Cast your mind back to Kryal Castle New Years Eve 97/98. What a rocking night. There were two major highlights for me, one was Sugar and second, a live act I had never been fortunate enough to hear before, you know who I'm talking about. One on the performance was the band's ability to keep 4,000 ravers, who were hungry for some bangin' beats, happy and content when the sound system cut out. Any live techno act who can entertain that many ravers with no sound system instantly gains my respect. I just had to interview them, so I did (or at least two of them Rupert Keiller 'R' and Adrian Cartwright 'A', Steve Bertschik was making music somewhere). They had some pretty straight down the line, no bullshit things to say.

Why Techno, why not rock or Jazz? What drives you to make electronic music?

R: "More than anything, it's the new frontier. You can try stuff that you can't do in all those other styles of music… you can also include all those different styles of music and adapt them to electronic dance music." A: "Anything goes, that's what I like about it… I also like not having to work with three or four other musicians, although I like doing that live, when I'm writing I hate having to say can you play this for me cant you play that for me… when you're in a studio you have everything there and you have total control over it… I really like having control over everything that happens."

How do you go about writing each track? What role do each of you play? \A: "These days we write separately, we write tracks completely by ourselves usually, sometimes we get to a part where we are stumbling a bit and someone else comes in and gives us a few ideas." R: "Adrian is working on something at the moment and I might be doing my washing or something… and open the door and say something and he'll either tell me to get stuffed or say it's a good idea."

Do you think that radio and local radio, in particular, supports Australian electronic music?

R: "The independent ones do a pretty good job, but I think there could be a little bit more, especially form the likes of stations like Triple J." A: "I think this year is going to be the year for it, their going to start playing more and more electronic dance." What about record labels?

R: "I don't think they know what is going on, the major companies don't anyway , the independents are pretty good." A: "They are very slow to catch up to what's happening in the real world, the labels." When Sonic Animation began what was your greatest source of inspiration to work together? R: "For me it was wanting to make music that gave you a certain mood…Just though going out and listening to music…the feeling that it gave me was what I wanted to make and give to other people, such a good feeling."

When you write your music do you write it with some direction, in terms of trying to change the opinion of the crowd or try to influence them or take them on a journey?

A: You definitely take them on a journey thetas what we try to do but we also try to control their energy…especially live we try and see how the crowd is going, when they want more energy we try to put more energy in and then drop it down a bit when they look like they need a rest." R: When I write especially for a live performance I try to simulate being in the audience and what I would want to hear and where I would want to go and what I would want to feel."

Is there anything you don't like about the current electronic music scene?

A: "There seems to be a consensus among DJ's lately, and I might get into trouble for saying this, that the crescendo's and the drum rolls and the rise and fall in the tracks, it's all out and it's all been done, and everyone's sick of it, but there not, not sick of it." R: "You can just tell from the response of the audience and what gets them hyped up, and when they have been listening to the one solid beat for about half an hour with hardly any change there sort of thinking'…they want to be taken some where else and bought to different levels…it's not happening for me at the moment." A: "It's always on one level, and I get really bored with it, and I figure if I get really bored with it there must be at least a few people who get bored with it too." R: "Most of my friends say the same. There having trouble finding good music, doof…because we played at a lot of Hardware parties that's what we got to experience, because, you know, we stay for the whole night and our friends will come and see us and there getting bored with the whole thing.

So are you saying that the music scene is developing in a bad way?

R: "In that respect…in those types of parties for me it's not heading any where like that at all…I've spoken to DJs this and they say that they understand and all this kind of shit, ha, ha, ha, but I just find it plainly boring, it's always on one level and doesn't change and doesn't do any thing.

I started trying to show the boyz the light a conversions to psychedelic trance might give them a new outlook and brighten their glum view of a least some of the current electronic music around. Imagine, Sonic animation hard-core psy-trace fans…aaaaahhhh one can only dream. But my badgering fell on deaf ears. These boyz are hard very hard.

What is the biggest hurdle you've faced getting your music, your band to the point it's currently at?

A: "Dealing with record labels and trying to get the timing of releases right, coinciding with live acts…we're playing lots of places and then finding that the product is not being released until three months later. R: "The co-ordination of the whole release is just a nightmare and it's because of the people in the industry that we have to deal with…the good people are few and far between, the people who are reliable." A: "And things like for a while there wasn't a pressing plant in Australia so like going to the U.S….it actually took a year to get a test pressing we were happy with for one release. So we were a year out of date…electronic dance music dates so quickly and you can't afford this happening, things like that have just been endless frustration.

Your music has a strong vocal element to it more than most live acts in Melbourne. Why has your band steered toward this vocal element while others have steered away? R: "I think just because of my own personal background, being in other bands before…I wanted to do something different, when you're first into it you're just really learning about it and I didn't put any vocals in it but then the more I write the more comfortable I get with just doing what I want to do and what I want to hear. And then I thought why not put vocals into to it why…and see how it goes." A: "It's a natural progression for ourselves considering our background in indi and rock bands, it's a natural progression to include vocals and everything else that we have done before." A: "Kryal Castle was strange it was one of the first times we had done a full vocal track, before I started singing I was just thinking well what are people going to do? Are they going to like it or not, I was blown away by the fact that every one really got into it."

You track "Love lies bleeding" seems to center strongly around the drug "ecstasy" do you think your music encourages drug use and is this a bad thing?

R: "that songs not actually actually about ecstasy…some people do (think that it's about ecstasy) and that's O.K…after I played I had a friend come up and he said I love that song about ecstasy) and that's O.K… after I played I had a friend come up and he said 'I love that song about ecstasy, it doesn't condone it, it doesn't say it's bad, it doesn't tell you not to do it, it doesn't tell you to do it, it just says what it feels like and afterwards I was thinking it does sound like it's about ecstasy…it can make you feel all these different ways, like the lyrics say "I'm feeling lonely, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling mad and ecstasy can actually do that to you…so people can interpret as they want. But it was actually just about mood swings. In answer to your other question, do we think our music condones drug use, I don't really condone or say anything against it. I think that life is full of lots of things to experience and if they want to do that they should just do it safely…people always want to push themselves to the limit anyway but just do it in a controlled way rather than just going crazy.

Next Album? R: "The idea for the next album is to have a double CD. One with more traditional beats and one with more vocals on it…and just keep heading that way because I'm comfortable with it."

What do you think about these big Rock n Roll promoters coming into the scene? Do you think that the scene will lose it's freedom and unity, the things that define the electronic music scene? A: "I think this year is going to be an interesting year, everyone is going to jump on the band wagon full on this year, all the major labels and stuff like that, it's either going to drive it underground or promote it in a big way and it's kind of hard because if they promote it in a big way it's good for ourselves but you lose that underground element…depends on how you people in the scene now educate those coming into the scene."

You can pick up Sonic Animation's album 'Silence is deafening' at any groovy record store. Keep an ear out for the release of Sonic Animation's track 'Love Lies Bleeding' which is fucking amazing. These boyz are going places and their Australian. Make sure you show them your support!

That's it the end.

Marty.