Clean, mister

>> Bal en Blanc reaches for the bleach, while Infected Mushroom roll out the big guns

FUNGAL JUNGLE: Infected Mushroom

by JACK OATMON

Aside from 15,000 squeaky-clean party hounds decked out to the nines in their whitest whites, as well as 14-and-a-half straight hours of madness in two thunderous rooms at Palais des Congrès on Easter Sunday, this year’s Bal en Blanc also offers four days of related house and trance events around Montreal, not to mention a mountain of bathrobes, briefs and togas that would have Zeus counting his linens.

You can start sullying your undergarments as early as tonight by visiting Time Supperclub with guest DJ Dimitri, then making the trek out to Red Lite afterhours for a long night of beats beginning at 2 a.m. On Friday, hit either Parking for Twisted Dee and Alain Jackinsky, or catch the grand opening of new club LaMouche, which will land in the old Aria space. After the big White party on Sunday, if you still can’t get enough, just cruise over to Stereobar on Monday where the party keeps going right through the holiday.

Normally, when going to a shindig that lasts until noon, one wouldn’t feel the need to show up with bells on at midnight. However, it appears that perhaps the most interesting feature of the big party on Sunday night occurs at midnight in the trance room. Formerly the most well respected duo of DJs and producers in the world of psytrance, Infected Mushroom have, over the past couple of years, metastasized into a full live band, producing a mind-bending mixture of Latin beats, Arabic grooves, Israeli psychedelic trance, American-style butt rock and even hip hop.

“It’s mostly because me and Erez [Aizen, aka I.Zen] got bored of being alone onstage,” explains Amit “Duvdev” Duvdevani about the transition to a live show, “so we added the guitar and started singing and going back more to our roots in heavy metal and stuff like that. Basically, we have much more fun with it today than we used to.”

Getting antsy and adding new elements to the mix is very much the theme of Infected Mushroom’s most recent album, Vicious Delicious. And the schizophrenic final product is exemplary of why the Israeli duo drew the attention of masses of non-trance fans back in the days of Converting Vegetarians. It’s also a little clue as to the duo’s roots as classically trained musicians.

“Vicious Delicious was an experimental album for me and Erez. We really wanted to push it to higher levels, and this is what it’s become.”

The inclusion of the track “Artillery” on the new album underscores the extent to which they tried to go outside their comfort zone. “We never did a hip hop track before. It’s not that we’re so much into hip hop, but we said, ‘Let’s give it a go.’ We were in contact with Swollen Members and so we sent them the track, they jammed on it and we really like it. It was a nice experiment. Each album we try to spice it up a little bit and take things in new directions.”

Infected Mushroom join
David Guetta, Ferry Corsten,
Victor Calderone and more at Bal en
Blanc’s White Party at Palais des Congrès
on Sunday, March 23, 9 p.m., $100+.
For further info, go to www.balenblanc.com