This week for Flashback Friday, an important project who were (and still are) groundbreakers and ambassadors for a particular branch of psychedelic trance music: the Israeli project Astral Projection.

Prior to this project’s incarnation, Lior Perlmutter and Avi Nissim began producing music in Israel as SFX in 1989. They spent some time together in New York, where Lior would stay for several years while Avi made music with Guy Sebbag and Yaniv Haviv back home in Israel. Lior returned, Guy went to work on his own, and the three remaining musicians founded Astral Projection in 1995, having also started their own label, Trust In Trance.

Astral Projection’s sound has been at the forefront of the uniquely Israeli style of trance, with an uplifting atmosphere, broad anthemic melodies, and aerated synth sounds, with a strong harmonic signature employing both major and minor chords to full effect.

Let There Be Light was their first track to be issued on the TIP label in the autumn of 1995 and has long been a favourite (it was recently remixed by Outsiders for the same label), with its spacious opening, celebratory riffs, varied blend of sounds (including those chords voiced with a great xylophone-like sonority, lending it a particularly festive mood), and biblical quotations.

Avi and Lior continue making music as Astral Projection today, recently releasing an album of remixes of Goa classics on Tip World/ Tip Records that has received rave reviews. A quarter of a century on, these great producers continue to spread light and great vibes around the planet with their fantastic music.