Two brothers driven by one united sound vision, such is the origin of Russia’s illustrious Moonbeam. Powered by their industrious production ethic, Pavel & Vitaly Khvaleev’s unique diversion of trance has found them swiftly in favour with EDM’s DJ glitterati. Underlining their inimitable spin on the sound, their studio ware is as regularly supported by the likes of Armin van Buuren, Paul Van Dyk, Markus Schulz and Ferry Corsten, as it is Axwell, Tiësto and Digweed. Having created floor uproar through 100s of DJ sets and live Moonbeam shows, they’ve soundtracked hundreds of thousands of EDM nights for clubbers around the world. In 2009, through a combined force of productions & performances, they entered DJ Magazine’s annual list of the world’s best DJs. There they have remained for the last four years, most recently re-entering the Top 100 in 2012. With 3 official full-length artist albums already marking waypoints in their career, early 2013 will herald their fourth long-player – the widely anticipated OST ‘The Random’.
Moonbeam The DJs: Emanating from the major east Russian metropolis of Nizhny Novgorod, as both DJs and a live act, Pavel and Vitaly have built up a formidable reputation. Their entrancing stage performances have resulted in a committed bedrock fanbase in their home country. To date they have smashed many a mainline event, tent-pole festival and iconic club. In 2010 they supported Tiësto on his tour of the Ukraine and last year rocked the goliath Kazantip festival. As their music’s begun to proliferate worldwide, demand to see the brothers themselves perform abroad intensified. They’ve subsequently played countries as contrasting as China and France, Japan, the Czech Republic and South Korea.

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The Music: Much has been made of Moonbeam’s singular take on dance music. At once harmonic and heartfelt, it is also effecting, consciously filmic and emotively poignant. A direct by-product of their shared musical influences (Röyksopp, Radiohead, Massive Attackand Björk are among regularly cited Moonbeam stimuli), it notably stands apart from the rest of post-millennial trance.
“Music that has no limits, no borders. This inspires us to make experiments with our own music”, says Pavel. Tracks like ‘See The Difference Inside’, ‘Cocoon’, ‘7 Seconds’ and ‘Eclipse’, as well as remix work like their rewire of Rachael Starr’s ‘To Forever’ put their career into orbit. More recently tracks like ‘Daydream’ and ‘I Love Your Face’have found favour with the dance press. Rating ‘Daydream’ a rare 9.5 out of 10, DJ Mag hailed it was “intoxicating” and “incredible”. ‘I Love Your Face’ meanwhile was a Single of the Month in the magazine, with a floor effect that was “little short of atomic”.
Equal in impact have been their artist albums: 2008’s ‘Consumption’(Soundz Recordings), ‘Around The World’ (through Black Hole in 2010) and 2011’s ‘The Secret’ (Moonbeam Digital). Without doubt Russia’s most prodigious electronic dance music export, Moonbeam’s music has been brought to dancefloors through a host of world-class imprints over the course of the last decade. Black Hole, Armada Music, Ultra, Coldharbour, Kickin’, Spinnin’, High Contrast and the esteemed German label, Traum Schallplatten have all seen releases of the brother’s music.

In 2012 Pavel and Vitaly passed their 200th Moonbeam production milestone. In November of 2012 they released ‘You Win Me’, which featured the vocals of Aelyn. The track was the first to be taken from their forthcoming album ‘The Random’ and was also the landmark 500th release on Black Hole Recordings.
The Moonbeam Film Studio: Moonbeam are every bit as much dedicates of vision as they are sound, regularly synergizing the two. The video production and graphics studio of their creative organization has thus far produced 30 of the group’s music videos, as well as others for acts like A*S*Y*S and Sol Noir. Their bespoke visuals are now acknowledged as being a major contributing factor to their on-stage appeal – all part of the Moonbeam experience.
2013’s ‘The Random’ represents the studio’s first feature length film, with an original soundtrack written, composed and performed by Moonbeam.
Moonbeam Digital: Exhibiting their go-getting musical approach, theKhvaleev brothers established the Moonbeam Digital label in 2005. This formed a platform through which they could take full creative control of their highly original music output. Subsequently it also offered an outlet for other talented and likeminded producers. Thus far this has generated many a key release in their own career and that of others. Included among them are ‘Hate Is The Killer’ (which was remixed by fellow Russian EDM emissary Arty), regular vocal muse Avis Vox’s, ‘Doors Opened Inside’, Matvey Emerson’s debut album, and Moonbeam feat. Blackfeel Wite’s own ‘Your Wind Is In My Hands’.
The Moon Magic Agency: in order to further the cause of those artists, in 2012 Moonbeam opened the Moon Magic. A management and bookings agency for their regular vocal collaborators (inc.Blackfeel Wite, Matvey Emerson), other artists recently signed include Russians on the rise, Eximinds and Ruslan Nigmatullin.

Without further adieu we present an exclusive interview with Pavel from the star duo. Read ahead to learn about the beginnings of Moonbeam, their label, the relationship the brothers share in the studio, their collaboration with a domestic artist, Akshai and more!

Q. Hello Pavel! How are you today?

Pavel: Thanks guys! I’m alright.

Q. How would you describe your sound for someone who doesn’t know what Moonbeam is?

Pavel: Yeah let me try! I’m going to go with conceptuality, dance, live, deep and forever maybe…

Q. So lets back a bit into the past. Did you start off as DJs or Producers?

Pavel: I think it was both at the same time. It was 12 years ago when we started at a nightclub in deeper Russia in the city of Tatarstan. So yes, we were DJs first but we got a computer and started using Cubase and tried to start off with the simple stuff and did a remix for a rock band.

Q. So you weren’t inspired by dance music at first? What kind of music inspired you to start producing really?

Pavel: Of course it was dance as well as rock music. With regard to dance music, it was Daft Punk, Bjork, Prodigy which everybody was listening to it 10 years ago. From the aspect of rock music it was U2, and later on 30 Seconds To Mars. For our inspiration we always try to find music without a direct style; we try to find experimental things.

Q. Lets talk about India now. Elephant Ride was a track which you collaborated on with the Indian artist Akshai. Are there any Indian influences in your music?

Pavel: It was 5 years ago. We started making this track together with Akshai when we were touring India. We started making the video of this track and were shooting the video in really busy and crowded places. We really enjoyed this collaboration and included in the album Around The World.

Q. Do you have any good memories from your trip to India and when are you coming next?

Pavel: For me, the main memory of India was that it was really hot! But yeah, the people were hot too! For example, in Bangalore I played sometime ago and people just went crazy and were really open to me. When we were playing the track To Forever (Moonbeam Remix), people were really singing like here in russia, they knew all the words. I switched off the music and people kept on singing. For me, this energy is emotional.

Q. (To Pavel) Whats your relationship with your brother in the studio?

Pavel: Now we try to be more professional since we have lot of work with management, with music etc. I create some idea like a bassline or melody and I send it to Vitaly or he sends stuff to me and then we finish the track together. I mainly take care of the creative ideas but the finishing is done together.

Q. You started a label called Moonbeam Digital and theres also the Moonbeam Film Studio that is much talked about. Can we have some insight?

Pavel: About our label – we started it 5 years ago and we started releasing only moonbeam tracks at first and now we have a lot of demos from upcoming artists everyday and a lot support from all over the world. We support a lot of Russian artists through this label as well.

About the film studio – we are looking at the future and trying to be more creative. Making music and making the music video by ourselves as well because only an artist knows how his music is to represented on video. We did all these projects by ourselves and really love it.

Q. Your new album The Random is associated with a film which is a directorial debut for you as well?

Pavel: Yes this is my debut and I’m the director of this movie. For me, this is the first big film work you know.

Q. We’re really curious about the title – what was the inspiration behind naming it The Random – Connected with one another by The Random?

Pavel: This line is like a synopsis – a short line about the movie. Its a little tough to express the idea in English but I’ll try – Have you seen The Lost? So this is very similar. Some people have a secret story and everyone meets at the end. We’ve tried to mix mystical drama and little bit of horror and humour as well. So this is really an art house movie but we’re hoping there’ll be something for everybody in this.

Q. We were blown away by your new album. It was nothing like the previous ones and you seem to have strayed away from the music of your past. You had new collaborations with vocalists and different people..

Pavel: When we were making music for this album, for us it was a first experience to do the soundtracks because every track had some connection with an episode in the movie. For some dramatic episode, we always started the tracks with melody because melody was the main ingredient in this album. We sent some demo melodies to vocalists and they created some ideas and sent us back and together we tried to finish the track. Again, its difficult to explain in English, but it was interesting work because it was really connected with the movie. You have a picture and you have to create sound for that image; so thats how we created the sound.

Q. So what does the future hold for Moonbeam after this new album, the film and a directorial debut?!

Pavel: I think maybe another movie! We started a big tour here and soon we’ll have a big concert in Russia with a few singers who sang for The Random album. We also have a lot gigs lined up for Russia and Europe. We’re also hoping to visit India very soon!

Thank you for the interview! Its been an honour.

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