Hazem Beltagui is better known as the pioneer of the melotrance sounds.
Known for belting out some beautiful melodic and progressive trance, this Egyptian DJ and producer has consistently been pushing the boundaries with his music. Never fitting himself into a mold or restricting himself to a specific sound, Hazem has always experimented and tried to infuse very different styles in his tracks and sounds. We had the opportunity to sit down with this man of multiple talents and discuss all his upcoming projects, his latest album and a lot more! Read on.
Shivani – Hi Hazem, it’s great to be speaking with you! How has 2018 been for you till date?
Hazem Beltagui – Hello, thanks for having me, 2018 has been great so far with the release of my debut artist album “Vivid” and some amazing tour dates across the globe.
Shivani – We’ve seen you working on a lot of wonderful work over the past few months. With VIVID coming out after three good years of work into it. Coming towards the end of the year, how pleased have you been with the response of the album till date?
Hazem Beltagui – “Vivid” has been one of my biggest projects up to date, a lot of thought went into this project, I would say this is the embodiment of Trance music and electronic music for me, I would definitely like to see more emotions conveyed with electronic music and not only be club oriented music. to be honest so far the responses on my album has been great and i’m quite happy a lot of people seem to get the idea behind it.
Shivani – You recently started working on “Ampish” which lets you experiment with melodic and deep house. Could you tell us a little more about it?
Hazem Beltagui – Well as some of you might know, I come from a melodic progressive house background, before I even got properly involved into the trance scene I used to make slower yet nonetheless melodic music and around the end of 2016 I started to miss this whole groovy approach to melodic music so I started the Ampish alias in order to be able to release this music without alienating my trance fans. nowadays i’m enjoying the studio time I spend working on Ampish music more and more to be honest.
Shivani – You also recently released “Desolation” under your “Ampish” alias on Balkan Connection. What inspired the track and how did the association with Balkan Connection begin?
Hazem Beltagui – Milos, the manager of Balkan Connection contacted me for a remix of one of their recent signings and I loved how easy it was dealing with him so when he asked me for original music I was like definitely, Balkan Connection has been releasing very solid music over the past years and is one of the most respected labels on the progressive scene.
The track is quite dark as the name suggests, I am a big fan of darker and moodier music.
Shivani – You’ve been working for the scene for so long. What is one thing you like and one thing you do not like about the current scene.
Hazem Beltagui – One thing I love about the scene is definitely the fans, whenever i’m on tour and get to meet with the fans and see their passion about the music and the amount of respect they have for the artists, this gets me inspired like nothing else in the world.
Being a very eclectic person, one thing I would say I’m not a big fan of how the scene could be style and genre oriented, meaning that you get booked to play one style or one genre and people are always expecting something specific while it shouldn’t be like this, people should be open minded enough to let the artists make and play whatever music they feel and take them on a journey and introduce them to something new.
Shivani – You recently mentioned it on Facebook that 2019 sees you bringing 5 tracks coming up out of which 3 are with vocals. Could we get some exclusives or hints on them?
Hazem Beltagui – well I have so much new music ready, across a very wide spectrum of styles and genres, I’ll have a collab with a couple of producer friends, one of them is currently working on his artist album, and that’s all I can say about that, also I have a new vocal trance track with an extremely talented male singer.
Shivani – If you had to pick in between club shows and concerts/festivals, what would you pick and why?
Hazem Beltagui – I would always pick club shows anytime to be honest, I just love the atmosphere and energy in this type of shows, also being very close to the crowd is a big thing for me, as I am the kind of guy who feeds on the energy the crowd gives me and I always try to give it back through the music.
Shivani – You also remixed Motorcycle’s classic “As the Rush Comes”. How was the overall experience like?
Hazem Beltagui – I’ve always been a huge fan of this song and when I found out Gabriel & Dresden put the Vocal stems online, I just had to do something with them for my sets, listening to vocals without the music gave goosebumps while I was working on the remix and playing the remix in my sets has been a huge moment and an amazing feeling.
Shivani – Do you have any message you would like to give your fans and our readers?
Hazem Beltagui – Thank you again for having me and for believing in what I do and hopefully i’ll be able to blow your minds in 2019 ;)
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