Infected Mushroom @ The Lakota Club, Bristol


Try asking a Camden-born, indie-bred student like me what they think of Psychedelic Trance. You'll spend the next twenty minutes looking at your watch and yawning while they drone about it being repetitive. Pot? Kettle? Oasis?

But Mushroom bring something extra to the party that has won the hearts of more than a few sceptics. And no, it doesn't come in little round tablets.

The first time i saw them live was in December last year, at Alexandra Palace. The towering architecture of the Great Hall made something truly huge and organic out of the music. I had great friends with me and i was in a right state. It was one of the happiest evenings of my life.

Last Friday, i saw them at the Lakota Club in Bristol, and they were in fine form. As my mates and i enjoyed a beer at the bar, they walked in. The punters were largely oblivious, but we issued a timid 'Shalom' as they walked past, before jumping around like schoolgirls. I'll leave that image to sink for a second...

Infected Mushroom are Duvdev and Erez, two Israeli musicians whose background lies outside dance music. Their set at the Lakota included some of their best new material, including techno-reggae masterpiece Muse Breaks RMX, a divine weld of musical genres that i must have listened to approximately 18 times this week.

They'd left old favourite Bust A Move at home this time, but I Wish, from Classical Mushroom was a suitable replacement. It's a euphoric, pounding leviathan of a track. It also got me elbowed in the eye by some goon.

Once again, they had guitarist Eyal Yankovich with them, milking the crowd for more love as ever and showboating like a ten-year old kid. A very talented ten-year old kid. There's a flavour of the Middle East in his playing that fits Infected Mushroom's tunes like a glove. Just when you think it can't get any darker, that the threshold of aural ghoulishness has been reached, his wailing guitar scythes into the beat and reminds you of places you haven't even been. Eerie.

That's the thing about Mushroom. Everything they write has a mood in it, as if every track were meant to accompany a story. They create images of desert temples and urban rioting, of white beaches and dripping crypts, of euphoria and deep depression. The complexity of their tunes can be orchestral...sometimes it feels like there isn't room to breathe. Believe me, Mozart, Verdi Rachmaninov, they would have loved this stuff.

I love rock and roll. Always have and always will. But given choice between today's unshaven replica Clash-wannabes and a rave-up at an Israeli Psy Trance night, go for the originality. Mushroom have got bags of it.