Astral Projection is a electronic musical group producing psychedelic trance and goa trance music based in Israel. Its current members are Avi Nissim and Lior Perlmutter. Although the majority of their releases have been done through their own record company, Trust in Trance (which later merged with Phonokol), they have also released records with other labels including Transient. In addition to an extensive discography, the group has an extensive worldwide touring schedule.
A precursor to Astral Projection, SFX, was formed in Israel in 1989 and originally consisted of Avi Nissim and Lior Perlmutter. They released a hit single in 1991 named Monster Mania, which prompted them to start working on an album. Work was halted when they decided to travel to New York and try their luck there. While Avi soon went back home, Lior stayed in the USA and in 1992 released the single JBIE. In 1993, with Lior still in the US, Avi teamed up with Yaniv Haviv and Guy Sabbag and they released the single Another World. In early 1994, Lior returned to Israel to work on his own material with the rest of the members under their new label Trust in Trance. After this release, Guy decided to leave the group and the remaining members eventually changed their name to Astral Projection.
They have produced nine albums. The most recent album is 'Ten' which was released in 2004. Astral Projection have not released an album since 2004, though they have released several singles since then.
Astral Projection's most well known tracks include hits such as “Kabalah”, “People Can Fly”, “Mahadeva” and “Dancing Galaxy” to name but a few.
Astral Projection's four latest tracks “Open Society”, “The Prophecy”, "One" and "Strange World" have been greeted enthusiastically by Goa and Psychedelic trance fans. Their upcoming album Open Society is due for release in 2010 (according to their MySpace profile); this release date having been pushed back first from January 2008 to September 2008, then from September 2008 to simply "2009", and then from 2009 to simply "2010". After the September 2008 delay, Astral Projection's website attributed this to a dispute with B.N.E., the label which they originally had agreed to release the album. While this explanation is no longer on their website, their MySpace page says Open Society will now be released by Trust in Trance Records. UPDATE:
On Saturday October 10,2009 Astral Projections played material from their upcoming album "Open Society" at the mostly canceled Venus festival in Harmony, NC. The festival was originally planned to take place over three days on three stages but was essentially (some rumors claim officially) canceled after the first night. However, a group of festival attendees and artists took up a collection sufficient to pay for the gas money of Open Dome Productions after discovering the company was still on the festival grounds and had not only their immersive 100 person dome but also a sound system. Open Dome then handed back the money to the property owner in order that the show could go on and operated the dome for free. Astral Projections were surprised to find a dome instead of a stage but then reportedly loved it, and certainly played an amazing show. Without Ian Downey and his three man OpenDome.net team (VJ's Dave & Soup) the show would never have happened, and Astral Projections would not have been able to perform that night.
Official Site www.astral-projection.com