Infected Mushroom
3rd May 2024

Mining Israel’s Goa trance of its hottest intensities, Infected Mushroom remain one of the Middle East’s biggest international cult successes. Erez Aizen’s cheap background in obsessed bedroom computer tinkering had led him into and out of a number of crude dance efforts, and when a mutual friend suggested he should get together with Amit Duvdevani, a thrash metal fan who had just returned from an aborted career path in India, the two found enough in common to surreptitiously explore the rising psychedelic trends pouring out of the nation’s clubs. The results — 1999’s The Gathering, which was heavily inspired by the surreal ambient dance 2000’s Classical Mushroom, an aggressively melodic trance LP that broke the European, Japanese, and American markets.