Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, aka System 7, have been bucking against musical trends for many years now. Their mixture of slamming techno and more ambient sounds, with a hint of psy-trance and Steve’s spaced-out rock guitar running throughout has been a mainstay of the festival circuit and the world’s cool hangouts from Tokyo to Ibiza.

Resolutely underground, their diverse output has seen collaborations with a huge range of artists including recent contributions to albums from Rachid Taha and The Orb and with Jam El Mar on their own satisfying pumping new album.

The launch party is happening this coming Saturday night at the Trinity Club in Bristol, followed by dates around the country, including at Heaven in London on Thursday 21st.

We thought we’d find out a bit more from one of techno’s original live acts, who don’t show any sign of slowing down as they look forward to the festival season coming around once more…

Tell us a bit about the Japanese influences on your latest LP, Phoenix. Have you spent much time in Japan recently?

“We’ve been going to Japan to play 2 or 3 times a year for quite a while now. We love it there – Tokyo but also the countryside as well. Japan as been very good to us. With our Phoenix album we’re hoping to give something back.”

You’ve also delved into amazing future Manga visuals on the video for Hinotori - can we expect to see more visuals work as part of your output and live shows?

“We’re friends with some top-notch manga animators in Japan and we were very lucky to find an opportunity for them to work on our video. Particularly at our London Heaven show we’re going to have a really big VJ set-up and we’re really excited about that. We’ve got loads of good content – it’s going to look amazing!”

Check out this clip of the Hinotori video.