Infected Mushroom | Becoming Insane
Infected Mushroom’s “Becoming Insane” featuring Gil Cerezo - how flamenco guitar, Spanish vocals, and Israeli psytrance collided in Los Angeles to create their most successful track in 2007.
Story Behind “Becoming Insane”
Before “Becoming Insane,” Infected Mushroom were already legends in the psytrance underground. The Israeli duo of Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani had spent a decade building a devoted following with albums like The Gathering and Classical Mushroom. But they’d never crossed into the mainstream. That changed with the opening flamenco guitar of “Becoming Insane”—a track that would become, in their own words, “our most successful track to date, the song that brought Infected Mushroom into the mainstream.”
The song emerged during a pivotal moment in the duo’s evolution. In 2004, they’d relocated from Haifa, Israel to Los Angeles, establishing Infected Studios and expanding their sound beyond pure psytrance. By 2006, they were working on what would become Vicious Delicious, their most diverse album yet. They’d added guitarists Thomas Cunningham and Erez Netz to their lineup, and were ready to blur the boundaries between electronic music and rock in ways no one expected.
The Mexican Connection
The collaboration with Gil Cerezo came from geographic proximity and musical ambition. Cerezo, the lead singer of Mexican alternative band Kinky, also lived in Los Angeles. As Cerezo later explained in an interview, Infected Mushroom reached out because “they had the intention of doing something in Spanish and for the psychedelic trance Mexico is like a big market.” Brazil, Mexico, and Israel were the three biggest markets for psytrance at the time, making a Spanish-language collaboration strategically brilliant and artistically compelling.
What Cerezo brought to the track was more than just language—he brought a vocal approach that matched Duvdev’s intensity while adding an entirely different cultural texture. The result was a song that felt both globally accessible and genuinely exotic, a track that could fill festival main stages while maintaining the complexity that psytrance purists demanded.
“Becoming Insane” Recording and Production Details
Infected Studios and the LA Sound
“Becoming Insane” was recorded and mixed at Infected Studios in Los Angeles, with Eisen and Duvdevani handling production, mixing, and mastering themselves. This creative control had been a hallmark of Infected Mushroom’s approach since their earliest releases—both members came from classical training backgrounds, with Eisen studying piano at the Haifa Conservatory from age eight and Duvdevani playing classical piano for nine years before moving into heavy metal and punk.
The album Vicious Delicious represented what the duo described as their most diverse work to that point. Unlike their earlier releases that stayed closer to pure psytrance, this album incorporated live guitars and drums, hip-hop influences, and Latin flavors. The single release in January 2007 served as the promotional introduction to this new direction, arriving with a radio edit and remixes of previous hits “Deeply Disturbed” and “Merlin” reconstructed to match the new Infected Mushroom sound.
Flamenco Meets Psytrance
The production of “Becoming Insane” showcases Infected Mushroom’s signature approach—complex synthesized basses, shifting tempos, and frequent changes in drum patterns—while adding something entirely new: Spanish guitar-led passages that ground the psychedelic chaos in something organic and immediately recognizable. The track blends flamenco beats, guitar-driven riffs, and Duvdev’s haunting vocals with Cerezo’s Spanish passages.
The song runs over seven minutes in its album version, clocking in at 145 BPM—standard psytrance territory. But the structure defies typical trance conventions. The flamenco intro gives way to electronic builds, which collapse into vocal sections, which erupt into the manic “I’m becoming insane” chant. It’s a track designed for festivals and big rooms, where those tempo shifts can drive crowds into collective frenzy.
Notes About “Becoming Insane” by Infected Mushroom
Release Date: January 2007 (single), March 26, 2007 (album)
Duration: 7:20 (album version), 3:12 (radio mix)
Genre: Psytrance / Psychedelic Trance / Electronic
Album: Vicious Delicious (6th studio album, track 1)
Featured Artist: Gil Cerezo (Kinky)
Producers: Amit Duvdevani, Erez Eisen
Label: YoYo Records / BNE Ltd. / HOMmega Productions
BPM: 145
Key: D Major
Notable Usage: Featured in UEFA Euro 2008 video game
Infected Mushroom “Becoming Insane” Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: Vicious Delicious
Release Date: March 26, 2007
Label: YoYo Records / BNE Ltd.
Producers: Amit Duvdevani, Erez Eisen
Recording Location: Infected Studios, Los Angeles, CA
Album Concept: Genre-crossing expansion incorporating rock, hip-hop, and Latin influences
Cover Art: David Ho (who also created artwork for Seether’s Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces)
Band Members/Personnel
Erez Eisen - Producer, Mixing, Mastering, Programming, Performer
Amit Duvdevani (Duvdev) - Producer, Mixing, Mastering, Vocals, Performer
Gil Cerezo - Spanish Vocals (Kinky)
Thomas Cunningham - Guitar (joined 2004)
Erez Netz - Guitar (joined 2004)
Rogério Jardim - Brazilian Percussionist (recruited 2007)
David Ho - Artwork
Warwick Saint - Band Photography
Uzi - Design
Avi Yossef - A&R
Production Notes
First album recorded entirely in Los Angeles after relocating from Haifa in 2004
Featured more guest vocalists than any previous Infected Mushroom album
Also includes “Artillery” featuring Canadian rap group Swollen Members
Album emphasized live instrumentation alongside electronic production
Infected Mushroom ranked #9 in DJmag Top 100 DJs poll in 2007—the highest placement for any psytrance act
Single EP included video clip and remixes of “Deeply Disturbed” and “Merlin”
Interesting Facts About “Becoming Insane”
The Gateway to Global Crowds
Infected Mushroom themselves acknowledge what “Becoming Insane” meant for their career. In a 25th anniversary retrospective, they stated: “This is our most successful track to date, the song that brought Infected Mushroom into the mainstream, and ultimately it became one of the most influential psy-trance pieces ever made (by numbers). This song single-handedly brought us opportunities to play in front of our biggest crowds.”
The track became a permanent fixture in their live sets, appearing on virtually every setlist since its release. Concert reviews consistently mention how “Becoming Insane” transforms audiences, with one reviewer noting how “the crowd became suitably manic as the familiar intro burst into the arena.” The track typically appears alongside other staples like “Cities of the Future,” “Saeed,” “The Pretender” (their Foo Fighters cover), and “Heavyweight.” Nearly two decades after its release, it remains the track most likely to drive audiences into collective euphoria.
The Music Video’s Self-Harm Metaphor
The music video for “Becoming Insane” took a deliberately provocative approach. Interspersed with footage of the band performing, the video depicts a man and woman engaged in an escalating competition of self-harm—repeatedly punching themselves in the face, then running into a brick wall. Fans have interpreted this as a commentary on humanity’s self-destructive tendencies, how we fight, hurt, and damage ourselves through various means from violence to addiction to toxic relationships.
The video’s intensity matched the track’s themes—the lyrics describe losing control, forgetting what happened, the world spinning like a carousel. The Spanish passages speak of losing oneself (”voy perdiendo, perdiendo”), while the English sections plead to be woken up “before I change again.” It’s a song about the transformative power of embracing one’s inner chaos, about liberation through surrender to madness. The video visualized that descent with uncomfortable literalness, making it memorable even if uncomfortable to watch.
Common Questions
Q: Who sings the Spanish parts on “Becoming Insane”? A: The Spanish vocals are performed by Gil Cerezo, lead singer of the Mexican alternative band Kinky. The collaboration happened because both Infected Mushroom and Cerezo were living in Los Angeles, and the duo wanted to create something that would resonate with the large Mexican psytrance market.
Q: What is “Becoming Insane” about? A: The song explores themes of losing control and surrendering to chaos. The lyrics describe forgetting what happened, the world spinning, and the pain of constant change. Both the English and Spanish sections deal with the feeling of losing oneself—”voy perdiendo” means “I’m losing”—while embracing the liberation that comes from releasing control.
Q: What video game features “Becoming Insane”? A: The track appears in UEFA Euro 2008, the official video game of the European Football Championship. This mainstream placement helped introduce the song to audiences who might never have encountered psytrance otherwise.
Q: Is “Becoming Insane” Infected Mushroom’s most popular song? A: Yes, the duo has stated it’s “our most successful track to date” and “the song that brought Infected Mushroom into the mainstream.” It remains a permanent fixture in their live sets, appearing on virtually every concert setlist since 2007.
Q: What album is “Becoming Insane” from? A: The track is from Vicious Delicious (2007), Infected Mushroom’s sixth studio album. It appears as the opening track and was also released as a single in January 2007 with remixes and a music video.