Ophidian
Producer / DJ / Live act / Label manager.
At 5 years old, Conrad Hoyer started piano lessons, sparking a carreer with many twists and turns through different styles of music. Using keyboards and cassette recorders Conrad started recording his first songs and mixes in 1993, 11 years old at the time. By 1995 hardcore music had become very infuential for the Dutch youth and he started using computer software to write hardcore songs. With the artists of the Ruffneck label as main lead he worked on perfecting his technique, specialising in fast, breakbeat-orriented juno-sound hardcore. In 1998 DJ Ruffneck was convinced of Conrad’s talent after recieving a 4 track cd-demo, and asked him if he would like to join his labels Gangsta and Supreme Intelligence. And thus at 16 years old Conrad became the youngest artist to join the crew.
The period ’98-’00 can be seen as a learning period in which Conrad released a few records as Trypticon and a few more tracks as Ophidian, but was still struggling to be consistent and to find an own place within the hardcore scene.
Things changed in 2001. In this year Conrad joined Enzyme Records, started building his own studio and started his study of Music Technology at the Utrecht School of Arts. He decided to drop the Trypticon-project and concentrate on producing as Ophidian, focussing on slower hardcore, with more techno and electronic music influences. Enzyme started a sub-label called Enzyme X on which more experimental hardcore could be released, which came as a blessing because it provided exactly the space that Conrad needed to define himself and his style. From this moment on progression was fast, and he released quite a number of tracks including his first solo-album, Ophidian – Blackbox, in 2003. This album was groundbreaking at the time, was never repressed and has now become a cult legend.
His biggest break untill now came in 2004 when he remixed one of the bonus-tracks of the Blackbox cd, Butterfly, for the new Enzyme VIP label. The track was originally written as a piano piece, but was released as a hardcore track, and in the remix Conrad decided to bring both elements together again. Butterfly VIP was a massive hit, was played at so many parties around the world, and was featured on so many compilation cd’s that for anyone remotely into hardcore this track was impossible to miss. With this succes in the pocket, Conrad started to work on his next, two-part cd album called Betrayed by Daylight. Two vinyl records, the Enzyme 18 X and Y, were released in the winter of ’04/’05, as well as the extra 18 Z containing some of the more experimental tracks of the album. Even though this double cd was of a different style than the Blackbox, more diverse and polished and less raw and technoid, it was received very well and spawned a few well known tracks of its own, of which Angel and The Middle Children have been played the most.
In 2005 Conrad teamed up with Patrick van Kerckhoven to start two new labels, Protocast for hard techno, and Meta4 for experimental hardcore and industrial with techno and IDM flavours. Since then both labels have grown steadily, becoming quite renown in their respective scenes, and attracting fans and artists from all over the world. His latest move is teaming up with long-time friend Tijs Ham a.k.a. Tapage. They made a record for Bionic Recording including 2005 floorfiller ‘The Míne’ and another one for Meta0 in 2006, a new Meta4 sub-label focussing on breakcore and IDM. With these last projects Conrad’s mission seems clear: build up the different labels and try to top himself in each respective style, be it mainstream hardcore, dark, experimental hardcore, hard techno, breakcore or IDM.