Get infected

Internationally renowned Israeli psychedelic trance giant Infected Mushroom celebrates 20 years of hits in a performance at Live Park in Rishon Lezion.

By DAGAN WALD
Infected Mushroom (photo credit: PR)
Infected Mushroom
(photo credit: PR)
 Infected Mushroom, an Israeli global success formed by Amit Duvdevani and Erez Eisen, is currently celebrating its twentieth year of making psytrance/ electronica/psychedelic music. The duo has enjoyed huge international success with their many albums and collaborations with other world-renowned artists.
Infected Mushroom will be holding a special festive performance in Israel on April 21 at the Live Park Amphitheater in Rishon Lezion.
They spoke of their excitement regarding the upcoming show recently in an interview from their home in Los Angeles.
“We are extremely excited to be performing in Israel, and have been preparing for the show for a few months already. We are always traveling from one performance to another and our schedule is very tight – we average 120 live performances a year. And we’re always working on new material,” says Duvdevani (aka “Duvdev”).
The four-hour show in Israel will be divided into three sets. In the first set of the dance party, Eisen and Duvdevani will take the show in a surprising direction with acoustic compositions and will play songs from their latest album, Converting Vegetarians II. In addition, they will host soloist Michele Adamson from the psytrance group Shpongle, as well as Israeli dance troupe Mayumana.
During the second set, Infected Mushroom will invite onstage some of Israel’s greatest music groups and singers with whom they’ve collaborated over the past 20 years, including Hadag Nahash (with whom they recorded the song “Legal Eyes”), Hatikva 6 (with whom they recorded the songs “Where do I belong” and “Koh Pangan”), Rami Fortis, j.viewz and Berry Sakharof.
During the third and final set the party will really take off, as Eisen and Duvdevani will invite DJs Astrix, Yahel and Riot Universe to join them onstage. Of course, there will probably be plenty of mind-blowing surprises throughout the concert.
“We’ve been preparing for this special performance in Israel for a while, and so Erez and I took out the photo albums from our early years to see how things have changed over the years,” says Duvdevani. “So many emotional memories have been surfacing.”
Neither Eisen nor Duvdevani, who grew up in the Krayot area near Haifa, spent their early years involved in trance music. Eisen dabbled in rock and Duvdevani in classical music before moving on to electronic music. In the 1990s, Duvdevani was part of a new-wave band called Enzyme, while Eisen was already moving into trance music after spending time in Goa, India, an international center for trance music.
The band’s first few albums came out in the late 1990s (The Gathering, Classical Mushroom and B.P. Empire).
The albums did not draw intense media recognition, but the duo was already busy playing at parties in Israel and around the world.
“I think the moment I realized that we’d finally made it to the big time was in 1998 when we played at the O.Z.O.R.A. Festival in Hungary, one of the biggest trance festivals in the world,” Duvdevani continues. “From there, things just continued getting better and not long after we found ourselves performing with the Black Eyed Peas in front of a half-million people.”
In 2013, Infected Mushroom collaborated with Lady Gaga on the song “Aura” for her album Artpop, as well as with Perry Farrell from Jane’s Addiction.
“When we decided to take our trance music and move to the US, we found that no one there had any experience with this type of music.
So in some ways, we’re responsible for the entire genre gaining momentum in the US. You could even say that Israelis in different cities in the US – Chicago, New York and Los Angeles – who loved our music helped us further our careers.”
Despite the fact that they’ve been living in Los Angeles for years, Eisen and Duvdevani still feel like they’re ambassadors of Israeli music.
“Neither of us has been appointed by the State of Israel, and we only represent ourselves, but we are not shy about the fact that we grew up in the Israeli music scene. We are incredibly excited to perform at home in front of our friends and fans and people who love our music, and we can’t wait for the show to arrive.”
Time Machine: Infected Mushroom celebrates its twentieth anniversary with Mayumana, Hadag Nahash, Hatikva 6, Rami Fortis, Berry Sakharof, Astrix, Yahel and a host of other artists.
The show will take place on April 21 at the Live Park Amphitheater Rishon Lezion. Doors open at 20:00.
Ticket price: NIS 219-239.
(Translated by Hannah Hochner).