While the term best psytrance artists might be subjective, there are a few important artists that have helped shaped the sound of psychedelic music over the years and perform at many of the best festivals around the world.
For newcomers of the genre, we have put together a list of artists to check out.
Astral Projection
Astral Projection is an Israeli electronic musical group formed in 1993, producing psychedelic trance and Goa trance music. They are still active today and perform at festivals. Check out their tracks “Kabalah”, “People Can Fly”, “Mahadeva” and “Dancing Galaxy”.
Avalon
Leon ‘Avalon’ is from London, UK, and is currently one of the biggest names and most in-demand producers in the international psytrance circuit today. His debut album was released on Nano Records and he has been with the label since. He also performs with DJ Tristan as Killerwatts.
Astrix
Avi Shmailov was born in Russia but moved to psytrance hotspot Israel. In the mid-nineties he built up his craft as an electronic music producer, but only released his debut album on HOMmega in 2002. His signature sound has carried through the years and he is one of the most saught after psytrance artists.
Ace Ventura
Ace Ventura is Yoni Oshrat, a 31-year old Israeli with a rich musical background. Born in a musical family (his father is a famous Israeli composer and song writer, for instance behind the Eurovision song “Halelujah”) and previously working in the TV and movie-industry as a sound producer before he discovered trance in the beginning of the nineties.
Burn In Noise
Gustavo Manfroni was brought up dedicating his time and interest completely to music. He’s been playing the guitar since his early days. He played in 2 rock bands, up to the day when, during a trip to London, got in touch with the psychedelic trance music. He also performs alongside Dickster as Circuit Breakers.
Dickster
Dick Trevor has been an iconic figure in the psychedelic trance community for decades. He has been a part of several projects including Green Nuns of the Revolution, Bumbling Loons, Circuit Breakers and more.
Eat Static
Eat Static is an electronic music project from the UK formed in 1989 by Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton. In 2008, Joie left the project but Merv still regularly performs and releases new music. Eat Static has a variety of albums showcasing different styles of psychedelic music.
Electric Universe
Electric Universe is a psychedelic trance project from Germany formed by Boris Blenn and Michael Dressler in 1991. Today, the project is run by Blenn on his own. More recently, performances have included other live instruments like guitar.
Infected Mushroom
Infected Mushroom was formed by Israeli artists Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani in 1996. Each release shows their style break through new molds. Today their music can be defined as a range of psychedelic trance, electronica and drum & bass. They are one of the best-selling psytrance artists ever.
Liquid Soul
Liquid Soul was founded by Swiss born Nicola Capobianco. First introduced to electronic music at a young age, he started performing in 1993 but shifted to psychedelic trance in 2001. If you want to explore slower styles of psytrance (“progressive psytrance”) this is a worthwhile artist.
Space Tribe
Olli Wisdom dedicated his life to music and performed in different glam rock, gothic rock, deathrock, Goa trance, post-punk and psychedelic trance acts. In 1995, he worked with Simon Posford to release his psytrance debut as Space Tribe. In 2021, Space Tribe passed away but remains a big psytrance influence.
Shpongle
Shpongle is a psychedelic electronic music project from England that formed in 1996. The group includes Hallucinogen and Raja Ram. The duo have been considered to largely influence the psybient genre.
Tristan
Tristan Cooke is a psytrance and Goa trance DJ and producer from the UK. After graduting from university, he travelled throughout India playing at Full Moon parties in Goa, before returning to the United Kingdom in 1993 and establishing his name on the London trance scene.
