Behind Aqualize project are Vladislav Koumpatidis and Anastasio Koinis from Greece, better known as Aquafeel and Normalize. The production of this project started in the year of 2008 when they decided to create something different than they usually do for their own solo projects.
Their first release, "Land of 2 suns" by Iono Music has been one of the most played track on progressive floors in the festival season 2009. The melody in this track is unique and close to what people name, a trance hymn.
During their still short career, they have several tracks on various compilations, much more to be released and the upcoming album will be out during the year of 2011.
Their sound is rich, melodic and creative. It generates a positive vibe in both home listening and for sure on the dancefloor. Top notch production ensures a very high quality product.
Fond of psytrance from his debut as a music composer Lunarave has always wanted to create and share his own universe.
Inspired by artists such as California Sunshine, Infected mushroom or Shiva Chandra, he reveals something of himself with an all-round debut album released on Hadra Records in October 2010 which makes us traverse some high points of history through the hypnotic sphere of psytrance, from dusk till dawn of mankind. No need to tell you more, just listen to wake up and start searching for the truth.
Ital, musician of chilean origin, sound engineer, label manager of Antu Records Chile, producer of Psytrance music and dj, has been in contact for more than 14 years in the musical world, starting his carrier like a guitar player, going through several styles of popular music, until he arrived to his true passion: Psychedelic trance music.
He started the year 2001 with his friend Andrés Rodillo with whom he got involved into the production of Psytrance electronic music, forming one of the pioneering projects of the local scene: “Metatron”. In the beginning, experimenting with samplers, synthetizers and audio softwares allowed them to introduce themselves in the national electronic world, playing live and with great success in different places of the country.
Three years later, in 2004, he decided to create his own project, “Ital” , that in Patois african dialect it means purity, and which he uses to promote himself in different scenes of Europe, Asia, Africa and America.
Because of this, each production of Ital has like fundamental concept the expansion of all the purity that surrounds us, canalizing through music all this divine and universal energy that surrounds us to be given and to be projected like sound waves towards our surrounding universe.
His style is characterized for being a Groove Psytrance with a very own character and style, full of atmospheres, much groove and psychedelia.
Since september 2007 he created and began the first psytrance chilean label denominate: “ Antu Records ” which name comes from the indigenous Chilean language that means sun. The purpose and intention is to expand the light and divine energy all over the world through the psytrance music, to connect our selves with our roots and feel our hearts full of spiritual healing.
With 10 years of musical experience and experimentation, Ital has been presented in the most important events of his country (Chile), and also in some of the great recognized Festivals world-wide like:
Boom Festival (Portugal), Universo Paralello Festival (Brazil),
Nagisa Music Festival (Japan), Fusion Festival (Germany),
Vuuv Festival (Germany), Summer Never Ends Festival(Switzerland),
Fullmoon Festival (Germany), Aurora Festival (Greece),
Ultra Music Festival (Rusia), Vortex (South Africa),
The Experience (Thailand), Solstice Festival (Netherlands),
Spirit Base Festival (Austria), Waveform Festival (England),
Eden Festival (Scotland), 303 Art Festival (Brazil), Earthdance (Chile), Flor de luna (Argentina), Trancendence (Brazil), Tranceformation (Brazil), Fora do tempo (Brazil),
Monte Mapu Festival (Chile), S.O.L Festival (Czech Republic),
Soul Vision Festival (Brazil), Samsara Festival (Brazil), Amazontribe (Brazil), Lollapalooza Festival (Chile), among others...
He had realese 3 Albums:
Ital – Spiritual Vibes (Antu Records 2008)
Ital – The World of Spirit Plants (Free Spirit Records 2009)
Ital – Higher Source (Antu Records 2010)
And had more than 40 individual tracks in compilations and Eps in some of the most recognized Label worldwide as:
Vagalume, Neurobiotic, Antu, Iono Music, Phantasm, Free Spirit, Grasshopper, Kundalini, Desert Traxx, 24/7, Catalyst, among others.
Also He had a parallel project call AHO, that just realese his first album Aho – Ancient Tribes, this time bringing some really new and fresh sound from Progressive Psy.
Has shared scene with big name projects from the international psytrance present scene from all the continents, among them:
Dickster, Tristan, Zen mechanics, Liquid Soul, The First Stone,
Burn in Noise, Amd, Ace Ventura, among others...
Has play in countries in more than 26 countries worldwide as:
Japan, Germany, Portugal, England, Brazil, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Rusia, Czech Republic, Scotland, Greece, Sweden, Holland, Poland, South Africa, Thailand, India, Usa, Spain, Hungary, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador & Chile.
Aquafeel is Vladislav Koumpatidis. Borned in the cold Siberia at the year of 1989 and raised up in Greece since 1991. He started going to parties in 2004 and this was also the moment of his first contact with psytrance. On March 2006 he decided to do some experiments with this kind of music.
Music is one of the greatest passions in Christian Merkis life. At a very young age the raw talent of this Swiss native is quickly revealed and he goes on to study the secrets of classical music education. At around 16 years of age, Chris discovers the electronic beat and starts exploring the digital art of music. Soon he begins buying vinyl records and embarks on a mixing journey as dj. In no time he gets noticed by promoters and plays in the biggest national clubs and spectacular festivals attended by thousands of people.
His professional attitude & enthusiasm generated the understanding for the vast depths of electronic music. Early experiment with music software’s like Cubase, finally gives him the ultimate freedom to express his complex mind thoughts into waves of sound. In This is just the beginning of his tale: In fall 2006 Christian joins Swiss label FrakaSound records and within one year of hard work in his underground studio, he completes his epic album in “Search of Water”, which stirs a tidal wave and marking his breakthrough in the global trance scene. Putting a lot of sweat and detail in every section of his composition, he unleashes a selection of steady building up progressive full-on music paired with cutting edge technical skills. He storms the charts with topping action and successfully installs himself amongst the most acclaimed names such as Freq and Liquid Soul. Some album tracks have been remixed by the likes of Klopfgeister, Inner State, Zyce & Flegma and more to come...
Midimal has an impressive chain of releases on labels like Neurobiotic, BlueTunes, Synergetic, Daam, Yellow Sunshine Explosions, Room 31, Moonloop. Besides his main project, Christian’s most recent side projects include the slick progressive act “Next” (BlueTunes ) and the psychedelic-trance act “Lucy” ( FrakaSound). He has played in many countries, sofar in Mexico, Greece, Portugal, Germany, Italy just to name a few. Currently he is signed with Echoes Records and is preparing his second artist album, due in 2009.
Expect are Kevin Schubert and Achim Luethje from Germany. After several releases on compilations out on Tatsu Records, Midijum Records,Yellow Sunshine Records and Millenium Records - Expect worked hard on their debut album for several months.
“South Rockers” is their debut album to the psychedelic-progressive scene with a bunch of new sounds and extra-ordinary grooveness within every track. A new dimension to sound and production quality. 9 previously unreleased and fresh tracks are waiting for you to get explored.
These tunes are tested around the European countries during several live appearances on many several parties and open air events in the past summer of 2007 and had gave the two producers an amazing feedback from the floors. A new dimension to sound and production quality.
Leenuz Nilsson born in Åre, Sweden in 1980. Leenuz is producing psytrance combining whispers of nature with the devastation of the beautiful swedish forest. Leenuz music career started with a set of drums in early 1990, for a couple years Leenuz played in his fathers jazz/blues band but at ..96 the first Destination Goa was released and a drastic change was about to take form. The love for electronic music was instant and everlasting.
Releases so far:
Polyhymnia (Ovnimoon records) Full length CD
Eargasm - V.A - Mysteries Of Psytrance (Ovnimoon records)
Sömntuta - V.A - Return Of Quetzalcoatl (Ovnimoon records)
Red eye warrior - V.A - Goa-Cytopia v1.1(Goa records)
Sömntuta - V.A Open Air Vol 4 (Yellow sunshine records)
Highlands - V.A Light (Shiva Space Japan)
AVP - V.A Sinister sunrise (Resonant Earth)
Dj;
Music Producer;
Sound Design;
Sound Enginner;
Label Manager;
Allan Feytor, also known as ProtoActive, a project with great originality and concept has been considered one of the Progressive trance Lives acts most respected in Brazil, now Feytor lives in United kingdom.
Having released music on several labels in the world such as: Freakuency Records, Iono Music, PLanet Ben, Yellow Sunshine Rec, Antu Rec, Ovnimoon Rec, and more.
Performing in the biggest festivals of the Brazilian and all world Trance scene like as Universo Paralelo, Aurora Festival, Soul Vision among many others ... ProtoActive has been releasing music very well prepared, unique and modern style that blends seamlessly into the current technics of synthesized atmospheres and old shool pads , making a highly lysergic sound, keeping the essence of progressive trance.
Allan Feytor is the owner of Freakuency Records, one of the biggest Progressive Trance label from Brazil.
CIMI's new sound is the kind of progressive trance played at underground clubs and squat parties in London - deep and driving, techy and atmospheric. In early 2009 he was signed to upcoming UK label Furthur Progressions www.facebook.com/furthurprog
CIMI has been a work in progress for a few years now. It is the brainchild of MarcHello, London-based psytrance dj and producer of the full on project M-Theory (Alchemy Records) www.facebook.com/mtheoryuk
MarcHello started djing as soon as he arrived in town from Italy at the end of the Nineties and became involved in the underground party scene. Label dj for Etnicanet Records until 2004, he then moved to Neurobiotic and Free-Spirit Records while also acting as an event promoter, co-founder of the legendary Fairy Tales parties.
His passion for digital production eventually gave birth to CIMI, a crossover project between full on and progressive psytrance. CIMI's first tracks appeared in compilations by Alchemy Records, Point Zero Records and Y.S.E.
The project was put on hold until late 2008 while Marcello was focusing on M-Theory with his former partner Rob. Since establishing himself in the psytrance scene, he has been able to resume his work on CIMI too. Find his new Album "White World Bridger" out now on Psyshop and Beatport http://t.co/qA2USM6pxd
The first decade of the 21st century draws to an end when the small state of
Serbia all of a sudden turns into a sizzling hotspot of the Trance scene. Among
the major reasons being Sideform: Drasko Radovanovic and Milos Modrinic
from Belgrade give an exciting new spin to Progressive Trance, breaking truly
new grounds in terms of sound. A change many lovers of the genre have been
waiting for eagerly, as the considerable international success of their project
proves!
When listening to Sideform, one of the most prominent features is the sheer quality and acoustic pressure of their productions. For a good reason: Drasko and Milos meet during a professional audio engineer training in 2006. Both being avid about studio technology and Trance music, they start working together. Already their first EPs provide extremely catchy, fresh and kicking tunes. At the latest when the EPs ‘Kiss Of Fire’ and ‘Muzik’ are released in 2010, Sideform enters the upper league and is invited to play at some of the most popular festival and parties all around the world. The debut album ‘Moving On’ gains great feedback in 2011. As turns out, it is named after the creative paradigm of Sideform…
The live sets of Drasko and Milos put their audience in a rousing state of tension
between Progressive Trance and Psytrance. Fuelled by two creative minds and
their different, yet complementary ideas, this is another main feature of Sideform: A sound that is unpredictable, full of stimulating surprises, but at the same time highly consistent and smooth.
Genetic Spin is a danish trance project between the two musicians Michael Schultz aka. T. Schultz, 21 and Simon Towity aka. S. Flyer, 21.
Both having produced electronic music alone for some time - in the year 2000 they decided to start producing trax together. The sound is progressive with elements from trance, house etc. all with a desire for a groove emotion.
With Waveform festival coming this September, Parallel PR have been kind enough to send us this interview with psytrance giants and Waveform performers Zetan Spore, who I’ve had the pleasure to stomp to numerous times when I lived down in Cornwall where they’re based. Excellent words – even better beats. Hope to see you at Waveform!
One of the most loved and respected acts on the UK festival scene is the live Psytrance duo Zetan Spore. The Cornish twins Ian (Synths /Programming) and Mark (Guitars/Didgeridoo) Hasdell, have been plying their trade around Europe and the world since 1997, headlining at gigs such as Antiworld and Synergy Project, with top slots at festivals including Waveform, Sunrise, and Bearded Theory, the highlight being a cracking performance in front of 25000 at Euphoria in Singapore. With nine albums under their belts, these talented Geminis are as prodigious in the ‘studio’ as they are on the circuit. Their pumping, energetic Psytrance is instantly recognisable, often because of Mark’s unique use of the didgeridoo, which adds a haunting, tribal element to their sound.
The guys took some time out of their busy schedule to have a quick chat with Parallel PR about….stuff.
Parallel: Did you both realise that music was going to be a major part of your lives at the same time, and how young were you?
Zetan S: Yeah, kind of – Mark started playing bass and then didgeridoo when he moved away from the South-east to Plymouth in the late 80’s, while I stayed up there doing vocals in a band and then later experimenting with keyboards and electronics. After moving to Cornwall there was a space of a few years before I started back on electronic music and Zetan Spore was born in 1995. Mark joined about a year later playing didgeridoo and also learnt guitar. After our first gig in 1997 we realised it was what we really wanted to do and the rest is history as they say.
Parallel: Who were your EARLIEST influences?
Zetan S: Our dad got us into Tangerine Dream and Jean Michel Jarre in the mid 80’s. In the late 80’s we got into space rock – Hawkwind , The Magic Mushroom Band, Porcupine Tree, Poisoned Electrick Head and the like and then early dance acts such as Astralasia and then Eat Static in the early 90’s. When psychedelic trance came around for the first time in the mid 90’s we were off!
Parallel: Has the didgeridoo been part of Zetan Spore since the very beginning?
Zetan S: It’s cheating, we know, but see the first answer….hah!
Parallel: Yes, then. OK. Next please. Although live psytrance is your very enjoyable ‘business’, what OTHER genres of music do you enjoy as listeners?
Zetan S: All sorts – I’m still well into Space Rock and other forms of psychedelic music and I still love my Punk and Ska – I listen to nearly all genres – everything has a time and place depending on ya mood. Mark is more into his progressive Psy and Psy Dub/Chill.
Parallel: Who else do you enjoy on the Psy scene at the moment?
Zetan S: Still loving people such as Talpa, Commercial Hippies, Mad Maxx, Eat Static, etc., but haven’t heard anything THAT mindblowing come out on the trance scene for a while – tend to keep going back to acts such as Wizzy Noise, Electric Universe, Talamasca, Cosmosis, Juno Reactor and the like. Loving the Psy Breaks scene though – can’t beat a bit of Hedflux, Bad Tango or Neurodriver to get the dancefloor going.
Parallel: You’ve played hundreds of gigs since ’97. Do you prefer a crowd of 25,000 like Euphoria, a smaller festival like Waveform, or the intimacy of a club/room?
Zetan S: We love them all – Euphoria was a bit daunting but awesome, we really enjoy the UK festivals, especially Waveform, Alchemy, Bearded Theory, etc., and still love doing smaller, more intimate gigs where you’re right down with the action rather than up on a big stage.
Parallel: You appear regularly at several festivals, what is it about Waveform that brings you back year after year?
Zetan S: The atmosphere at Waveform is the best of any festival we’ve been to, it’s so uplifting – we always come away with aching faces and fucked knees! I suppose it helps that we seem to know half the people there too!
Parallel: That’s how we feel about Waveform too. Do you spend as much time in the studio as you’d like, or don’t you like the studio much?
Zetan S: (IAN) My flat is my studio so I’ve got no choice! I like to be comfortable when writing, so I’ve set everything up so I can work from my sofa. It tends to take about one and a half to two months for us to write a track in between gigging, rehearsing and the admin side of things – I’d like to spend more time writing and experimenting but there’s just not enough hours in the day. When everything’s coming together in the studio it’s a great feeling – we love creating something and imagining what it’s gonna be like on the dancefloor – I often find myself drawing the curtains and busting it up to check that the section I’m sequencing all works properly!
Parallel: Do you have any projects on the go as we speak?
Zetan S: I’ve just finished our latest track “Tribalistics” and have one more left to write (probably starting next week) before we release our next (9th) album. By the time you read this it may already be done – we’re hoping for a Spring release so we can hit the festivals with it over the Summer. Mark’s busy putting the finishing touches to his second Lunarsonic album also due for release this Spring – you’ll be able to catch both at this year’s Waveform!
Parallel: And finally, what are your long term plans for Zetan Spore?
Zetan S: More gigs and festivals all over the World – we want to take Zetan Spore to as many different countries as possible and party with as many different psy tribes as we can, and still be doing it in another 20 or 30 years’ time!
Parallel: Brilliant, guys. Thanks a million for taking the time to answer our questions. We wish you every success, and if we don’t catch you somewhere beforehand, we’ll definitely see you at Waveform in September.
Zetan Spore will be appearing at Cat’s Cradle Stage at Waveform 2013. Mark’s Lunarsonic will be playing the Gaia Chill Stage at the same festival.
It's not difficult to see that this project is a collaboration between Audiomatic (Benjamin Halfman) and Magnetrixx (Stefan Lewin). Due to their own individual releases, both artists have made themselves known on national and international levels.
They first met at Leviathan Studios when Stefan was working on his first releases. Benni was already an established DJ playing many parties in Germany. He became fascinated with the producing and music creation Stefan was doing and started learning how to do it himself. During a time apart, Benni honed the skills Stefan taught him and when they finally came back together Stefan was so impressed with how much Benni had learned they spontaneously created a track together. Eventually, they joined forces and started the project Audiomatrixx. Those familiar with the artists' individual works know what to expect: nice, driving beats with power-grooves for a packed dance floor.
They immediately gained fans after releasing three tracks for various compilations. After two years of hard work in the studio the long awaited debut album is finally ready. The album has a unique sound and positive vibe that explores a lot of nice musical ideas featuring a mixture of old analog synths and new self programmed software synths. The album is already being presented at major festivals in Austria, Brazil, Denmark, and Germany.
The band's philosophy is to continuously nurture and push each other's ability fertilizing each other's creativity to make the most intricate and mind blowing music they possibly can together. They live to travel the world and see their music affect crowds of people by making them dance and smile at the same time. They consider the ultimate success when people love what they are doing while they focus their passion like a laser. They don't worry too much about outside influences, concentrating instead on constantly making their sound better and better, putting everything on the line and expressing their own feelings and ideas to the people of the world.
Audiomatrixx is perpetuated by two minds, hearts, and souls to make the world a better place through the drive to create something that can be felt deep down on a primal level where pleasure and joy forces you to move your body to the beats they lovingly create.
Behind "Krama" project is Dimitris Violitzis from Thessaloniki - Greece.
He started producing electronic music in 2001 after a lot of experiments in various styles, including experimental, i.d.m., classical etc.
Dimitris is a certified music technologist,sound designer,and programmer and also running his progressive house project "Randay".
His main vision is to create a style of music, accessible to every ear, regardless one's music background.
The word Krama is Greek and means the mix of metals which can be translated as different styles that can be mixed to give one unique result that you can hear in the most known labels of Trance scene, such as: Zillion Mental Anarchy, Yellow Sunshine Explotion, Spin Twist Records, Vertikal Records, Savva Records and Midijum Records.
Debut album "Terra Nova" released in the summer of 2008 from Vertikal Records was the first approach to a new sound, with techno-trance elements yet trancy feeling.
The album got the attention of more commercial trance dj's & listeners.
Most of the tracks have been played by big names of commercial trance scene and have been in airplays of global radios for months. But that was not the path to be followed.
Raised in psy-trance dancefloors since teen, he knew what was missing and he just had to make it real.
In October of 2009 in cooperation with one of the biggest psy-prog labels, Spin Twist Records, the dream became reality.
It started like a slow burning bomb but good things can't stay hidden for long periods.
Soon he started touring across Europe with his ex parter.
The vision became reality and he just had to share this music with every possible way, from the smallest to the biggest clubs, to the best open air festivals of the continent.
People's feedback was the best way to know that he were on the right path and he had to continue NO MATTER WHAT.
After a year and a half, during May of 2011 the 3rd studio album appears like a musical odyssey.
Together with the grinding, organic bass sounds, which float 'Across The Sea' like a golden thread, it becomes pretty clear why "Krama" appropriately describe his music style as 'Power Progressive Trance'.
Trance/Psy-Trance project made up of UK Trance DJ & producer John '00' Fleming and his longtime mate and fellow producer Ricky Smith aka The Digital Blonde.
Between them they have had tracks on over 200 mix compilations, 10 singles in the UK top 40 charts, 6 albums in the UK top 40 charts, worked on projects along side; Simple Minds, Muse, Erasure, Vangelis and Moby, and had releases on such major labels as; Virgin, EMI and Warner Bros.
It was no surprise that when these two giant producers got together to form; 00.db that it has taken the World by storm. Their current album, signed by The Ministry of sound, entered the top 40 of the UK album charts this week, also making it to a staggering num 2 in the HMV sales charts! Tracks from the album are also currently experiencing BBC Radio 1 support.
In 2004 John announced on his website that he had joined forces with Ricky to form a production team. As they had not come up with a name, John left it to the fans on his website forum to come up with something and the name '0.0db' was picked. The duo worked for some time producing material and played a handful of live performances at nightclubs in the UK.
00.db performed live at Gaterasher’s Magna event to 7000 people last Christmas, this was an overnight success and requests have been coming in thick and fast for live bookings. Gatecrasher instantly booked 00.db for their Gatecrasher Summer sound system festival, headlining 00.db on the main stage. The buzz is spreading across Asia, 00.db held their own concert in Manila, Philippines to 4000 people, shortly after they found themselves headlining their stage at India’s biggest outdoor festival in Goa for Sunburn.
PROTONICA are Piet Kaempfer and Ralf Dietze from Berlin (Germany). With Piet's intuition for harmonies as a skilled pianist and certified sound designer Ralf's feeling for propulsive grooves, Protonica deliver you their very own positive pulsing sound - a blend of psychedelic and progressive trance. The "Refresh / Northern Storm EP" from 2010 was certainly an important milestone and the breakthrough for the duo. In 2012 Protonica releases the second album "Form Follows Function" another masterpiece after their debut album "Search" from 2007.
With their energetic live sets Protonica have already contributed to making events a sucess all over the world, amongst others Universo Paralello (Brazil), Rainbow Serpent (Australia), Ozora Festival (Hungary), Fusion Festival (Germany), Ilo Festival (Mexico), Groove Attack (Israel) and Boom Festival (Portugal).
Ralf and Piet share extensive experience in DJing for more than a decade, too. Together they have also formed the progressive house/techno side project KAEMPFER & DIETZE.
Zyce is progressive psytrance project created by Nikola Kozic from Serbia.
Biography
ZYCE is a solo progressive trance project created by Nikola Kozic from Serbia. After years of performing on guitar in rock and reggae bands, Nikola found himself in electronic music and the Zyce project was born. His debut album "Hyper Cube" was released in 2008 on Synergetic records. Soon after he started releasing music for the major psychedelic/progressive Trance labels like Spin Twist, Iboga, IONO Music, Blue Tunes.
The second album "Transgressive" was released on Spin Twist records in March 2010. With this album Zyce project had a chance to perform at the biggest festivals at Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, Israel, Germany, France…
At the end of the 2010, Nikola established record label under name "TesseracTstudio" for which he have released his third album under name “8 Cell” in collaboration with Flegma project in 2011. Album took first place at psyshop charts. Finally the last and the fourth album with symbolic name “Alignment” was published at the 21st December at 2012.
Nikola is also part of several side projects like:
"ECTIMA"
Ectima is a collaboration project created with Dalibor Delic (aka Flegma). Unique style of this project can be described as fusion of the psychedelic sound with a mix of techno music followed by deep atmosphere and tribal percussions! Two albums was released with this project !
“VERTEX”
Vertex is a collaboration project with Slobodan Gacesa (aka DJ Merlin). This project represent beautiful connection of progressive house/trance and ambient chill out sounds. Two albums was released with this project !
"ORISON"
Orison is one more collaboration project with Dalibor Delic (aka Flegma). With this project Nikola and Dalibor had a vision to return the true progressive trance sound on the scene. Debut album was released at the end of 2012!
