Exclusive interview: Moonbeam

Pavel & Vitaly Khvaleev, two brothers driven by one united sound vision, such is the origin of Russia’s illustrious Moonbeam. lat week they released their fourth artist album “The Random”. This album represents not only the group’s fourth extraordinary artist album, but also their first original film score. Soundtracking the directorial debut of Moonbeam’s Pavel Khaleev, it brings together 12 enigmatic original tracks alongside 10 floor-flaming club renditions.

I had the chance to do an exclusive interview over Skype with Pavel Khvaleev and asked him about the movie,album, career, biggest successes and al lot more. Enjoy! 😉

The Interview:

1. Hi Pavel, First of all congratulations with the release of your fourth artist album “The Random”. How are the reactions on the album so far?

A lot of people think different about Moonbeam after the release of this album. We really tried to be more creative and experimental on this new album, and a lot of people seems to understand and support this. This is the next step for the sound of Moonbeam. And we are really excited to see how people react when they hear this new album for the first time at home, or our new tracks on the dance floor. For us this are really important reactions.

2. The first disk contains the original soundtracks of the movie “the random”. Can you tell us what this movie is about?

For us this movie, which I directed, really is a debut work.  It’s very hard to explain the story line of this movie in English. It’s a mystical drama and the story is really deep and conceptual. We tried to include something from every genre in to this movie. From horror till humor, everything is in it.

3. The movie is in Russian, will the movie also be released in other countries than Russia?

We’re still speaking with labels, and festivals about what will happen with this movie. We have already sent the movie to the top 10 international film festivals. But it is very hard to get include on this festivals. We already got 3 answers for example from Berlinale. They told us they have seen the movie, but they are looking for movies with a deeper meaning.

Official Movie Trailer: The Random (Directed and produced by Pavel Khvaleev):

4. What is the difference between producing a movie soundtrack and producing a club track?

It was our first experience with making movie soundtracks. Normally we start with bass lines, drumlins or the vocal parts. But during the production of the tracks for this album we started with the melody. Every track on this album represents a scene from the movie. And during the production of the tracks we kept this scenes in mind. For example we had a very dramatic scene in the movie and we tried to create a really dramatic melody. When we finished the movie soundtracks we started on the club mix. This was really interesting for us. For example: The iTunes bonus track “Never Let Me Go” with Andrea Roma. This is a very experimental track with a complicated classical melody. It was very difficult to connect this classical melody with Dance Music.

5. How long have you been working on this album?

Around 6 to 7 months. Almost every track on this album contains vocals, and sometimes we had to wait several days until we received the vocals parts. After we received these vocal parts we finished the tracks within 3 or 4 days.

6. What was the hardest part of producing this album?

The most difficult part during the production was the melody. We tried to find a new way to use classical melodies. During the production we used a lot of analogue instruments and synthesizers, and we had to convert the sound into digital audio. But this is really old and sometimes it has on tune.

7. A lot of DJ/producers have a recognizable sound. How would you like to descripe the typical moonbeam sound?

In a few words: Deep, Conceptual, and off course Dance. We always try to include a deeper meaning in our tracks.

8. What do you see as your biggest successes so far?

Well our first big success was 8 years ago, when we produced the track “See The Difference Inside. And Tiesto included this track on his “In Search of Sunrise” Compilation. This was a really big step forward for us. Another big success was our first music video. It has around million views on Youtube! And right now, the movie and album are a huge step forward for us.

9. When it comes to gig’s, Is there something scheduled in order to support the album?

We recently started “The Random Tour”. And we will have 2 big gigs next month here in Russia. And we will play live with 6 vocalist we worked with during the production of this album. We are really looking forward to this.

10. It’s valentine’s day tomorrow, Do you have any special plans?

I already gave my girlfriend a big bouquet of flowers. And tomorrow I will have to go to a gig, so I don’t have a lot of time for Valentine’s day.  But I think we will go to a restaurant to eat together.