryo and Ramsey if they would like to join.

We would all go to the early trance parties….there was one place on Electric Avenue in Brixton which was 2 basements knocked together; the parties there were very small, maybe only 50 people but really incredible parties.

Then we started playing out at parties such as Vitality in Oxford, gradually playing further afield. We went to India and to an amazing party in the desert in Rajasthan where there was a total eclipse After our first album in 97, which was a compilation of live sets; we needed a break and so I went back to India and Colin to South Africa The travelling literally gave us breathing space, which became the name of our next album after that

Definitely the Pagan parties, and also bands like Hallucinogen , Eat Static and Astral Projection.

The Peeking Goddess Collective , Ace Ventura also some progressive – electro deep breaks – like – a bit proggy style. It’s good to listen to something a bit different other than straight psy trance, but I try to take something out of every genre.

Well half of it is for our benefit! It is a much more enjoyable experience playing an actual instrument than just mixing. In the early days we were known for bringing our entire studio down to gigs – there would be synths and wires everywhere….all drifting, really scary but really exciting at the same time. But it is difficult to do – so we continue to bring excitement to our gigs by playing more live instruments. Ryo is a brilliant dj and songwriter but great on the drums, myself and Colin jam on synths –Colin is brilliant on keyboards, my forte is guitar and Ramsay does effects and samples and makes sure everything is working smoothly.

I love djing as well but playing live is unpredictable - were not as live as we want to be. We are getting better at jamming and creating psy-trance without relying to heavily on computers…we’re not there yet but we are heading there.

Yeah we probably do better from gigs than royalties these days and it used to be the other way around.

Our next album should hopefully be out this summer on Pharpsyde records – they’re Bristol based and a great bunch of people. This next album is going to be more eclectic .from chilled to full on psy trance, more of a journey….

We used to do everything on synths and mixers but now we mainly write on pc’s, which is useful when we all live in different locations – we write on various programs often initially using Reason and then mix that down to Cubase before jamming over the top with various instruments.

Wow – eh – there’s been so many amazing ones – erm 6 years ago – there was an outdoor festival in the Summer in the mountains of Japan that Colin and I played at; that was amazing. The Pagan New Year’s Eve gig we played at was quite legendary – in 95/96 I think! Then last summer there were some hazy amazing festivals – great moments. There’ve been some great gigs in Switzerland – X-TRA in Zurich a couple of months ago and an OOOd all nighter at the V-SO club a year ago where we dj-ed then played live all night; that was great and we’re going back in a few weeks to do it again.

Yeah – at the SE1 club a couple of times – it was great – brilliant – we can’t wait to play again next week; we’re really looking forward to it.

We’ll be playing some tracks from Freerange – but about 2/3rds will be new stuff.

Oh – friends, lots of happy faces, a beautiful vibe, incredible music, preferably outside with beautiful scenery.

(Both Colin and Steve) Player of Games…….