Astral Projection, Infected Mushroom, Astrix, Ace Ventura, Vini Vici: Israeli psytrance artists generation by generation, the labels behind them and who is not Israeli.
Israeli psytrance is the sound of Astral Projection, Infected Mushroom, Astrix, Ace Ventura, Vini Vici and many more. Israel is one of the biggest psytrance strongholds outside Europe, and its producers have shaped Goa trance, full-on and progressive psytrance alike.
Below you will find the artists generation by generation, the labels that came out of the Israeli scene and answers to the questions people ask most. We checked every nationality, because not every name that sounds Israeli is.
The link goes back to Goa. The Goa trance aesthetic spread through European and Israeli backpackers, and many young Israelis still travel to India after their military service. They brought the music and the party culture home, and outdoor parties in the desert and the forests did the rest. Goa still has its own psytrance events, such as HillTop Festival in Vagator every February.
We tell the full story in why psytrance is so popular in Israel. This article is about the people who made the music. For names from other countries, see our overview of the most influential psytrance artists.
Astral Projection is where Israeli psytrance starts for many people. Avi Nissim and Lior Perlmutter from Tel Aviv began as SFX in 1989 and have worked as Astral Projection since 1993. Their Trust in Trance series (1994 to 1996) and the album Dancing Galaxy (1997) were greeted with enthusiasm by Goa fans, and in 2025 the duo released For All Mankind.
In 1993 Nissim co-founded Trust in Trance Records with Yaniv Haviv and Guy Sabbag. Besides Astral Projection, the label released acts such as Domestic and Xerox.
Infected Mushroom formed in Haifa in 1996, when Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani started working as a duo. Their debut The Gathering (1999) was one of the first albums to bring Israeli psytrance to mainstream audiences. Skazi, the project of Asher Swissa from Jerusalem, started in 1998 and released its debut album Animal in 2000.
In the 2000s Israeli full-on reached dance floors around the world: fast, melodic and made for the morning hours. Infected Mushroom followed up with Classical Mushroom (2000), B.P. Empire (2001) and IM the Supervisor (2004), their best-selling album, and reached number 9 in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs. They count among the best-selling groups in Israeli music history.
Astrix (Avi Shmailov) was born in 1981 in Georgia, then part of the USSR, and is an Israeli DJ and producer. He released his debut Eye to Eye on HOMmega Productions in 2002, followed by Artcore in 2004. He was number 41 in DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs in 2006 and number 18 in 2007, and he has played festivals such as Boom and Ozora. Read our Astrix portrait.
Before he became Perfect Stranger, Yuli Fershtat produced full-on as BLT, with the albums Presence (2000) and God is Love (2002) on HOMmega.
From the mid-2000s, several Israeli producers moved towards progressive psytrance: slower, deeper and more hypnotic. Many of them released on labels abroad, especially Iboga Records in Copenhagen and the English and South African label Nano Records.
Perfect Stranger: Fershtat, born in Moscow in 1970, launched the project in 2006 with Learning = Change on Iboga Records and has released there ever since, most recently Broadcasting & Receiving (2023). He also runs his own label, Digital Structures.
Captain Hook: Reshef Harari first worked in the duo Quantize with Adi Ashkenazi, whose album Time came out on Iboga in 2009. He went solo in 2010, and his debut Human Design (2011) led to years of touring abroad.
Ace Ventura: Yoni Oshrat came to psytrance in the late 1990s. His album Paradise Engineering came out on Iboga in 2015, and his side projects include Alpha Portal with Astrix and Alien Art with Captain Hook. Our Ace Ventura portrait has more.
Loud: Kobi Toledano and Eitan Reiter from Haifa have produced together since 2006. After three albums on Drive Records they signed with Nano Records in 2011 and released No More X in 2012.
Our interview with Genetrick shows the grassroots side: he found psytrance through the progressive trance scene that was growing at outdoor parties in northern Israel.
Vini Vici are Aviram Saharai and Matan Kadosh from Afula. They started as Sesto Sento in 2001 and renamed themselves Vini Vici in 2013. Their remix of “Free Tibet” by the French collective Hilight Tribe became a global hit, “The Tribe” (2015) followed, and “Great Spirit” (2016) was a collaboration with Armin van Buuren and Hilight Tribe.
In 2018 the duo launched their own label, Alteza Records. Kadosh has also produced solo as Gataka.
Some names come up next to Israeli artists so often that people assume they are Israeli too. Liquid Soul is Nicola Capobianco from Switzerland; he co-founded Psy-Nation with Ace Ventura and has worked with Captain Hook. GMS are a Dutch duo from Amsterdam, and Hilight Tribe are French. Astrix, on the other hand, was born in Georgia but is an Israeli artist.
Israeli artists also release widely on labels abroad, such as Iboga Records.
On 7 October 2023, Hamas militants attacked the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, a weekend-long outdoor trance festival in the western Negev near kibbutz Re’im. 378 people were killed and 44 were taken hostage. Any article about Israeli psytrance today has to remember them.
Many young Israelis travel to India after their military service and discover the music in Goa. Add parties in the desert and the forests and a close-knit community, and you have one of the world’s biggest scenes. Our article on psytrance in Israel goes into detail.
Astral Projection, Infected Mushroom, Skazi, Astrix, Perfect Stranger, Captain Hook, Ace Ventura and Vini Vici are a good place to start, covering everything from Goa to progressive.
No. Liquid Soul is Nicola Capobianco from Switzerland. He works closely with Israeli artists, above all Ace Ventura, with whom he co-founded Psy-Nation.
Astrix is an Israeli DJ and producer. He was born Avi Shmailov in 1981 in Georgia, which was then part of the USSR.
The best-known are Trust in Trance Records (1993), HOMmega Productions (late 1990s) and Vini Vici’s Alteza Records (2018).
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From Goa pioneers to full-on, progressive, dark psy and psybient: 20 psytrance artists who shaped the sound, where they come from and which releases to start with.