Crowning four years of hard dance hedonism on 12th November, Tasty has confounded the doubters ever since their first event at Vauxhall's Crash but never more emphatically than through truly breaking hardcore to the London hard dance scene. When Billy Bunter first introduced hardcore to Tasty's hard dance paradise in the Mass third room, the idea was almost taboo amongst die-hard Tasty followers. Many were dubious, others curious but few realised the impact it would have, both on Tasty itself and the London hard dance scene at large. Nearly two years on and the 160 bpm mayhem of the Hyperzone is a roaring success, commanding legions of fans who attend Tasty purely to stomp, smile and sweat to their favourite hardcore beats in the capital's most havin it party atmosphere. For their landmark 4th Birthday, then, what better way to celebrate than by inviting the groundbreaking act that has been so instrumental in building new musical bridges between hard dance and hardcore through their accelerating PA? However, never playing by the rules, Tasty haven't invited the Nu Energy Collective to perform their standard hard dance into freeform rollercoaster, instead they keep things fresh, upfront and exclusive by showcasing a 100 % hardcore from the mighty Nu Energy Collective full of unreleased material, special hardcore edits and 160 bpm madness. Will the Tasty massive be able to hold the pace? We questioned the Nu Energy Collective's K Complex, founding member of the PA and the primary Nu Energy Collective engineer, to find out.

Is the PA at Tasty's 4th birthday celebration the first NEC hardcore PA at a London event?

Well actually no, we did one for Frantic presents More this time last year in the Freeformation hardcore arena that we hosted and it absolutely went off! We're lovers of all hard music so the nature of our PA is to move progress through all of it but it really is a pleasure to just belt out the hardcore for a full hour of power every now and again!! Me and Kevin have been making some awesome collaborations (wait for Suck My Rock - rave hardcore meets heavy metal madness!!) plus Sharkz is on fire right now so there's it really couldn't have come at a better time!!

You're lauded for converting the die-hard London hard dance heads onto the more energised sounds of the Nu Energy label and the freeform style it has pioneered. Do you think your hardcore PA could go one step further and have people wandering in from the main room to be blown away by full-on party hardcore or are the barriers already coming down?

Definitely! Pure hardcore PA's give us the chance to air tracks that we might not play on our hard dance shows- we always try to push the boundaries of what we play- and this party's gonna be no different!

As the PA has risen in stature over the two years it has become the biggest PA on the hard dance circuit, conquering the dancefloors of Frantic and the Tidy Weekender in the process. But which hardcore gigs have stood out the most and do you hope to raise the PA's status within hardcore to match the stature it holds at hard dance events such as Frantic?

Recently it has to be our album tour night at Hardcore Heaven at Bristol Academy- it's a wicked venue for a party and the crowd were absolutely luvin it! In terms of raising our status in Hardcore of course we'd love too- in comparison we have very few Hardcore bookings- a lot of ravers don't have any idea that we do the hard dance thing too!

As DJs within the rave environment, you're always looking to read the crowd and take them by surprise by dropping that mental party anthem at just the right moment. With the PA you're tied to a certain playlist. Do you think this ever detracts from the element of spontaneity and have there ever been occasions when you've known a certain tune was right from the moment but hadn't had the thought to playlist it beforehand?

To be perfectly honest, you get so enthralled in the moment and the energy radiating from the crowd that you really haven't got a chance to think what if?. Most of our PAs are going right off from start to finish so either we've got our pre-programming down to a jedi-mastered art - or you lot are just too off yer heads to notice! Either way, it's a rockin party every time!

In terms of the music you do select, how do you decide on which tunes to incorporate into the PAs? Is it very much a group decision? And is it a case of picking the best of your latest releases or do you mix up the new n old?

When we sit down to put each show together we always pool all our new material and have a listen through- some tracks always stand out as one's that we know we'll cane on the PA and fitting them in with tracks that we're known for- if possible we'll always try and slip in a few unexpected older bits too!

I hear you've been pretty busy in the studio, cooking up everything from upbeat bouncy anthems with Matt Petrucchio to a mental collaboration with Kevin Energy complete with twisted synths and a thrash metal breakdown! How hard is it to keep on reinventing your hardcore sound and where do you get the inspiration for new tracks?

I'm lucky in that I get to work with quite a variety of styles and different artists - vibing with other writers is always a great way to keep things moving and inspiration can come from anywhere- you mentioned our crazy thrash metal piece earlier- I wasn't too excited about the whole thing until we started playing round with some guitar sounds for a laugh- then we came up with the idea of distorting a load of rock drums and shouting over the top and the track instantly got more appealing- inspiration can come from anywhere!

Have you got any more dates forthcoming to make hardcore tracks or any interesting collaborations in wait?

Right now I'm working on a collaboration with Jon Doe which is going pretty well - he's a producer I've wanted to work with for a while and when Sharkey suggested I went down to his studio I jumped rt the chance. I've also got a few studio dates coming up in Australia so watch out for some down-under kangaroo hoppin kaola stompin style hardcore coming soon!

You've embraced the rise in digital formats through the Science Fabric Hardcore label but what are your personal thoughts on the way the MP3 market is developing? What measures need to be taken in order to ensure that the effect of MP3 downloads is a positive one (quality control/proper marketing etc)?

Personally I feel the Mp3 market for hard dance is still fledgling- sales are incomparable to sites like iTunes right now but I can see it becoming just a widespread in the coming years. People have expressed fears that the quality of releases will go down too and to some extent this may be true- labels may well skip the all important mastering process altogether in a cost cutting exercise and I have to say I've heard a few pretty poor examples myself. However with the advent of legal and cheap downloads (at 99p-£1.49 per download it's hardly worth looking for an illegal copy)  the overall impact of Mp3's has got to be a positive one, after all you can now browse through huge libraries of tracks (some of which have been unavailable on vinyl for years), audition them and be mixing with them in a few minutes!

You must hear a serious amount of new production talent by virtue of the many clients that pass through your studio doors for engineering assistance. On a hardcore tip, who has been catching your ears as ones to watch lately?

This year it's definitely got to be Dan Thomas and DJ Bullet too- both are writing some serious tunes!

As I'm sure you know the PA at Tasty will blow the birthday candles on four years of London partying. But what's the most outrageous birthday celebration you've enjoyed?

Haha, that would be telling. Lets just say it involved a glorious open air field, some of my favourite people in the world and lots of hard underground music and lashings of KY jelly. OK, the last bit's a lie - honest!!!

Interviewed by Allan Mcgrath