Astral Projection is soon to release their new album Amen (October 22nd). In that context we got in touch with Avi Nissim, half of Astral Projection, and fired
a bunch of questions at him about their upcoming album, earlier work, greatest experiences and lots more. This also marks the start of a new era at i:Vibes, the coverage of Goa and Psycedelic trance!

Being one of the oldest bands in the scene Astral Projection have made a great impact on many of todays dj's and producers. They are the frontiers when it comes to their style of music and especially fellow Israelian artists have followed their footsteps with great success!
Big thanks from i:Vibes to Avi for answering all of our questions in such a thorough way!

Here we go...

i:Vibes: Could you tell us a bit about yourself? Hobbies or interests, pets, girlfriends, job maybe?

Avi: I`m 34 years old ( married + 1 daughter ), Lior is 31 years old ( married + dog ).
Our hobbies: movies, photographic, video, computers, animations, painting, sport ,internet ,jewels.

i:Vibes: How did your musical career start? How did the two of you come together? Have you always been fans of dance music?

Avi: Lior & me first got into dance music around 1988 when acid house got started in U.K. We`d already been making music for a few years, but our biggest influence around then was the first acid tracks compilation. Until that, we were both into heavier post-industrial electronic music-anything from Neon judgement to Spk, from Kraftwerk to psychic tv to skinny puppy.
When we started making music around 1983 we had a Yamaha dx7 and dx9, a Roland juno 106 , a kawai R 100 drum machine and an old commodore 64 computer running dr t`s kcs software. Somewhere by 1988 we started making dance music together as SFX. In 1994 we became Astral Projection.

i:Vibes: Most have the opinion that your music is something inbetween goa and psytrance! And most dance artists in Israel produce psychedelic trance! What do you think distincts your music from the rest of the Israelian producers?

Avi: The concept of Astral Projection from the beginning, since the days of SFX in 1988, was first of all music, regardless of fashions coming and going.
All along the way we're trying to preserve the concept of very high standards. Production, musical ideas, reach imagination, and very pedantic control without compromise. We spend many hours in the studio, about 14 hours a day, and work on an album about 9 months (just like pregnancy).
We don't allow ourselves to release a product that we are no satisfied with. If you browse through our computer, you'll find enough material to more than 200 albums, that might have make others content, but that were not good enough for us. You can play, for example, a track we made in 1994, and you'll see people are still enjoying themselves and dance to it madly, like it was made today, in the year 2002. And this is actually the main idea, regardless of time and fashion, keeping the quality without compromising.
Of course, with the passing of time, experience and knowledge accumulated from album to album, we added more equipment, in order to be able to make without borders and obstacles, whatever is on our minds, no encountering technical limitations.

i:Vibes: You guys have been producing for a long time, and are well known to alot of people, but how did you start producing? What got you into producing trance?

Avi: Actually, when we started producing trance, back in '88, we were dealing with electronic music. We basically created a new line that didn't really exist around the world. The name 'trance' arrived after many changes.
Names like 'acid house', 'techno', 'new beat', always paralleled our musical creation patterns. In 1993 it was 'trance' and there it stayed. So you can say we understood that we make trance, when this scene was actually born.
What got us into producing trance was the unlimited freedom a musician can reach through working in a midi studio with electronic equipment. You program a sound from zero, and the sky is the limit. The possibilities are huge, opposing standard instruments, which basically stay with the same sound character.
Another thing was the possibilities in instrumental music, which speaks for itself, without a leading singer.

i:Vibes: You have been very quiet for a long time within the trance scene, but now your new album is getting released on Phonokol the 21st of October, any news on the production? What style will the album be in, will it maybe sound like your older work?

Avi: We are releasing the album on our own label Trust in Trance. Phonokol are our partners for many years.

We were working on our artist's album AMEN for almost two years and we had plenty of materials. We wanted it to be perfect album from all aspects, as well as maintain our integrity.

During these two years, we tested the new tracks at parties for our crowd. The tracks which received positive energies from the crowd, we marked as the tracks which work for us. It took us time, but we are so lucky that no one measured our studio hours with a stopwwatch. We recorded the entire album in our two studios. A good and interesting album must contain new ideas, new sequences and new sounds. The easiest would be to re-cycle ourselves, but we didn't want that. We kept the Astral's concept with our typical sounds, but with new elements in the audio work.

i:Vibes: What are your musical influences? Is it from older dance music acts or dance acts at all?

Avi: Our musical influenced come from anything that sound good, unique ideas, it`s not necessary have to be trance, anything goes ... from Kraftwerk to Madonna.

i:Vibes: Do you have a busy schedule at the moment? We at i:Vibes wonder if you will ever come to Scandinavia or the UK again to perform?

Avi: These days we don't have time to breathe ... we are working so hard, every weekend we are finding ourselves in different places all over the world ... we are coming to Scandinavia during march 2003, UK shows will start from we are planning to do a launce party for Amen across 4 continents April June 2003.
U can get updated through our web site: www.astral-projection.com go to live shows section.

i:Vibes: You are now done with the Amen album, what other projects do you work on now?

Avi: We plan a new album release August 2003. all ready in a deep process!

There are so many plans and some are still confidential but here's some:

There's a plan for a long tour in the U.S.A for the beginning of july 2003 - San Francisco - L.A - NY.

We plan to peform in Goa this year and a short trip to Brazil.

We plan a remix album of all our classics tracks, performed by top Trance musicians that you all know well. No dates yet, still at work proccess.

Around April we plan a release of a new Israeli Psychedely Trance Vol. 6, and yes ... DVD including tv-interviews,live shows, studio work, making of, video clips for our classics tracks ... no date yet.

i:Vibes: Which new Israelian artist do you think have the most potential to come a long way within music? And who do you think is the best producer in the scene at the moment?

Avi: Israeli trance rules! & Big Time! & Full Power!

We look at the new generation artists like: Alien Project, Astrix, Atomic
Pulse, Dynamic, Sesto Sento, they are all braking everywhere & we are very
happy to see the scene grows & we are glad to inspire so many talented
artists & opened the door for Israeli Trance music to be so recognized &
well admired around the world.
The best producer at the moment is Avi Algranati from Space Cat.

i:Vibes: How is the clubscene in Israel these days? Do you prefer to do your performances in your home country? Or do you have your greatest fans and largest orients elsewere?


Avi: In Israel the Trance did caught "Big time". We have got the best musicians, we have the best audience in the world, an audience that knows what he wants, audience that knows what he is going to get when he comes to a party. The un-bearable political situation, the everyday terrorists attacks, people are in constant tension, they don't know where & when & what will happen the next day, who shall live, & all of that means - Pressure!

Where would you go to release all of that - if not to a M.F Trance party - to forget all the bullshit, & believe me, here, in Israel, we know how to unwind & explode.

I do not believe that there is a situation like that on any other place in the world! I'm in tour with Astral Projection since '94, we have been to many places, & Experienced quite a bit. We always say that for us there are no differences between the countries we are playing at. People everywhere are reacting in the same sympathy & frenzied to our music. I love it - a 0-nation party, One family.

Today, from some reason the Club Trance appeals to many people. It's not that the people don't want Intelligence Trance anymore.

People don't have the mood due to the terror & current political situation. The situation, in which police trash the parties, arrests the musicians & Party-goers.

This is an un-acceptable situation. People had enough from the police trashing the party, they had it with the drug dealers, the criminals who come to spoil the parties. People prefer to go to the big raves, to the Club-Trance where the police do not show up from some reason.

In Israel people loves Tiesto very much, all the Club Trance elite. At the moment people do not go out so much due to the political situation, no one wants to explode from a suicide-terrorist in the middle of a party. That's why "Astral" are performing now mainly outside of Israel. We prefer to play in a party, in which we can be sure that will not be closed, without the absurd situations of police chases.

i:Vibes: When and where did you have your best experience performing live? How did that affect your work?

Avi: It's a tough question. Each party has its own magic - the place, the view, the people, & there were plenty of parties. I think Goa '99 was one of the best in our career. We played most of our music from many years for many hours. The crowed knew all the tracks. It was in Anjuna's Flee market.

It was a party that was organized in a few hours. People kept asking us when the party is, & we were there just for a holiday! We didn't plan anything. We realized that something has to be done & we got it together with a place, sound system & Baksheesh. In few hours we were surrounded by 2,000 people who came out of knowhere! I like this kind of parties. I remember another one in Fuji Mt. in Japan, a party under an active volcano. It was a party inside a cloud. Beautiful scenery & great crowd!

i:Vibes: Whats your current favourite track? And favourite track of all time?

Avi: Current favourite track: Astral Projection - Chaos (from the Amen album).

Favourite track of all time: M.W.N.N. - Teleport.


i:Vibes: Most people are familiar with tracks of yours like 'Mahadeva' and 'People can fly', which one of your tracks do you think is your best track ever produced? And Why?

Avi: They were all our sons. (ha, ha, ha)! If you insist. Let There Be Light, People Can Fly, Dancing Galaxy, Life on Mars, Chaos, Nexuses, Aurora b ... ( I cant stop ;-) Liquid sun, Mahadeva, Power Gen... Track is made by hard work. There's no such thing as wham bam thank you mam, and here we have a track. It's a hard work. Starting with the sound programming, sitting a lot of in front of the computer.

i:Vibes:How has your writing changed over the years, is there a particular way you write a track? Why do you think you've always produced that incredible up-lifting anthemic sound?


Avi: Starting from a certain base line that's on, adding many layers of different roles that all along the creation keep on changing. Sometimes a certain role that is created inspires the next role and the evolving of the track.
First of all we create some raw material that is on the computer way before the editing. Even in the editing stage we keep changing things, adding or changing roles according to changes created while editing, every role waits for the right time and the right entrance, and every role gets the respect it deserves, that's why our tracks are long.
When we enter the studio to work on an album, there is no chance we will release something that we don't love or aren't not content with. Every time we enter the studio to work on an album we are very excited and without this excitement there is no point for the whole thing. The mix stage, which is the final and last one, closes the process of making the track. This process usually takes us about a month. But for us a track is perfect only after we checked it in a party and we saw the audience respond, the audience is for us an active partner in all we have released so far.
We write, arrange, and do sound programming all together. There's no single formula for the duo to put a track together though. We start a track off with a sampler, a melody line, a groove, a TB 303 sequence. Then we quickly start work on the bass and drums and build it up from there. The sounds and the mixing are worked on as we compose. It can take us from two weeks to a month to finish a track because we have the luxury of owning two professional recording studios.

i:Vibes: Who came up with the idea to your classic music-video 'People can fly'? Did it take long to produce, and was it costly (considering the computer-generated 3d-graphics were a lot harder to create those days)? Do you feel your international break-through came through MTV and other music-tv-channels?

Avi: 'People can fly' & 'Dancing galaxy' videos were made with our team, friends, the best Israeli animators. We have the best people in Israel ... this days we are working on Amen video.
This track is about the current stage of the world, a state of a war, we are on the verge of a third world war. This is a prayer for universal peace and a wish for Utopia, that we wish was possible. It expresses a wish for a world peace. soon u will be able to see it on MTV!

Regarding your qoustion about the international break through ... it's still so hard to push trance into main stream ... u wont be able to see our videos running with Madonna ... u could find them only on a special programs like 'party zone' ... but I believe that in time this will change ... most of the world is already prepared for this trance revolution!

i:Vibes: Is there any producer you would like to collaborate with? If so how do you think that will end up?

Avi: We have been collaborate with: Dado from Trance wave, Triliton & MFG.
From time to time we are doing remixes: we did 'God is a DJ' for Faithless ... 'Aqua line spirit' for Electric Universe ... 'Trance dance' for Triliton.
These days we`ve just finessed for Domestic 'Pure nrg' ( it`s going to be release in Transient records in a few weeks ), but ...mostly we prefer to work together ( Lior & me ).

i:Vibes: Do you have any disguises? Do you produce under any other names than just Astral Projection?

Avi: Yes we have, but it`s a big secret ... ;-) .

i:Vibes: Finally, is there anything you would like to say to your fans and i:Vibes visitors?

Avi:I would you like to say to our many fans:

We were nothing with out your love & without your support.

At our web site - www.astral-projection.com - we receive hundreds of e-mails from fans who expresses their love & this is the most exiting thing in the world for us!

Thanks alot for listening:
Avi Nissim
Astral Projection
www.astral-projection.com