Hellraiser came to most peoples attention in 2007 with a release on Digitals legendary Timeless Recordings label. He is from Puglia in sunny South Italy. Now under the new alias “HLZ” he is back in London and has taken the time to do an exclusive interview for FD and give us a taster of his next release ! PAEBAC caught up with the badman for this one …
FD : so, you are back in London then ..... what has brought you back man ? Is it the pizza ?
HLZ: well i have some friends into the mafia here ,and i guess that you can get good deals in London
FD: Haha, very good, let’s get straight onto the music then ..
HLZ: yeah !
FD: Lets start with your sound, as you know I’ve followed your music but it may be new to some of our readers here. You have a very “techy” style which is very much dancefloor orientated with a lot of energy, are you still pushing this sound with your new material or have you finally chilled the f**k out ?
HLZ: Well in the past , yes, that has been true. At the moment I admit that I’m more focused on the deeper stuff, but I always love the old tech-step sounds. I don’t exclude that in the future I could be doing the techy tracks again though. For example, I'm really into the last C4C track “World Unknown” and I’m feeling like I’d like to try something like this. By the way, I’m not really focused on one type of dnb.
FD: Yeh, I’ve noticed that , your styles are varied. What happened with your tracks Lockmaster and Punchball, I ask this because I saw a lot of people rocking to these at parties …
HLZ: Well both Lock and Punchball were my first releases. Lock came out on Caution Recordings and Punchball came out on Timeless Recordings as a promo release. I’m proud of these tunes and the best advice I got from Digital was to have patience with music, he helped me a lot. Some of my recent tunes have got the same Punchball vibe, with the amen break and heavy basslines.
FD: I’ve gotta admit they are personal favourites of mine, I missed that Timeless promo too ! It is more criminal than the mafia that these have’nt got out to more people ! Do you think they will become available digitally ?
HLZ: Well , I have never thought about this, I should talk with Caution and Timeless first, but the main point is that even if you get a release on a very legendary label like Timeless, it is just the first step.There’s no point feeling safe cos’ you got just one tune on a big label. Actually after the Timeless release it took me a bit of time to make good tunes again , even when I moved to London. Basically you always have to be trying to make good tunes and I like to try making different styles too.
FD: cool, so, what’s next for Hellraiser then , obviously you are a man with a plan ..
HLZ: Well first of all I have changed my name to HLZ , cos there are so many Hellraisers around ! Next steps are some tracks for 31 Records, some tracks for 36 Hertz, (DJ Vapour’s label), some tracks for Sonorous Music and Influenza Recs, an upcoming French label that is getting a good profile.
FD: and tell us about the audio you have given us for this feature …
HLZ: Well these are two unreleased dubs. Braindead and Spore. Braindead is a techy tune and Spore is a deep rolling track.
FD: excellent, cheers for those ! Final question then, as you are Italian (and Italians are known for good food) can you give a recipe for our UK and Belgian readers as in Belgium they don’t eat, just drink beer .. and in the UK everybody just relies on microwaves ..
HLZ: haha ! That’s why I am a good chef …. you’ll have to ask DJ Vapour about my food ! Haha
FD: Ok we will get onto that ! Well thankyou very much for taking the time to share the filthy tunes !
HLZ: You’re welcome ! Thanks for the interview and big up FD !!!
HLZ:Spore
HLZ:Braindead
You can check out HLZ on myspace ……. http://www.myspace.com/hlzdnb