The Infinity Project

Raja Ram (b. Ron Rothfield), who had trained as a jazz flautist in the 50s and played in the band Quintessence in the 60s, began making music with Graham Wood as the Infinity Project in 1989. Over the next few years they experimented with a kind of abstract techno gradually forming a sound that became known as the psychedelic or ‘Goa’ trance, often in collaboration with Simon Posford (Hallucinogen), Nick Barber (Doof) and Martin Freeland (Man With No Name). After producing material on DATs and white labels, in 1992 they started to release their music via the labels Fabulous (‘Freedom From The Flesh’), Spiritzone (‘Telepathy/Binary Neuronaut’) and Dragonfly Records (‘Bizarro’, ‘Time And Space’, ‘Super Booster’ and ‘Feeling Very Wierd’). In 1994, with Ian St. Paul they formed TIP Records and launched the label with ‘Stimuli/Uforica’. At the same time they worked on projects with Posford and others, including the Mystery Of The Yeti album (TIP 1996) and various releases as Total Eclipse. After an ambient album Mystical Experiences (1995) for Blue Room Released, they released ‘Alien Airport/Hyperspaced’ on TIP followed by the album Feeling Wierd which was mostly made up of their previous releases. In the spirit of the Goa scene Feeling Wierd was steeped in psychedelic hippie/sci-fi imagery. While tracks such as ‘Telepathy’, ‘Stimuli’ and the Doof remix of ‘Hyperspaced’ successfully blend the rigid four-on-the-floor rhythms, modal riffs, mysterious dialogue and abstract electronic phasing and filter sweeps that characterize the early psy-trance sound, ‘Noises From The Darkness’ and the early track ‘Freedom From The Flesh’ (written 1992) sound rather limp in comparison. In 1997, the group released the single ‘Overwind/Incandescence’ and contributed the excellent, but rather dark ‘Mindboggler’ to the TIP compilation 3D Wood also began recording as Excess Head for TIP’s subsidiary 10 Kilo while Ram continued to work with Posford. By 1998 the Infinity Project had split-up to concentrate on individual projects.