The DJ Team

Compiling the year’s biggest, most bumpin’ tunes can be a little more involved than making your girlfriend a mix CD.

Forget John Cusack in ‘High Fidelity’, it’s the crew from Hard Dance Alliance that know the secret ingredients of a killer mix, taking their 42 flavours of bass and infusing them in the three CDs of ‘Wild Energy 2012’.
“We’re a group of friends and we DJ together frequently… we’re like a DJ team,” one-third of the crew, Steve Hill says.

Like a team, kids. The Justice League. Batman and Robin. Superman and that other newspaper guy. This is how seriously Steve Hill takes HDA, sharing the trio’s history of accolades with fellow members Suae and Pulsar. It’s no wonder, either. Hill alone has over 300 productions to his name, and he isn’t talking about musicals.

“I’ll go to the UK and spend two or three weeks there, make 20 or 25 records, roadtest them for a few months and then release them. Sometimes I forget tracks, and I end up going on Discogs to remember… thank God for Soundcloud, I just give them away for free now.”

That’s right, Hill’s music stratosphere is so out-of-control, he has to research himself on the internet. This is the sort of stuff movies are made of. So, with some of the dance music industry’s giants at the helm, the Justice League of Beats if you will, what’s in store for the latest ‘Wild Energy’ mix?

“What HDA tries to do is marry what Wild stands for with what we do… kids love harder styles of music, but they also love what they hear on the radio. We’re dragging Wild in a bit more of a harder direction than it would normally go.”

Hill reckons you need to approach ‘Wild 2012’s three CDs as a sonic journey. The first CD sees HDA giving Wild fans what they want, with more mainstream, radio-friendly hits. By the second CD, the effects of HDA's heavier, club-driven sound begins to bubble to the surface, until the final disc sees them locking a group of Wild fans in their van and driving away. It’s like ‘Wolf Creek’, but louder.

“We’ve managed to get everyone from Armin Van Buuren to Ferry Corsten to Tiesto in the mix.” Brace yourselves. ‘Wild 2012’ is gonna be bigger than pictures of Kim Jon Il looking at things.

‘Wild 2012’ is available now.