Raja Ram is one of the deep lights in the UK trance scene. The Infinity Project was an early beacon of light, and the vibe continues big time at the turn of the millennium with many projects and events and an ongoing fount of joyful musical expression. Michael Gosney talked with Raja Ram this past March.

M: It was great meeting you last year when I came through in June. The party in Devon was brilliant, and the crop circle experience at Avebury on the way back to London was kind of icing on the cake.

R: I heard about that, sounds like you checked out the circle energy directly.

M: Yes, but it all kind of followed the trance vibe. It is certainly a great scene in the UK. When did it all get going with your circle there?

R: It was about 10 years ago in '89. We started this group called The Infinity Project and that was how the initial started for TIP.

M: Was that early, around '89/'90?

R: In '89 we did our first party in December and played our first primitive tracks to our friends and we realized, "Wow, this is possible. We can do this." And so we went out and bought more equipment and spent the next 5 or 6 years putting it together.

M: Wow. And when was TIP Records formed?

R: That was about '94 so that came quite late. So we'd been actually a band and made 30 or 40 tracks by that time.

M: Now didn't you release some tracks on Dragonfly early on?

R: Dragonfly and Youth gave us our first break and we released a whole series of tracks and they're still releasing some back catalogue stuff again. They took us to a certain career and then we decided to go it alone.

M: Who were the players of TIP?

R: Well, it was just myself and Graham Wood, and that was the two of us. We were recording under The Infinity Project. We haven't done anything of late, but we're both still very active in music, and TIP, of course, has many different artists now.

M: So, still taking a look at what has gone before, back there around the beginning of the 90's the trance scene was percolating over in Goa and London and Hamburg. Is that right?

R: Yeah. Our big inspiration, of course, came to Goa because we had never really seen anything like it. To see those parties with a couple of thousand people dancing all night under the moon, and the sun coming up in the morning by the ocean, by the Arabian Sea. That was pretty spectacular after having club life in Europe or round the world. One saw the liberation of it and realized, "Wow, this is quite easy to do." Because anybody can just have a piece of land and put up a few speakers and have a wonderful time. So we came back to London really inspired with that. Also in '90 the French people were doing some amazing parties in Paris. They were small, and in lots, and in small warehouses, but they were right on it. They had great decoration. And they were fully into the flouro world and really were setting the pace. We ripped off a lot of their ideas. When I say rip off, we all rip off from each other.

M: Friendly ripping.

R: Yeah, friendly ripping. Inspiration, lets say.

M: I have not really heard much about the scene in Paris back then I think it's gone relatively unacknowledged.

R: Well, Total Eclipse were the mega group. They're still very active and still recording today in the South of France but then, they were gigging everywhere, and techno you could buy at the garage when you drove to get petrol. There you'd see techno records for sale. Without a doubt French were the biggest buyers of techno, for the first three years in the whole of the world. They'd buy ten times the amount we'd sell in the UK or anywhere else. They were really on it. But now, they don't want it at all. They're into all sorts of different things, and the fad has passed.

M: Interesting. It seems like, particularly over the past couple years the music has evolved; it seems like a new wave of techno going on. It seems like it's a little more mature, and more diversified, and a range of styles coming together and just more sophisticated. So I'm kind of surprised that it would have completely fallen off of the Parisians' radar.

R: Right, well, there's always a hardcore following. I was reading a magazine today just looking at the amount of parties in Germany for instance. It's just every night almost. Every weekend's a deluge of trance parties, which are well attended, and well decorated, and so there's a very vibrant movement in Europe, but the French are sort of snooty and they have their moments. They'll probably drift back and get back into it again. At the moment it's not in vogue, so to speak. But that's the music business, you know, some things come and some things go. But what we've been involved in the last 10 years and why it was a little bit more primitive was because the technology was also primitive. We started working on old Yamaha computers and then we moved to the Ataris and it wasn't until recently everybody's gone to the Mac. So the technology's improved and the memory's improved, and you can do greater things and bigger things. The sound that we're getting from the studio is really a first class sound and coming up with mega production qualities and tremendous skills because of the practice and they've got used to doing it, so it's very nice to hear that.

M: Who have been over the past several years some of your favorite artists - that's a tough one to ask you, but have influenced you the most?

R: Simon Posford's work is always amazing. Very prolific and he has very varied projects. His Eclipse album was really a totally amazing album, which was sort of ambient-inspired. I don't know if you've got it or not.

M: No, I don't.

R: That was out on Twisted - that's his record company. And that's an amazing album, which one should really have in one's collection.

M: We just need to get in better touch with him and the Twisted label, which has different ownership now, doesn't it?

R: No, it's still he and the other Simon are full owners, and they've got a website, too, which is available through the Dream Creation magazine. They're contactable and they're working very hard and have got lots of new acts coming out.

M: When were you first working with Simon?

R: Right from the very beginning. We did an album called Mystical Experiences, which came out on Blue Room, which was our first ambient album in about '85. Simon worked on about 80% of those tracks. And then of course, he co-wrote "Stimuli" and "Telepathy" and on all our early Infinity Project tracks, Simon was involved. Then we went on, the second ambient project he did was Yeti. He was the producer and one of the coordinators. We recorded the whole of Yeti, which was another ambient epic, which was on TIP records. And we've just finished the third one, which we'll talk later on much longer, which is our third epic ambient collaboration.

M: Right. So you've had three collaborations.

R: We have. And probably about 15 or 20 techno tracks, I've worked with him in one way or another, and often I hang out in the studio with him. We're good friends.

M: How old is Simon?

R: He's 26, or something like that. He's a real protégé. He's got a lot of music in him. I was talking to him tonight and he was telling me how he wanted to work with vocals and songs. His window is certainly much broader than the average trance person.

M: It would seem so, yes, from what I've experienced of his music. Well, I'm going to come back to Shpongle and what's ahead, but I'd still like to...

R: Keep firing. Keep going.

M: I'm curious about Doof.

R: He's in Mexico attending a psychedelic conference.

M: Oh, the shaman's conference?

R: Yeah. In the last year his music's gone through a mega change. He gave us a wonderful solo a couple of years back, which came out on TIP, which was one of his classics. He's been working very quietly since, in the studio, on coming up with a completely new type of music. [Doof's] only played me three or four tracks, but they've absolutely been spellbinding. I mean my jaw dropped open, and got a real rush. Really sensational, syrupy, sinuously slinky sounds from another planet.

M: Wow.

R: Much slower, much more deliberated. He's also DJing all around the world. Everywhere he's played, these small gigs, people said he's playing fantastically. So Doof's opening up a whole new side to him. I'm hoping he'll be in town next week and we're gonna do a track together.

M: Fabulous. Does he have new collection coming out?

R: He has an album just about together and we have to talk about release; whether it's coming out on TIP or another label, I don't really know at the moment. But he's ready to go.

M: Great.

R: Who else? Go ahead.

M: Actually I just wondered who comes to your mind?

R: There's so many artists around now. The X-Dream boys; they're not on TIP, of course, but have appeared on the last two TIP compilations. Those two, Jan and Marcus, are formidable giants, they've been playing right from the beginning, and when they play a live set, the building crumbles.

M: Yes. We met them here a few months ago and they're something else. They're just undeniable.

R: They're a real cosmic force. The masters of production and tremendous Germanic perfectionism we come to love and adore, but they're monsters -- we had an outdoor party in Spain last year and like at 6 o'clock in the morning when the sun was coming up they played a two hour set that would stamp on my memory forever. Boiling.

M: We need the DAT of that.

R: Yeah, I wish, I mean they're a phenomenal act and they're very creative. I just heard a new track of theirs. They're always working, always remixing. They're tremendous contributors to the scene.

M: Yes. Well now, you've had a unique perspective over the years and the insights given that comes with age, and we have a lot of our friends who are in their 20's who are just coming into all this music and receiving this transmission, so to speak, and I'm really interested in trying to delve a little into the spiritual and philosophical influences on the artists who are making the music. And trying to track where this cosmic non-denominational vibration is coming from.

R: Well put, Michael. Well put. I mean, you can't separate music and spirituality. They are one and the same. You have to acknowledge the fact that music all throughout the ages has been used in conjunction with spirituality. And the actual sound of music being so healing and elevating is naturally something we're attracted to -- the harmony of music, the harmony of life, I think all people undeniably wish for. And it's something about music that's so mysterious. I mean, you actually can't name why these vibrations, why one set of vibrations bring you to such a high state, and another set of vibrations can make you feel so wretched. And that's because of the power of music, and where it's coming from. The people who are coming from the right direction or spiritual viewpoint and there to elevate is an educational process. The artists are learning as they're going along, but they are great visionaries because they're going into uncharted waters. A lot of people don't understand the music because it is complicated. You have to get into it to understand it like anything else, but when you get into it you realize what incredible depth there is to it. And where it's pulling you is to a higher place, to a happier place, a place that all our friends can be together and celebrate, whether it's on a dance floor or whether it's over one's dinner table, it doesn't really matter. This is a language that speaks to all of us right round the planet.
   I've just come back from Brazil and the parties up there are unbelievable and South Africa and Australia. Of course America is coming into full blossom, and wherever you go there's this fantastic need for this particular type of music because there is no other music that actually can fuel the dance floor like trance music does. Because the very nature of it by what it says -- trance music -- is to try to put the people in a trance-like state through this rhythm, and through these psychedelic sounds that we've discovered. The whole process, as I said before, really is inseparable from the spiritual act. This music, I really feel, brings one a lot closer to what we're trying to find, whatever that is.

M: Right, whatever our unspoken intuitive urgings are.

R: It's like the soundtrack for our lives, really. This is what we have to get on with, and this is the background we live with.

M: It does seem to me that it's our consciousness, which in the modern day is an explosion of complexity. Goa Gil says of his music, which is psychedelic trance - "redefining the ancient tribal ritual for the 20th century." I think it's a good way to say it. And it's more than redefining, perhaps, it's really a further evolution, because we require a more complex, higher frequency experience than our ancestors did.

R: Definitely do. I mean, from the cave man to the rave man we've evolved to. Of course we've become much more sophisticated. The things that have prodded this have been the drugs and the computers last 50 years, you know, last 30 years, we've had time to really investigate certain frequencies, and certain spaces that were really uncharted before - unavailable, not possible. And we've got a lot of areas that we have access to. Knowledges, and pooling all our knowledge, the Internet, the whole way people all over the globe speak to each other - the whole planet is really connected.

M: It's kind of fascinating how all of our technology has evolved so rapidly over the past 20 years. All the digital media and all this music emerged through the use of those tools. And the Internet is connecting us all. All of this happening just in time for the millennium.

R: Absolutely.

M: When you think about it, isn't it kind of interesting? The future arrives symbolically with the year 2000. All of this is here, you know?

R: It is. We've now got all the tools. There are no excuses anymore, because we've got everything we really need right now. A lot of people have really got their act together, especially in the States, and right round the world. People have really been studying long and hard and the fruits of their labors are coming to bear, definitely. We're seeing some wondrous discoveries, incredible inventions, and fantastic art right round the planet right now.

M: Yeah, we are.

R: I know that California is very fertile, and London, of course is such a melting pot of everything that's going on, and there's so much happening here right now. It's such an exciting place to be.

M: Yes. Yeah, it is. We're going to be studying the phenomenon of trance from a psychological, physiological point of view on Radio-V. There're some people we're associated with at California Institute of Integral Studies here, which is wonderful. This is where Ralph Metzner is, and other brilliant people. They have a lab set up there, and one of their main professors who runs this lab for testing psychological states is real interested in the trance experience and doing some research on that. I think it's important, too. I think that when you look at the whole scene and the phenomena of the trance experience from the outside, I can understand why some parents get a little unsettled.

R: That's a great sign.

M: That is a good sign, actually.

R: It's like rock n' roll. Your mother and father didn't like it; your grandparents hated it. That's necessary, to have that edge.

M: You realize that this is something that we need. This is something the human organism needs. I think it's a good idea to try to understand it in some different ways, even a more clinical, scientific perspective can be helpful. It's not the full viewpoint, but it is part of it. Anyway, I was wondering. Certainly we've been enjoying the new Shpongle collection that was two years in the making.

R: Not all at once, but spread over a couple of years

M: Right. So it's a real treasure trove. I know you've been asked this question many times, but how do you describe the music and the mission of Shpongle?

R: It's just a progression of ambient, once again, it's along those lines, but it's ambient this time using lots of different time signatures and beats and also getting quite complex with the technology, because the studio we use absolutely had everything you could desire, and in the end you had 50 instruments lying on the floor that you couldn't use, that you'd usually drool over. So we couldn't wish for a better circumstance. It was a thatched cottage out in Somerset, which was up on a hill just deserted and we could spend weeks and weeks and weeks making this music together, so the situation of making the music was extremely relaxed and very cosmic and we could really get continuity going. And a concept. I did a lot of travelling in between the tracks and I'd usually come back with some new inspiration and I could sit and draw a storyboard for Simon. We'd talk the tracks through visually, and then go to that particular place and try to recreate particular moods.

M: Synaesthesic production …

R: He's a master of course. He would spend three days just working on a small drum pattern. You wouldn't believe that anyone could have the patience to do it, but he's such a perfectionist, and then when it's ready it's ready sort of thing. But no one usually takes the time or trouble and you can look at his work microscopically. There's just no flaws in it. Seamless.

M: Certainly, every time I listen to the CD I hear something new.

R: Yeah, there's a lot of codes in there and multi-layers and, people might say, secret messages in there but depending on the state you're in when you're listening to it, and how good your headphones are, you'll pick up various things, but we wanted to have it like that. So one person might hear one thing and another might hear slightly another thing, yet they're listening to the same track

M: What's ahead this year?

R: I was speaking to Simon tonight on the phone and we would really love to kick off and start doing Shpongle II. Because I've just come back from some more travels, and I've got some fabulous ideas, and he's hot to go. That's definitely one of the projects and the other project is Yeti - to do Yeti #2. The Mystery of the Yeti, which came out a couple of years ago on TIP, that's got to come ready, I hope, for the millennium. This one's going to be called High on Mount Kailash, and so it's a continuation of the mystery of the Yeti and what happens, where it goes to the next level, and that's what we're going to make the music about. So Total Eclipse are going to be in that. Doof's going to be doing that, Simon's going to be doing that, and quite a few other of the young English boys are going to help out, so it's going to be quite a major project.

M: Is that a thematic compilation, would you say?

R: It will be three different parts done by three different groups involved in it.

M: Beautiful.

R: Yeah, so that's an exciting one. And then the TIP catalogue looks very busy this year. There's the reissue of the Infinity Project and it has the ten years of Infinity Project. We've got another couple of artists' albums; we've got a new compilation coming out in Spring. And we've got Infinite Excursions #3, the ambient collection, which also should come out in about June. That's going to be a very special album, because what we really need are those hours that we aren't at parties - going to parties in the car - where we can really chill out and listen to some intelligent music to hit the spot.

M: We thrive on that music for what we've come to term our "Ambient Salon" events.

R: Great terminology. It's very important that people are getting very sophisticated now and there's a lot you can do in ambient that you can't do in techno, 'cause techno is limited to a degree, where ambient, there are no parameters at all. You really just can do anything as long as it sounds good.

M: And feels good. We are looking forward to the continued growing awareness over here of the music and the artists. Of course that's been the problem with the whole techno scene. The underground mode is very beneficial also in lots of ways but also automatically makes it more of an elite situation where you have to either be turned on to a good rave or have a friend who's invested the time to understand the music and who's who. People in the U.S. in the mainstream, even though they have these kinds of tastes, they just are not that ambitious, I guess. But we're really hoping to, with our efforts, and those of a lot of the other magazines that are picking up on the new culture, to expose some of these artists. I mean, who is Shpongle?

R: Right, well, Simon has just been promoting in Miami and just played a packed house in New York with John Emanuel's crowd. Everything's growing. There is definitely a taste for it and a discerning audience in special places. California is certainly a must and we've got to come over there, and we'd love to bring the whole TIP crew and our painters over there, and show you what we're really about. It's not just really one person. It is a movement - very much like maybe the surrealists were a movement in the 20's in Paris, abstract expressionist artists, or whatever but it is a movement over here. What we've learned to do is amuse ourselves. We've become experts in this and we'd like to be amusing for you and with you have a good laugh and to enjoy ourselves. Because it's a very, very lovely atmosphere. The people that are drawn to this very, very nice people it seems. It seems that there is a world family out there and it doesn't matter whether it's small or it's large, it's the feeling behind it. And I know we've got a lot of friends ready to be friends with in America, so we're really looking forward to this. We think about it everyday and let's hope we can pull it off.

M: Well, we're going to be doing what we can on this end to facilitate your visits, hopefully in the near future.

R: All the artists I've spoken to are just dying to come out.

M: Thanks so much for taking the time with me today.