But for Melbourne producer Felix Greenlees — who performs as both psytrance-oriented project Terrafracty and the more downtempo Hypnagog — an upbringing rich with classical music has played a vital part in his musical education. “It’s been a very large influence,” he reveals. “Actually, it’s pretty much integral to the way I write music. When I don’t feel like ‘writing’, I spend a lot of time improvising what I would call classical music, as well as jazz, on the piano in my studio. This is where I come up with many of my melodic ideas. I also tend to think in terms of melody, harmony, counterpoint and structure in much the same way I learnt to analyse these things while studying classical compositional techniques.”
His first introduction to electronic music was from hardcore and drum and bass, which Greenlees found “quite fascinating”. “It was so different from the classical music culture I had grown up in,” he admits. “But it wasn’t long before I found myself at a full moon Goa trance party, and from that moment I was hooked!
“I started trying to write Goa trance on my computer the moment I heard it. I slaved away in vain for many years before giving up and deciding electronic music was not for me. This was mainly due a lack of good equipment, though, and when it came to a point where anyone with a computer could write decent-sounding music I jumped straight back into it. A few years later, I was playing it all over the country!”
Having moved to Melbourne 15 years ago from Tasmania, Greenlees has nothing but praise for the city’s electronic music scene. “It’s amazingly vibrant and diverse. It seems to be one of the hubs of creativity in general in Australia. The constant influx of new people really keeps it interesting, and quite musically diverse. As an artist, it can be a hard place to leave.
“It’s is probably still my favourite place to play,” he continues, “mainly because I am often surrounded by my good friends. Playing music in new places and to people that may have never heard your music before is amazingly exciting, but there’s still nothing quite like having a good time with your mates.”
In terms of new material, Greenlees has a couple of fresh cuts he’s been playing out lately.
“I recently released my EP A Speck of Dust on my new record label Kinematic Records. I have two tracks from this EP, especially the title track and The Machinery of Nature, that have a slightly more progressive feel than a lot of my other music. They’ve been a great way to close out my sets — or even to open them, depending on the time and place.”
When quizzed on the future of psytrance, Greenlees says there are changes in the air. “It’s always evolving and changing so that is a very hard question, but I think there is starting to be a slow shift away from the cheesy progressive sounds that have started to dominate parties lately, especially in Europe. I noticed in my travels last year that a lot of people are starting to rebel against this and are really enjoying fast and dark psychedelic music, which is really interesting, but still not really for me. I sit somewhere in the middle!”
BY MG
