One Unit

The Empty Plate

Before there was music, there were cocktails. Ariel came into nightlife from the bar side: mixology, a real understanding of spirits, and later a kitchen too. When he opened Archie’s Pub, the music was there as background. It’s a pub; you need atmosphere.

And then, over the years, he noticed something strange about himself.

“It never really moved me when people finished a cocktail, or left an empty plate and complimented the food. But I’d put on a particular track, and suddenly see everyone’s heads start moving to the same beat. That moment just had me.”

In the pub’s last years he barely poured at all. Between the music and the staff, the licensing, the inspections and the neighbours, he chose the music and closed the pub.

The Den

Stone, arches, dim light. At some point the music would sync everyone up, and the whole room began to move together. Out of that motion came friendships, couples, and business meetings that turned into a good time. But what stayed with him is precisely what wasn’t there:

“You almost never saw phones or cameras in there. People just started feeling free, and being themselves.”

The Click

Today he goes looking for exactly that moment, only outdoors. He starts playing after someone else’s set, people still scattered between the canteens and the tents. It takes a few tracks.

“And then, slowly, I start to see the heads beginning to sync, and suddenly people who were talking to each other stop and start connecting to the frequency. And then there’s that click, and I watch everyone get pulled onto the floor. From that moment I can sail the ship (or this spaceship) until I decide to land it.”

The Body Heard Before the Head

About five years ago he was on the other side of it. He had driven down alone, barely slept, and gone back to his tent to rest.

“The moment I lay down, I suddenly heard these very particular sounds, and a drum frequency. Lying there, my head started moving to the beat, and I just got up and started walking.”

The tents were far off. He walked more than five minutes toward the sound, without knowing who was playing, until he reached Nadav Dagon’s 360° show. That year he went back for five more of his shows. The music pulled him in; the people who formed around it gave him a reason to come back.

Every Region and Its Own Sound

Day and night, a full moon, rain, sun, dust: each gives it a different volume than a closed pub does. The sound changed too: the pub was techno and house, and outdoors trance felt right. And above all, duration. A 24-hour event, sometimes two or three days, allows “a far more meaningful journey than a fleeting night out”.

“Now Let’s See What You’re Really Worth”

They met at a party Ariel was producing at the Eshkola club in Haifa’s lower city. Richard was brought there by Yaniv Ben-Ari (U-Recken), who was playing that night. The first thing Richard did was compliment the sound. A few months later he heard him play again, and called the next day.

“He said he hadn’t heard a DJ play at that level in a long time. And that was very strange to me: usually people tell you what’s wrong. A feeling that people are always trying to make me smaller instead of letting me bloom. And he did exactly the opposite.”

And then Richard did more than compliment. He gave him a prime slot and a three-and-a-half-hour set: you have a stage, you have some of the best sound there is. Now let’s see. It took about an hour before everything let go.

“When I get into the zone I feel free, like a conduit. I finish the set and I don’t always remember what I played. Only afterwards, when I hear the recording. That means I was really inside it.”

The Minute Time Freezes

He hasn’t released original material yet, but he produces live: loops, layers, playing with sound.

“I see it as a canvas I paint on when I start a set. The frequencies and the music are my colour, and the crowd and I pour it onto the canvas. By the end of the set it’s a finished painting of that moment.”

The track he is working on now is built as a conversation. Halfway through, everything is meant to connect, and then, instead of climbing to a peak, he does exactly the opposite: after the drop he creates the sensation of time freezing. A full minute of it.

His Daughter at the Booth

His eldest daughter, eleven and a half, came up to the booth with him and stayed there the whole set. Dancing. Watching the people.

“I was so moved that she was with me that I felt I was playing for her, and from her it went out to the crowd.”

He doesn’t remember what she said when they came down. What stayed with him is not the sentence: “It’s the experience that will stay with her for life. As a parent, one of the things that matters to me to give them (beyond warmth and love) is to give them experiences.”