February 17, 2005 - Text: Frederik

1. Who are you and where are you from exactly ?

Hi, I am Yuli from Israel

2. Tell us a bit about your normal day life ?


Well my normal life is pretty normal... Usually I dont really like to sleep late,
so even if I am completely thrashed after few parties in the weekend, I try to live the morning. I have no 100% success in that but morning is nice. During the morning / day time I deal with all things that doesnt concern music, make acupuncture treatments and different arrangements etc.. Afternoon I go to studio and work there till evening / night time and tomorrow is another day...

3. What do you think of the today's scene generally ?
What direction is it taking, what moments you like or dislike?


Today's scene is obviously much bigger than what it used to be 10 years ago. There are heepsof technological changes, that bring the music to everyone's houses. So the goodthings are generally about 'young blood' that adds colour and creativity to the scene.
The negative things are, that more money is involved, more business oriented individualsentering the scene and those ones that belong to the original 'vibe' connection findthemselves leaving the scene, to other, more underground communities. I personally like the fact that many ppl get the possibility to listen to Psy Trance but the other side
of the coin, is that most of them don't even understand the more 'spiritual' side of things in this music, and prefer very aggressive and commercial beats instead.

4.What do you think of the growing number of the labels, artists and the quality of the music released nowadays ?

I think that again the technological achievements have good sides and bad sides. The good sideis that everyone today can create music and be an 'artist'. And since everyone has the creativityelement inside them, there is a lot of music being made, and many otherwise undiscovered talents becomeleading artists worldwide known. The bad side of this is that the meaning of the word 'artist' has became very cheap - it is not likely that out of 10 given people 9 will be artists, but today's reality is that since everyone can afford a powerful PC and a pair of speakers, everyone is an artist.The outcome of all this is a lot of mediocre and non musical music that is being made. Heeps of labels that were founded in the last years help this phenomena, since those 'Bedroom labels' have to release something - and most of time they don't have enough budget to do this professionally - so this mediocre music get released, which ofcourse hurts all of the scene, because it seriously lowers the total quality mark of all releases in Trance.

5. On Iboga you compiled the Compilation Set:4 which is actually out since fewdays now, try to descirbe to our readers : " what was your goal " Did you had any specific point of how to create it?"

Well I really like what Iboga did up till now, and think they got a good thing going with their label.I was co operating with them from time to time since three years ago, and suddenly I thought there is a real chance to do something special in it's concept. See, Israel is mostly known as exporter of morning music, dancefloor shreading Full On tunes. There are few leading Full On labels in Israel that theirartists are travelling worldwide, touring the globe intensively and do their thing in 145bpm speed.
Personally it's a little bit fast for me, and I was always looking for Israeli artists to do somethinggroovier, slower, deeper and well... Suddenly I understood that maybe it's the time, and so thiscompilation was born, 6 trax on it are from holyland and are high quality progressive-psychedelic stuff. All these plus 3 more trax from 2 european bands and one Ozzie, makes this compilation a very very nice beginning of 2005 as far as I am concerned!

6.Whats your opinion about the straight melting of Styles at the moment ? Producers and Djs from totally diffrent mayor styles get closer together ?

I think it is great that blend of electronic music from many genres can actually burn a dancefloor. Thisis all about accepting the other, learning from the other and expanding yer horizons... ;) Some yers ago "weirdo's" like Quirky Tim Healey etc.. were considered really experimental and were the only ones doing their dodgy groovy thing in the Psy-Trance scene. But today, we can see many known Deep-House and Tech-House artists coming to play in Tranceparties and vice versa. It is great in my opinion, I hope it will last.

7.What are your origins how did you come to electronic music ???

I was raised in "pianists" family, my mom was a pianist for a classical Ballet group in Russia, and my grandma was teaching piano to youngsters etc.. I was brought on classical music mostly and learned to play the piano at the age of 5. Since I wasn't too smart at the time at the age of 13 i preferred to play soccerand basketball instead of being good at piano... in 1976 my mom came back from a trip in Europe and brought a Jean Michelle Jarre vinyl, and I was totally under the spell. During my teenage years tho, I was intoPsy-Rock, Art-rock and such, and came back to electronic music after a certain chemical incident in Goa, India 1992. Since, I was a devoted trancer, most of the time...

8.Why did you decide to become a DJ ?

Because as an artist, I very quickly understood that no one will promote my own stuff better then myself. And how right I was. At first I didn't like DJing too much, but last years, especially that my technique got betterI learned to enjoy this as much as I like to make tunes in the studio.

9.Which DJs and acts have influenced your style?

Well this is hard to say, since I try to absorb all the good things I hear and can fit my tunes, never mind who is the maker. But if to point out really remarkable artists in Trance scene I would say X-Dream, Son Kite, Kox Box, Domestic,Psy Craft, Antix, Beckers and D-nox and the line is long. There are more than a few very good producers in Trance music.
The best DJ's I heard so far were Mapusa Mapusa, Tsuyoshi ( at his breakz time ) and Emok.

10.What was the best or funniest experience in your career???

The best experience of my career was probably playing a Live set in Astral Phoenix party in the Rex, London. The crowd there left me completely speechless, and the vibe was amazing. The funny part was that it was damn full thereand there were heeps of ppl on the balcony against me, so I was really afraid for those ppl going nuts on the balcony that obviously was overcrowded like hell, and it was very comforting in the end to see that the balcony didn't fall down... :)

11.What was the worst, unluckiest or strangest experience in your career???

I ususally try not to get into being in very bad experiences. Anyway remembering bad stuff doesnt help anyone ;)
Let's concentrate on the good stuff!!

12.What is your TOP OF THE POPS at the moment !?

As a DJ I play both Progressive and Full on Sets, but since I am more fond of Proggy music these days, here it is:

01. Perfect Stranger - What's the Lineup? ( unr. )
02. Zen Mechanics - Ground Control ( Iboga, Set:4 )
03. D-nox & Beckers - My Number One ( Plastic Park, Prooved 2 )
04. Liquid Soul - Dream Dancer ( Iboga unr. )
05. Perfect Stranger - Dr. Feelgood ( unr. )
06. Ace Ventura - Cardiac Arrest ( Iboga, Set:4 )
07. Air Bureau - We Shine [ D-Nox & Beckers remix ] ( Sprout )
08. Rai - Groove ( Tribal Vision, Urban Legends )
09. Aerospace - Minority ( unr )
10. Schatsi - Radio Schatsi [ Perfect Stranger remix ] ( unr )

13.What are your plans, any upcoming releases or events you wanna mention ???

After the Set:4 compilation is released I can say that Iboga records already hired me to compile the sequel.. So I have already started checking out the options.. Also since I am working on my Perfect Stranger project, which is deep, slow and groovy dance floor material for ppl that like their Psy music juicy and groovy and horizontal rather then fast, aggressive and vertical. I will be releasing as Perfect Stranger on forthcoming compilations from Iboga records and Moonflower productions.

All this will be culminating in Perfect Stranger album on Iboga Records in 2006. Stay tuned...

interview by FrederikFlanger