A musical tragic at heart, if it relates to Ritmo’s undying passion — music — then all is good in the hood.
No surprise then, that Dubi Dagan aka Ritmo has been kept busy lately. If it's not his hectic touring schedule, it is his work in the studio.
Yet, the man continues to press on, and with his acclaimed sound in tow, he continues to spread the positive trance message. “The last few months I've been enjoying the summer over here and playing a lot of dates around Europe. There have been a lot of really cool festivals and, of course, I have had the opportunity to spend some time producing while touring as well.”
Stepping back a few years though, Dubi has always been involved with music, something he describes as being a part of his life from “the very beginning”.
A passionate, articulate and educated musician, he explains how as a teenager, he started shaping his musical tastes as a result of a deep love of hard rock and death metal. “I think these genres were the natural building blocks for electronic music for me,” the Israeli says.
“The transition seemed to slide into something very similar, but different in the sense that the waves of energy are produced and experienced in different ways.”
Fast forward to 2014 and musically little has changed with Ritmo. The touring, the output and the love of good music is still in play. Dagan has recently released new EP under his Ritree moniker, called ‘Big Brother’. “It included two tracks, one of which reached the Top 10 in the Beatport charts,” he professes proudly.
“Otherwise I'm working on plenty of new material and collaborative projects that are coming up in the near future. I've also just finished a Juno Reactor remix that was a completely different experience, more instrumental and so on. The original track involved instruments so it was a new way for me to experiment and to do things within a slightly different trance style.”
A native of Israel, Dubi says the local dance culture is very evident in his homeland. “There is a unique vibe and energy on the dancefloors in Israel and actually around the world when it comes to [trance] music,” Dagan says. “It is a trademark and something I cherish.”
He claims that artists and DJs across the world always know when someone on the dancefloor is an Israeli — generally they’re going nuts! And he continues. “For me personally, it is great to feel the pulse of the crowd and see how they absorb my music. Israeli parties are like test labs that allow you to see firsthand how your music affects people. Right after these parties, I usually go straight back to the studio and do some other fine tuning for my music and then look forward to the next rush.”
Interestingly, Dagan acknowledges there is always constant change within the trance world. “It's an interesting question about the scene. Israel has definitely gone through a period of change recently and it has been really big for a long time.
“Back about a year ago I noticed that there was a kind of goa or psy-trance sound going on. It's normal for music to evolve and change up a little bit, but I consider myself a progressive kind of producer so it's normal to see change. There are still plenty of people enjoying the music and appreciating it and so we keep moving on.” As for his imminent return to Australia, Dubi is hyped again.
“It feels like I just played down there! I really love it down under so I really hope the fans are ready to have a good time! For the show, I'm working on a remix for a legendary track from Astrix called ‘Third Time Lucky’. It was released quite a long time ago — to be honest I don't even remember when — so I hope to get that finished, but I'm also going to include some of my older tracks but also a newer one I did with Bliss, as well as a remix I did for Prodigy, but [I’ll] also [include] some surprises!”
Ritmo plays at Earthcore that takes place in Pyalong, Victoria, from Thu 27th Nov until Mon 1st Dec.
