These Green Ant gigs are all about the experience—meeting people from a variety of backgrounds and countries – accepting each other for what they are – wild party animals with amazing souls who come together to listen to some banging tunes! Newly armed with material from his latest CD, Sugar did his bit on delivering an awesome experience that had hands in the air and feet stomping to the small hours.

“The crowd were wicked – considering a lot of the punters had only heard tracks from the Green Ant compilation (Psyborganic Tranmission) and live at this year’s Rainbow Serpent Festival, they just went off…. I try not to let crowd feedback influence or distract me whilst playing…. but when I looked up and it seemed like 500 hands pumping in the air, it was pretty amazing – I have so many people to thank for their help and support and belief, so much goes into producing an album and an event.”

His set at the “Colonial” for the launch was mostly new material but he loves mixing classics to show the progression from old to new and back again. His latest tracks vary from “Indigo Bongo” – a Sunday morning outdoor Festival anthem, through the harder acid bass lines of “Inflight”, the 2am banging trance of “Fire Dancer” to the almost mellow “Waterfront” – although sometimes it’s hard to associate the word “mellow” with the sweet sounds of Sugar! To get an idea of what the crew thought, search around for reviews and forums on the launch. It was amazing to see how many people were so familiar with his material, but now we almost expect the crowd to go wild everytime he hits the stage.

Catching up with Sugar in his Melbourne home was a far cry from last time I saw him, rocking the crowd at the 2003 Rainbow Serpent Festival. Not only did Sugar play one of the best received sets for the entire festival, but he is a founding member of “Green Ant” – the crew who put on the annual Rainbow Serpent, spending months planning and committing to the cause. Over the coming months he’s playing at a Queensland CD launch and on the main floor at Kinetic, around the same time as Aaron Smiles.

At KiNETiK he will be playing a combo of old and new – introducing just-released material and mixing it with a couple of old classics. I asked him about the process of recording and engineering his latest CD and the subsequent release gigs – “18 months …. having time off to prepare for the festival…” With deeper probing, he was humble about his input to the success of the evening. “These gigs are so much about the feeling—the look, the atmosphere, the visuals, the people – sometimes it’s like laying a soundtrack for the event – I was nervous but like I said, everyone was supportive and it feels rewarding when people come up after the set, all hot and sweaty , straight from the dance floor and say they had a ball. It was great to get it out there.”

Sugar (aka Felix Hamer) is a veteran of the Australian dance music scene. He started dj’ing back in 1986 and playing techno around 1991. It is a scary concept for some of us—Sugar has been mixing since many were in primary school! It’s not surprising that his influences include everything from Jean Michel Jarre, New Order, Pink Floyd and Pet Shop Boys. Interestingly he would rather not know who an artist is – “these days I like to go to a party and not know who I’m listening to …. experience the music like a punter…. be inspired by a wall of sound… that gets me going….”

Sugar loves playing outdoors, although is quick to emphasise he likes the indoor medium as well. In terms of the difference in playing indoors vs. outdoors, his witty response was “10 to 15 BPM” – then everyone else in the room laughed at me! “Music outdoors often has to be harder and faster to create the intensity…. a tune that is fantastic on an open air, packed-earth dance floor may be just too confronting and hard in a closed area with four walls… just too much”. What did he think of his set at “Rainbow” this year – he humbly responded “I loved it, had a ball… I was amazed the punters kept going as it had been so hot through the day, such adverse climatic conditions – the guys dancing all night, all day – amazing” (Saturday afternoon at Rainbow Serpent Festival had temperatures recorded of between 47 and 51 degrees – did not go below 30° overnight).

Sugar was great to chat to—definitely more relaxed than a few weeks ago as he was finishing the mastering for Bionic Wonderland. Now on to the next project … “I think I might have a break for a bit…..!” – we eagerly await!

Get along to KiNETiK PSY-GRESSiVE @ Deep 11, The Mercat Cross Hotel on Saturday August 9th and see SUGAR 100% live, with Aaron Smiles (Earthcore, KinetiK, Namaste) closing the night. His CD, “Bionic Wonderland”, is on sale via www.greenant.com.