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 van Buuren, van Dyk, Schulz and 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.

“We don’t know fast and easy way because it’s not enough to use someone else’s samples to make quality and unique music. You need to spend a lot of time to learn something about music mastering and studio equipment.”

Since the formation of the project Moonbeam to its world popularity has not been so much time. Many artists would envy you. In your opinion, what is the secret of such a rapid achievement of success?

In the maximum capacity and faith in what you do. And of course, having reached a certain level, do not stop there and constantly raise the bar. And having reached a certain “bar”, not be exposed to weaknesses of success, do not relax and continue to work!

Can you offer insight into some of your musical inspirations?

Back in the 90th, we were big fans of Daft Punk, Underworld, Prodigy, and Bjork. Later we discovered Royksoop, and this band influenced us and our perception of music. To date, we have discovered new and very talented artists, such as James Blake and Ellie Goulding. They do only what they want to do and they are not afraid to experiment.

Any up and coming Russian producers that have caught your attention recently?

Now there are a lot of Russian artists that are becoming more and more popular from day to day. We can pick out a few names that have really unique features. For example ARCHNGL. Their style of music is difficult to attribute to the dance, but the depth and incredible vocals is mesmerizing. We can also mark Matvey Emerson, Blackfeel Wite, J-soul, Loolacoma, Eximinds …

You are touring a lot in Russia and other countries, tell us about the most memorable performance. Where would I like to play more? Is there a club or a dream festival? Where is it more like to perform – at home or abroad?

The most vivid impressions we have left from the performance in Japan in the club Ageha. This is the biggest club we’ve seen. It consists of 4 dance floors. The main dance floor is the size of an ice palace and wherever you are, you hear a quality sound, as the entire dance floor is hung with the most powerful sound arrays. As for the claubers, they are just crazy, during the day it is usually a modest quiet office workers, and at night they seem to break through! Shouts on the dance floor do not stop during the whole party, they dress all insanely, very brightly and individually. Recently, we have a lot of touring, and we must say that Ukraine is one of our favorite places. Here is an amazingly warm and magnetic atmosphere. Well, I would like to visit England with its traditional club scene.

Is there a time where both of you get creative/writers’ block at the same time? Is there a specific role that each of you have during the production phase or do you all just do whatever feels right

Sometimes, when we can catch an inspiration, we can easy make a track in one day. As a rule, the only problem that can occur while makes music is a lack of inspiration. It’s very difficult to catch it and guest vocalists are very helpful in this case because of their new and different visions of music. From this moment the process of finding a perfect harmony starts quite fast.

You both love working with visuals. Which other visual artists inspire your own work?

Speaking about film directors, our favorites is Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton, their mystic atmosphere of what is happening on the screen is really close to us. There is also a very talented people who specialize only in visual effects and motion graphics, such as Mike Winkelmann, Nick Cambell from Greyscalegorilla and Andrew Kramer from Video Copilot.

You have a fairly extensive videography (about 10 videos), which is not usual for artists who write electronic dance music. Why do you pay special attention to their creation?

We began to create video clips in 2008 – this is a very good tool for promoting the release. One of the first videos on the track “Lacula” in the first week viewed 10 000 people! We make all the videos ourselves, starting from writing the script and finishing post-production, because we write the music ourselves and it’s easier for us to transfer it to the visual range.

https://soundcloud.com/djmoonbeam/futures