Electric Space Phenomena aka ESP

Interview with Olli Wisdom and Boris Blenn

Author: Sam
Date: Nov 16, 2006
Views: 3037

s- This is Chaishop music news and I’m here in a conference together with Oli Wisdom and Boris Blenn from their new live act which is actually called Space Tribe and Electric Universe. Hey Oli, hey Boris.

o- Hey there Sam.

b- Hey everybody.

s- Ok, so a short introduction. You have formed a new Psychedelic Trance act called by your names, Electric Universe and Space Tribe and you also just released an album called Electric Space Phenomena, ESP. How did it come to this cooperation?

o- It was completely natural actually. We both became friends while we were on the same label with Spirit Zone together and in the end we began to find some time in the studio. We did our first track together in 2000, I think it was, ‘the Acid Test’ and it worked very well. The connection was very good and it was lots of fun working together. After we made one together and it worked very nice it’s very easy to go back and do another one and it just progressed like this.

s- How many tracks did you do before releasing the album?

b- We had the maxi single out on Spirit Zone which were two tracks, I think there was one other we did before here in Berlin, so it was actually three tracks we did before we started working on the album.

s- So it actually needed like 5 years or so until you finally decided “let’s do it”.

o- Well I live in Australia and he lives in Germany and before he lived in Ibiza, so it doesn’t make it that easy, it takes quite a while to make a whole album. Even trying to find time to do a track is sometimes difficult when you live so far from each other, but once we made the first track together last summer for the new album, it was obvious that we really wanted to move on making an album and do it quite quickly. We have such a synergy together that it doesn’t actually take us very long to make a track and to make a 9 minute epic track, not just a five minute simple one, but a really epic 9 minute track seems to come in 2 or 3 days for us so there’s this work flow which is just so lovely to be in.

s- How do you actually work together? I mean who does what and how do you inspire each other, are there differences between you or do you both just do the same?

o- It can come from different places, it can come from an inspiring bassline that somebody writes, it can come from some inspiring samples or we’ve had Roland play some guitars on some tracks and that’s been inspiring so you can get inspired from all sorts of different directions and once it gets fired off it seems that each track is really unique that we’ve made and different to each other.

b- I think it’s also really great to work two people together who are quite experienced in production skills and just bring similar background of knowledge of the technique and also what’s really working on the dance floor. It’s just very efficient because one always says ok, stop it now and the other one takes over and it just goes very quickly and very efficient in that way.

s- That sounds great, I mean since you are so efficient and it’s so much fun working together, what more do you have in mind, what is planned?

o- There’s nothing planned in Life you know, but more stuff will come for sure because it’s been so much fun doing what we’ve done and we’ve had such a great reaction from this album already you know, that for me it’s obvious that we’re gonna work more together because it’s been so much fun.

s- Ok, so it’s been released like a month ago or was this delayed in the end?

o- Yeah something like a month ago. Well it staggered a little bit you know, the Japanese like to release it a week or two before it gets released to the rest of the world. So it was released in Japan probably a week before everybody else, but its all released with all the digital download services now as well at the same time.

s- Cool, sounds good. And is there going to be a live act?

o- Yes there is. Again, it’s not always the easiest thing to organise living so far apart from each other, but we’ve got 3 or 4 live acts together coming up this year already. We’ll just take it one step at a time. Anybody wants to book us as ESP opposed to Space Tribe or Electric Universe, they’re very welcome to get in touch and ask us.

b- Also just the advantages if we come together we have such a big, wide range of possibilities playing DJ, playing different live acts, the package itself is already like really strong.

s- That’s what I realised also and also it’s great to have 2 people team up that are in the Trance scene for such a long time and are producing music for such a long time and now you’ve bundled your energies and something really big can come out of it.

o- Yeah well, something really creative is what is coming out of it, for me the sum is greater than the parts and because of this I feel that we really have something special here you know and for me whether it gets big or whether it doesn’t get big, whether it’s successful or not that’s not really the point you know because I really think we have something special here and if you have something special well people will realise it anyway at one point.

s- Alright, so Boris, are you going to wear Space Tribe clothes in your live acts then?

b- (Laughs) Nothing else for sure. The fluoro string thong is my favourite.

s- Sounds great. Another question about the music itself, I mean the both of you were producing real psychedelic music from the beginning and you still are actually while many other people change their style at some point like going from Psychedelic to Progressive music or something else. How does it come that you really stick to this one core music of the Psychedelic Trance scene.

o- Well, I can speak for myself on that one because for me the Progressive stuff is great at the beginning of a party or during the daytime, but something needs to happen in the night time and towards the end of the night and early morning to really blast the gates open inside people and take the whole dance floor to another level and for me that comes with certain intensity and a certain power behind it and for me when a party doesn’t have these gates blasted open it doesn’t quite work you know. So for me the point is to really blast these gates open and bring people to another level and that is where I feel our role, especially with me, but with the ESP stuff is also the same kind of role where it’s really to open people up and bring the party up to the next level you know.

s- Ok cool. Boris?

b- I think also one of the reasons for me is that real Full-on Trance music is the most powerful and for me most enjoyable dance music that is there. I love Progressive stuff, I like House, Tech-House stuff, there are many different things, but exactly like Oli said, being booked as the live act in some point of the major time on the parties I really see the need to have strong powerful music and I just love to produce it and it’s really fun to be on stage and to perform at that energy level. I mean it’s also with the Electric Universe stuff, it goes a bit more into a morning direction, but it’s still very powerful music and like Oli said, there is a need for that in the party and it’s also the stuff that I still enjoy most when I’m on the dance floor myself.

s- And your favourite tracks on the ESP album?

b- Mmm, That’s funny. I must say that every track has a certain point and something really special in it, so I can’t even say that there is a really special, a favourite track because every time I play these tracks in every track, there is a part in it where on some point the people really go nuts with it and the response… you can really feel and see the response from it on the dance floor. So I must say every track is my favourite track.

s- And about the people going nuts, I like that. Is it special parts of the tracks where everybody goes nuts or is it like different people go nuts at different parts.

o- No everybody goes… the tracks are specifically built so everybody goes nuts at the same time of course.

s- So you can predict when the people go nuts?

o- Exactly

s- Perfect, Oli about your favourite track?

o- Deep purple Haze.

s- Alright Deep Purple Haze then.

o- Deep Purple Haze, it’s like a Rock/ Trance anthem, with live guitars and live voices on there and for me it’s really a step different from the rest of the tracks on the album and again the response has been absolutely phenomenal. I was a little bit scared to play it to start with yeah, because it really crosses over into this Rock territory, but it actually works brilliantly.

s- I’ve asked my questions, do you have anything else you want to shout out to the public?

o- Thank you for giving us the chance. Have your mind blown and your feet blistered and a huge smile put on your face.

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