Infected Mushroom

Both members had a similar musical upbringing, undertaking classical piano at the start of their music endeavors. Eisen reoriented his focus to electronic music experimenting with various compositional software and eventually entered into the DJ scene. Duvdevani also departed from classical music; however, he shifted his attention towards punk rock and heavy metal, later joining Israeli punk band Enzyme to play keyboards.

Eisen went through multiple manifestations of bedroom elctro-trance projects before meeting Duvdevani who had just retired his plan to pursue a career as a metal musician in India. The two did not start playing together until 1996 and initially performed and released material under the name Shidapu & Duvdev. They eventually adopted the moniker Infected Mushroom and issued their studio debut “The Gathering” to a world wide audience in 1999. The album featured samples ranging from movies (“Independence Day”, “Batman & Robin”, “Contact” etc...), to music (Primus’ “Tommy the Cat”) and even video games (Grand Theft Auto). The album sported an overall dark atmospheric tone and is largely recognized as one of the first recordings to introduce Israeli psytrance to the mainstream.

“Classical Mushroom” came out in 2000 and was seen as a step forward for the band. It did not necessarily offer any dramatic stylistic changes, but rather refined the sound they had been working on in the past. However their follow up album “B.P. Empire” did showcase a revamping of style, particularly on the track “Dancing With Kadafi”, which placed emphasis on classical piano music as well as middle-eastern melodic structure. Infected Mushroom’s 4th album: “Converting Vegetarians” continued with the trend of experimentation. It was a double disc album with one disc dedicated to their recognizable trance induced sound and the other disc dedicated to new sounds like downtempo, electro-pop, and avant-garde.

Infected Mushrooms’ 2004 effort “IM The Supervisor” was a commercial hit, selling more albums than any of their prior releases. It is an album often attributed for codifying the seamless fusion of psychedelic music with electronica. Also this year the band located to Los Angeles,California and by 2007 recruited 3 new members in the group: guitarists Thomas Cunningham and Erez Netz and percussionist Rogério Jardim.

In 2007 the group released their most elaborate and musically diverse album to date “Vicious Delicious”. With the recruitment of the band’s new members the sound became fuller and more complex, featuring Spanish lead guitar and hip-hop beats. The band’s 7th album “Legend of the Black Shawarma” was released in 2009 and was followed by a three year tour. The band returned to the recording studio after their extensive tour and put out “Army of Mushrooms” in 2012.