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Three brothers by the name of
Ruven, Ilan and Shmuel Flaishler make up one of the hottest
dance acts / DJ teams around the world these days. They are
better known as the ‘Flash Brothers’, who are the hottest dance
music export from Israel to date as well as frontrunners on the
international dance scene. The Flash Brothers are true pioneers
in the Israeli dance music scene with regards to progressive
house, tech house and electro trance music. They don’t like to
be put into one distinct category, rather they consider
themselves to be underground dance music producers / performers.
Their ambition, hard work, and massive chart success – e.g. 2004
summer anthem ‘Amen’ – have paid off, as this hotly tipped trio
performs all over the world nowadays at some of the most
prestigious clubs and biggest events. The best is yet to come
for the Flash Brothers!
The Flash Brothers are currently based in Tel Aviv, but the boys
enjoyed their upbringing in the isolated town of Nazareth in
Israel. While growing up and attending school in their hometown,
the boys used to listen to the most upfront music in all genres,
especially electronic music fascinated them. Their interest for
quality music stems from an early age, when their father used to
listen with them to late 70’s and early 80’s disco music.
Listening to quality music was a prominent element in their
daily routine. As time moved on, the musical preference of the
brothers evolved from disco to new wave electro pop, and then
into house, acid, and so on. Having gone through all these
different soundtracks over the years, probably adds to their
great versatility as producers / DJs. They’re part of an
extraordinary family, as normally brothers tend to clash from
time to time. There's no room for sibling rivalry in this trio
though, as they all share the same passion for producing quality
music. This passion keeps them focused and results in some of
the finest dance productions money can buy.
Their venture into the world of dance music production took
great strides when Ruven studied sound engineering & production
at the leading school of music in Tel Aviv, while Shmuel focused
on computers and Ilan was strongly into clubs, labels and DJing.
It was only a matter of time before they set up their own
professional studio in Nazareth and afterwards in Tel Aviv.
Their big break came in 1997 when they met DJ Choopie, who
signed them to his label Agnosia Records right after the first
demo he received from the trio, which really impressed him a lot.
In hindsight, one can only say that DJ Choopie has a fine eye
for spotting talent, as the Flash Brothers turned out to be a
huge success on the production front. The first worldwide
success came back in 1998, when one of Flash's earlier
productions 'Amazonas' (a hybrid of Israeli-Dutch-European
styles) was released and signed worldwide to Germany's renowned
dance label Dos or Die (Zomba). The single was picked up and
hammered by renowned DJs like Tiesto, Scott Bond, John Kelly,
Brandon Block, and Graham Gold, to name but a few. Another
release followed shortly after. Under the TBN moniker, the boys
released the smashing 4-track ‘Entrance to Nazareth EP’, which
was released by the Dutch EDM label and had a progressive trance
soundtrack.
Early 2000, as a follow up to the success of many of their
productions, the brothers released their first solo artist album
entitled ‘Flash’, a double 19-tracks mixed CD album on Agnosia
Records, which goes in the books as the first Israeli club music
artist album in the country. This, however, was only the start
of things, as the brother continued to deliver quality
productions and it would only be a matter of time before they
would be a household name in the international dance music
industry.
One of the biggest highlights / steppingstones in Flash
Brothers’ career to date, came at the beginning of 2001. Two of
the world’s most prolific DJs, namely Paul Oakenfold (Perfecto
Records) and John Digweed (Bedrock Records), embraced some of
the Flash Brothers’ releases and this consequently lead to
signing some of these tracks to their respective labels. The
Flash Brothers then broke into the UK market under the Flash
banner with the release of ‘The Days After / Megatron’ through
Perfecto Records in October 2001. The release was featured on
compilations like ‘Perfecto presents Paul Oakenfold Ibiza 2001’
and the triple mix CD compilation ‘Perfecto Collection’. From
here on, the Flash Brothers gained international recognition and
worldwide fame was the next thing on their agenda.
The Flash Brothers are signed today with some of the leading
dance labels in the world, such as Oxyd, Direction (Sony/UK),
Perfecto, Bedrock, Hooj Choons, Yoshitoshi, Silver Planet, and
many more. Furthermore, they have been performing as a trio live
act with their music for more than six years now. They have
played already all over Israel at top clubs such as Haoman 17,
TLV, Dome, Octopus, Pacha, Forum, Vertigo, Hata'asiya,
Ultrasound, Ku, Vox, and so on. In addition, they’ve performed
at open-air festivals in Israel as well, e.g. Love Parades 1999
to 2003 and Heineken’s Sundance Beer Festival. Add to that many
successful gigs together around the world in countries like
Turkey, Hungary, Sweden, UK, Holland, Poland, Romania, Greece,
Cyprus, Ibiza, Croatia, Italy, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Spain,
Slovenia and tours throughout Asia. With ever gig, their
popularity seems to keep growing among clubbers and fans that
support them all the way.
The Flash Brothers enjoyed an outstanding 2004, with over 10
single releases on internationally renowned labels, including a
remix of ‘Who’s that Girl’ by Eurythmics, and a hot WMC Miami
anthem called 'Amen'. The latter was originally released on Oxyd
Records, which is a premier Italian house label, and from there
on signed to Sony Music’s major UK dance label Direction. ‘Amen’
was considered to be one of the top 20 dance anthems of the 2004
summer season in Ibiza, and got as high as no. 75 in the
official UK pop charts. The smash hit can be found on no less
than seven CD compilations in the UK, Canada and Italy,
including Ministry of Sound’s ‘Summer 2004’ and ‘The Annual
2005’. On top of that, early 2004, the boys released a mix CD
compilation called ‘Flash Brothers present Fear of a Silver
Planet 2’ on Silver Planet Recordings, making them the first
Israeli electronic music artists to release a mix compilation on
a UK label. In addition, they also delivered a hot remix of Brad
Carter’s Ibiza 2004 anthem ‘Morning Always Comes Too Soon’ on
top dance label Positiva Records, which is famed for releases by
the Shapeshifters, Paul van Dyk, Deep Dish, Ferry Corsten, and
many more. Furthermore, the Flash Brothers performed at many
great clubs and high profile events in 2004, including the
massive 2004 summer 'MTV Valkana Beach’ festival, where they
performed live on main stage with Paul van Dyk, Mauro Picotto,
Richie Hawtin, and Felix da Housecat, to name but a few. On top
of that, they also appeared for an interview on MTV’s Dancefloor
Chart show, where they played live and were interviewed by Becky
Griffin, the host of the show. August 2004 saw the boys playing
live at BBC Radio 1’s party in Ibiza, and they joined Judge
Jules live on the radio together with the fabulous vocalist of
‘Amen’ to perform the summer anthem ‘Amen’ live. Their immense
success in 2005 did not go unnoticed, as the boys were voted no.
66 by the readers of DJ Mag for their annual, authoritative list
of the top 100 leading DJs in the world. On top of that, the
brothers were also praised as Israel's worldwide export artist
of 2004 at the country’s dance music awards.
2005 has also been a very busy, yet exciting time for the Flash
Brothers, combining their production work with their
increasingly busy tour schedule. For example they played the
massive MAYDAY 2005 rave in Budapest - Hungary, 'Renaissance' uk
club event in Barcelona - Spain, 'Gatecrasher' world tour in
Brazil & headlined the 'Final Flash' festival in Slovenia.
Recently they also headlined the 6 weeks tour of KENT in all
over Ukraine, playing big parties in the biggest cities of the
country. Furthermore, they had more than 10 hot releases in 2005
already, including remixes, on leading dance labels such as
Whoop, Oven Ready, Harlem (Steve Lawler's label), Nascent, Blu
Room, Lowriders, Armada (Armin van Buuren’s label), Mondo,
Neutone, etc. Their productions continue to receive wide and
frequent support from some of the biggest names in the industry,
like Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Sasha, John Digweed, Pete Tong,
Judge Jules, Danny Tenaglia, Armin van Buuren, Paul van Dyk,
Deep Dish, Dave Seaman, Seb Fontaine, Ferry Corsten, Steve
Lawler, Satoshi Tomiie, Max graham, Robbie Rivera, Sandra
Collins, Nick Warren, Hernan Cattaneo, James Zabiela, Tom
Stephan, Junior Vasquez, Victor Calderone and many, many others!
In short, the trio can hardly be labeled as a ‘flash in the
pan’, as they continue to tour their amazing Flash Brothers’
show (live act + DJ set) around the world and keep delivering
smash productions and hot remixes, which are featured on
countless compilation CDs. The Flash Brothers are here to stay
and expect to hear many great things from them in the future!
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