We fired some questions at those dirty NOISIA dudes ahead of their set at Moondance NYE at seOne London....these guys are seriously hot property right now and have got the planet's junglist community salivating at the prospect of another dancefloor bomb coming out of their studio... How and when did you guys first discover DnB? And what about breakbeat? We were in to breakbeats a bit before we found out about DnB. We used to listen a lot to stuff like Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy. Later we came across DnB and we really liked the high energy level and the sound design. I'd say we've been in to breakbeats ever since Prodigy started to break through here, and we really started focusing on DnB in 2000 I think. Only lately have we really started to work on breaks (somewhere in 2005 we released the "Lekker EP" under the 'hustle athletics' alias). A lot of our stuff isn't really breakbeat but more 'breakshouse' (our house tunes like ‘Gutterpump’ don't really classify as house or breaks...it's more energetic than 'normal' house, but it still has 4/4 kicks). Is there much of a DnB or breaks scene in Holland to speak of? Yes, we have plenty of well attended DnB parties in every major city. The scene is very healthy at the moment is seems. We don't know much about breaks, but I don't think breaks is doing that well in Holland. People are more into house stuff. A lot of our "breaks" releases secretly have 4/4 beats as well . Does it surprise you that many DnB fans in the UK don’t really listen to breaks? There's definitely a big difference between the two. The tempo of DnB (around 170-180) is so much higher... I understand that some people can appreciate only one of the two genres. Do you feel there is much similarity between your DnB and breaks styles? Yes, there's always a considerable amount of dirt present, and usually we try to keep the energy level really high. There's a lot of attention to sound design and we always try to get the fattest mixdown possible. 2006 has seen you guys break through in a big way. Was it a gradual process or was there a key turning point which helped to bring you into the limelight? In 2006 we've done exactly what we've always been doing, making and releasing tunes and trying to get better at it and we still have much to learn!). I think every opportunity that is presented to us is almost a direct consequence of the work we've put in before it. Things like starting up our own label (Vision Recordings) and remixing for Pendulum and The Freestylers did not come out of nothing for us. These oppurtunities arose because we've made them possible ourselves. Holland is a real melting pot for dance music, with so many prominent artists emerging from it. House/Electro producers, Techno, Trance, Hardstyle, Gabba...and now DnB! Do you feel that the wide variety of music on offer in your home country has rubbed off on you? I wouldn't say that our broad interests have anything to do with the country we live in. I think the possibilities of digital audio and communication have had a far bigger influence on us. What are Noisia doing when they’re not bashing out sick tunes? We're travelling a lot to play parties all over the world, and when we're not doing that we're wondering why Thijs has no sense of humour! Who else in DnB is really rocking your world at the moment? What was the last track you heard that really blew you away? Phace. Phace have just finished their ‘Psycho LP’ and the tunes are in the record boxes of all the big DJs right now. The tunes have been a big constant in my sets, iId say every set I've played the last 5 months has had at least 4 of their tunes in it. My favourite off the album is ‘Reservoir’ because of the massive horns in the breakdown and then the superminimal dark drop... Loving it! You guys will be playing at Moondance on New Year’s Eve, one of London’s biggest NYE parties with a particularly sick DnB line-up. Have you played much in the UK before? What were your impressions? Yes we've been playing steadily in the UK for the last 2 years now. At first we played here once every 2 months, but now we play the UK almost once every 2 weeks. It's always good to play in the UK. DnB is much less underground in England than it is in the rest of the world, which is a nice change for us. But of course in England there's a lot of underground parties as well... Will you be carrying on the festivities on New Year’s Day or will you be rushing back home? I'm playing in Cambridge after playing Moondance, so I get to go to two parties (with free drinks!) on one night! Check out www.ehmproductions.com for full details about Moondance NYE - featuring the sickest DnB line-up in town!

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