Vietnamese debut: Infected Mushroom is made up of Amit Duvdevani (left) and Erez Eisen (right). — Photo courtesy of Coast II Coast Entertainment

Alex Chisholm

HCM CITY  (VNS) — Infected Mushroom is no stranger to the electronic dance music (EDM) scene, but for the first time the Israeli duo will bring their psy-trance hits to a stage in Viet Nam.

They will headline a DJ set on October 24 at the Escape Music Festival in Ho Chi Minh City, arriving just in time to get into the Halloween spirit.

When asked if they had any tricks or treats to dish out to festival attendees, musician Amit Duvdevani, better known as Duvdev, said they have some surprises in store.

"When we do a DJ set, we have a lot of tricks up our sleeve that we do not usually play live," Duvdevani said. "It is going to be interesting to see what we are going to play because it depends on the mood and the party. I know I will be in a very good mood when I arrive in Viet Nam."

Duvdevani and fellow musician Erez Eisen, the other half of Infected Mushroom, met in 1996 and have built a large catalogue spanning nearly 20 years.

"Basically, we are going to play a lot of new and a lot of old songs," Duvdevani said about their headline set at the upcoming show. "We mix it up because people do not always have the chance to see us, so we cannot play only new and cannot play only old. It is going to be a mixture of everything in between."

Duvdevani expects "a really good party coming into Sai Gon", and he said another essential activity when visiting a new country is to try the local food.

"I always eat the local cuisine in another country, and I will definitely try a bowl of pho because it will be our first time in Viet Nam," he said.

Their latest album Converting Vegetarians II is a follow-up to their 2003 record with the same title.

"When we did the original record it was really outrageous to see when we came into psy-trance," he said. "It was really out there at that time. The reason that it took so many years to go back to a freestyle album is because it needs to take us a long time to feel the urge to do something like that."

Two years after they finished Friends on Mushrooms, they decided to make another freestyle CD to "continue the vibe" of Converting Vegetarians, he said.

The lead single Fields of Grey features vocals from Sasha Grey, who has built a career in the entertainment business.

Duvdevani said the song was written before they met Grey.

"To have her singing on the track was a funny thing to happen," he said. "I wrote the track about where you want to be in between black and white and that is to be in Fields of Grey. I chopped the vocals with our new plugin iWish, and then I met her at a party and I told her that we had the perfect song for her. We then chopped her vocals and that is what came out, and I am very pleased with the result."

Converting Vegetarians II is available now.

The Escape Music Festival will be held at Phu My Hung, District 7, HCM City. For more information visit www.escape-party.com/en. — VNS