Spectral Concepts Interview - April 2003
Serbian On-line Magazine Interview - October 2003
Interview to www.fullon.net - June 2005

Briefly describe your musical past?

I got interested in music after listening to Italian pop stars, such as Riccardo Fogli, Toto Cutugno and Adriano Celentano in the eighties. Inspired by them, I wrote my first song when I was twelve. At the same time, in 1988, I went to musical school in Leningrad, Russia, to study piano, where I was lucky to have a great teacher - V. V. Popov, who's techniques I still use to this day. I moved to San Francisco in 1991, where I played in many punk, rock, and gothic projects with my friends, notably Mitya Panov, Mitya Makarov and Kery Vlasov.

What would you say is the most significant correlation between your musical past and your (musical) present?

I think it's my use of melodies, approach to which hasn't changed since childhood. Also, constant desire to experiment with different kinds of noises dates back to my musical past when we used coffee grinders, egg slicers, vacuum cleaners and dot matrix printers in our productions. I still never try to be too serious about what I am doing, - there is always an element of punk rock. This is what keeps me engaged in this sort of thing.

How were you first exposed to psychedelic trance?

My friend Alex took us, the future members of the Redtribe promo system, to the X-Dream party in San Francisco on August 16, 1997. That is also when Russian invasion of the Bay Area psychedelic trance scene began. Then I moved to Holland for half a year and went to parties there.

What was your most memorable party experience?

Any Goa Gil party deserves to be called the most memorable. Who has been to his parties knows what I am talking about. As far as other events I've been too, the most powerful psychedelic adventures for me were the CCC warehouse parties in San Francisco. I still haven't seen anything like that. The energy was so intense, the vibe was so underground, - that's what made me so excited about this music. Unfortunately, that era is gone.

What kinds of music do you listen to besides trance music?

I listen to what my roommate, Peter, listens to, - Warp Records kind of music, plus I love electro from Elektrolux, some house and experimental. I also listen to Forro, Bossa Nova, Russian rock from the 80's to right now, etc.

What artists (in general) do you feel inspired by? (trance or non-trance)

I am inspired by Toto Cutugno, the Beatles, Velvet Underground, John Cage, Sergey Kuryokhin, Aquarium, Tim Shuldt, Neuromotor, Mr. Peculiar, Parasense, OSOM, Phosphene, Sektor 7G, and many others.

Briefly describe your studio set up?

I have two computers: a Mac G4 450 MHz and a Pentium III 1.1 GHz Gateway Laptop. I also have a Kurzweil 2500S, Microwave XT, Access Virus B Indigo, Novation BassStation, and a Juno 106. My mixer is Mackie 1604 and my effect processors are Alesis MidiVerb4 and Lexicon MPX100. I use Emagic amt8 for MIDI and emi 2|6 for Audio.

What are your favorite pieces of gear?

Nowadays, I mostly use the Virus, but I still love my Microwave and Kurzweil. Other machinery is used as "guest" gear in some tracks. Recently, however, I use softsynths, such as Reaktor and Absynth as VSTi plugins in Logic Audio almost 90 percent of the time. I am always looking for new technology to produce my tracks, and in the software world, it becomes available faster. My hardware makes comebacks from time to time, - the perfect example of that is "Every Machine", where I used every hardware synth in the studio.

What was your most memorable time playing live? and why?

First of all, the most memorable are the big festivals, such as Boom and Ypy Poty, of course. The crowds at both parties were just unbelievable in both size and responsiveness. I have to say that size does matter at trance parties sometimes. As far as smaller parties go, I would say it would be my Boston gig last fall: I was never received anywhere in such a big way by such small crowd. Also, I got full red carpet treatment in Boston. I have also enjoyed my recent gig at the Well Spring party in Central California. The timing of my set could not be better, since 4am - sunrise is my favorite spot. I always write music with this timeslot in mind, and, historically, this is the time when people respond to my music the best.

What are you thoughts regarding the Trance scene in the San Francisco area?

For me, San Francisco is home, and that makes it my favorite scene in the world. I know almost every partygoer here, and that adds to the experience. We are also lucky to have a very international crowd here, which makes almost every party festival-grade. The events themselves are very carefully planned, with lots of interesting décor ideas and very little trash on the floor. I've only encountered comparable vibe in some parts of Portugal, Ibiza and Trancoso so far. I am sure there are other places, but I haven't been there yet.

I am also glad that we're catching up really fast on the production front, with new projects constantly popping up. Some of my most favorite artists right now are actually from the Bay Area.

You spent quite a bit of time last year in Brazil after DJing at the Ypy Poty festival. How do you feel about the scene there?

The Brazilian trance scene seems very young and full of energy. I've never seen so many beautiful people at parties. The nature is beyond belief: it's impossible to beat Brazilian party locations, - they are just too unreal. I am seriously considering living there for some time in the future. At least I know where to retire for sure. MACK from Brain XL and I wanted to open some sort of a restaurant thing on the beach in Brazil. Who knows, maybe it will happen someday.

What are your plans for this coming year?

I have several gigs in New York, Boston and Seattle planned out in the beginning of summer, plus I am going to do a little tour in India in May. There are possible gigs in Russia, Hungary and Austria on the horizon. Besides that my goal is to produce as much music as possible!

Your debut album will be released this spring 2003 on Spectral Concepts.
How would you describe the feeling and expression that you have put into it?
What was the main inspiration for your album? How would you describe the album in general?

First, I conceived the album as entirely full-on night-oriented 70 minutes of music. However, the process led me to a combination of night and morning tracks with less aggressive flavor than I originally planned. There are still a lot of evil moments, but I really mean no harm. I've incorporated lots of raw and harsh sounds, but then again, polished sound was never my goal. I've also used similar noises and tricks throughout the album, to create a sense of one unified piece of music. That's why you can sometimes hear the same samples and musical passages in different tracks. I tried to use as little melodies as possible, to get away from my earlier experiments in trance music, yet you can still hear a lot of them in this album. In the end, I tried not to think too much about the music, I just let it flow, and let the process bring me to final results. I think of this album as some kind of a fast-forward melodic psychedelic adventure through the whole party in one hour.

Any last words?

I hope trance music keeps evolving and surprising us with new ways for stimulating our minds. This year promises to be a major step in this evolution. Trance is not dead as some people may think; it has too much energy and momentum to die as quickly as other styles of music.