Ace Ventura, tell us the store about you project and name!

The name originates from my family name, my father's last name was originally Ventura. He changed it to Oshrat when he went into music and showbusiness in Israrel. So as u can see now, there is more to it than that famous Jim Carrey movie :) The project is my interpretation of Progressive Trance,with a harder dancefloor edge to it than most common progressive projects....

What did make you change your stye from Full On to progressive?

I was producing Full On under the Psysex project for 8 years,and after a certain point I felt the need for a change... I followed my heart and it payed off.... I produced one track called Cardiac Arrest, which got great responses and got signed in Iboga. That was in 2005... in january 2006 I officially left Psysex and have been concentrating on Ace Ventura untill now.

Tell us a bit about how you produce your music! Equipment, studio and tricks...

I have a very mininal studio at the moment, producing with good acoustics, good monitors and software only... these days you can pull it off easily, while back in the day u needed to invest your whole life savings to buy expensive hardware and synths. Regarding producing, I usually start the arrangement with the kick and drum parts, then follow with the bassline and synths parts...a rather traditional approach, but a good one...other ways are starting from an idea or hook like a sample or a synth line and building it from there. Cant think of a specific trick- tricks are just using the Fx plugins to the max , manipulating the wave files in new and intresting ways, and trying to break from the common arrangement as much as possibe.But most importantly, have a nice smoke before you start working :)

Why is it that so many artists and producrs come from Israel? And tell us which names from there to look after in the future.

Its a very common question u get in interviews....the answer is, Israel has always embraced psytrance and dancemusic.and thats mainly due to the political situation...sometimes there is stress in daily life, and hard dance music is the easy way to escape it. As for artists to look out for, watch out for QUANTIZE who produce massive peak-time progressive psytrance, I really love their stuff and also collaborated with them on a track which will soon be out in their album on Iboga records....

Which artists inspire your music. Any favorite artists / DJs?

I love many kinds of music, from Heavy Metal and Rock to Jazz, IDM and weird electronica.Favorite labels would be Scape, Lead, Morr and Ninja Tune. Favorite artists would be Amon Tobin, Luke Vibert, Isan, Pole, Michael Jackson, Police,Guns & Roses, Metallica, Pantera, Fear Factory, Flanger, Portishead, Mr.Scruff and so on and so forth.
In the Trance scene at the begining I was inspired by Deedrah,Transwave, Total Eclipse, X-Dream and along the way it was Atmos, Ticon, Son Kite and mostly Freq who inspired me progressiveley. Favorite DJs and artists nowdays would be D-Nox, Stephan Bodzin and Fergie.

Where is you favorite place to play in the world and why?

Thats a tricky question,theres a few of those...obviously these days the most booming place is Brazil. That country is so huge and the scene really took off there - the crowd is simply amazing and the feedback Iget there is like nowhere else. Oher than that i have to mention Switzerland, an old favorite which also never dissapoints ! Germany also has a wicked crowd, ho likes dancing to everything, doesnt matter if its Full On or Progressive or Polk music :)

A look into the future. Where is the scene of our music going in 5 years from now ?

Another hard question....my guess is more of the same, but with more cross overs genres in parties....these days you can hear techno in many Psy Trance parties around the world...who knows what other genre will be dominant in 5 years?

Tell us about your new remix CD and the artists on it!

It is a double CD album which is called RE:BOOT and I am quite excited about it....17 track, all remixes made by other artists to my music plus another remix I made for Perfect Stranger.
The artist list includes Liquid Soul, Sensient, Gaudium, Motion Drive, Quantize, Aerospace, Zen Mechanics, XV Killist and Rocco, Khainz, Rocky, Shadow FX, Interpulse, Astronivo, Duca, Fiord and Bluetech. The 1st CD is more Psy-Prog oriented, banging peak time stuff, while the 2nd cd is more techno and freestyled, closing the double album with a smooth downbeat remix from Blutech.

Any other planned releases in the near future?

I got a few forthcoming compilation releases and will soon start working on the 2nd Ace Ventura album... also in the pipeline is the 2nd NEW ORDER compilation, another progressive collection on HOMmega records.and finally im working on new Schatsi tracks, my more techno and clubby oriented project.

Give us a top 10 of you favorite tunes at the moment!

1.Liquid Soul - Spell (HOMmega)
2.Perfect Stranger - The medicine / Khainz remix (CDr)
3.Ticon - Juan from Colombia (CDR)
4.Ace Ventura & Quantize - High Frequency (Iboga)
5.Sleek-Shut Up(HOMmega)
6.Electric Tease - TV is the new god / Sub6 remix (CDr)
7.Lutzenkirchen - All that jazz / Popof remix (Great stuff)
8.Nikitin & Semikashev - Floppy / Mateo Dimarr rework (Mar186)
9.Mark Knight,Funkagenda & Paul Thomas - Arena (Toolroom)
10.Dnox & Beckers - Beefcake (Sprout)