The Prodigy
Vini Vici is an Israeli psytrance project formed by producers Aviram Saharai and Matan Kadosh in 2013. Both musicians come from Afula in northern Israel and had already spent many years working together as members of Sesto Sento before launching Vini Vici. The project became one of the most visible forces in taking psychedelic trance from specialised rave culture to the biggest stages of international electronic music.
Before Vini Vici: the story of Sesto Sento
The musical partnership between Saharai and Kadosh began long before Vini Vici. They met as teenagers and, together with Itai Spector, formed the Israeli psytrance project Sesto Sento. Kadosh was already DJing during his school years, while the members of the group gradually developed their own production skills.
Sesto Sento emerged in the early 2000s and released a series of full-length records, including The Inner Light, The Bright Side, Come Together and Key to the Universe. The project worked primarily within full-on psytrance, a style that played an important role in the Israeli psychedelic scene at the time.
Years of experience with Sesto Sento gave the future members of Vini Vici a strong technical and live-performance foundation long before the international success of their new project. At the same time, Vini Vici was never conceived as a simple name change: the musicians wanted to combine the legacy of old-school psytrance with more contemporary production and musical elements capable of working in front of large festival audiences.
The creation of Vini Vici
Vini Vici was formed in 2013. The name is a variation on the Latin phrase Veni, vidi, vici — “I came, I saw, I conquered” — traditionally associated with Julius Caesar.
Among the project’s first professional partners were Iboga Records and the booking agency FM Bookings, both long established within psychedelic trance. This immediately placed Vini Vici in the same professional environment as Ace Ventura, Liquid Soul, Captain Hook and other artists from the international psytrance scene.
Their first EP, Divine Mode, was released by Iboga in November 2013. The title track already demonstrated many of the characteristics that would later define Vini Vici: a dense progressive psytrance bassline, repeating psychedelic figures and a more direct, climax-oriented structure.
It was followed by Back Underground, Expender, Anything & Everything and Veni Vidi Vici. The latter appeared in 2014 and marked another step toward the development of the duo’s own sound.
Future Classics and The Tribe
The most important early milestone was the debut studio album Future Classics, released in 2015.
The album established the Vini Vici formula, combining psychedelic trance with ethnic vocal fragments, tribal percussion and a larger-scale festival structure. Future Classics reached No. 2 on Beatport’s overall chart and No. 1 in Psy-Trance, a notable result for a specialised psytrance release.
The central track on the album was The Tribe. It clearly demonstrated the principle that would define much of Vini Vici’s later music: the combination of “world music” and psychedelic trance with a highly accessible dancefloor rhythm.
The track received support from Armin van Buuren, who created his own edit and repeatedly played Vini Vici music on A State of Trance. This helped the project move beyond the traditional psytrance audience and attract listeners from the broader trance and EDM scene.
Free Tibet and its historic Beatport result
In February 2016, Iboga Records released Free Tibet (Vini Vici Remix), a reworking of a track by the French group Hilight Tribe.
The remix became one of the defining releases of the duo’s career. It climbed to No. 2 on the overall Beatport Main Chart, becoming the first psytrance track to enter the Top 10 of the platform’s main chart.
The commercial scale of Free Tibet did not fundamentally change its structure: at its core remained a fast psytrance groove, a repeating ethnic vocal motif and trance-like cyclic repetition.
Together with The Tribe, the track became one of the works most closely associated with the Vini Vici name. Nearly a decade later, DJ Mag still referred to the two tracks as the duo’s main calling cards, while Free Tibet surpassed 100 million streams.
Great Spirit with Armin van Buuren
On 12 December 2016, Armin van Buuren & Vini Vici — Great Spirit, featuring Hilight Tribe, was released.
The track became the next major crossover milestone. Armin van Buuren’s festival trance was combined with Vini Vici’s psychedelic rhythm and Hilight Tribe’s characteristic ethnic vocal aesthetic.
Great Spirit gained particularly widespread support during the following festival season. Armada Music Publishing identifies it as the most-played track at Tomorrowland 2017.
The success of The Tribe, Free Tibet and Great Spirit defined the period in which Vini Vici evolved from a popular project within psychedelic trance into an internationally recognised festival act.
Taking psytrance to the main festival stages
The expansion of Vini Vici’s audience coincided with the growing presence of psytrance within global EDM.
The duo performed at Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, A State of Trance, Transmission, Dreamstate, Sunburn and other major events. Armada’s professional biography of Vini Vici also identifies them as the first psytrance project to perform on the main stages of Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival Miami, and the first psytrance act to appear at Lollapalooza.
This represented a significant shift for the genre. Psytrance had maintained a large international audience for decades, particularly in Israel, Europe, India, Brazil and other regions, but its own festival infrastructure had long developed largely in parallel with the mainstream EDM market.
Vini Vici did not invent psychedelic trance and were not the first internationally recognised Israeli representatives of the genre. Their role was primarily to adapt the characteristic elements of psytrance to the scale of mainstage culture while preserving a recognisable psychedelic foundation.
Chakra, Adhana and a series of major collaborations
After Great Spirit, the duo actively developed their crossover direction.
In 2017, they released Chakra with W&W. The track combined psytrance with the powerful festival structure associated with the Dutch duo and became one of the most notable releases of this phase.
Another important collaboration was Adhana with Astrix, bringing Vini Vici together with one of the key Israeli psytrance producers of an earlier generation.
In 2018 came 100 with Timmy Trumpet, featuring Moshi Moshi with Steve Aoki, as well as joint projects with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and other artists from the festival electronic scene.
By the end of the decade, Vini Vici’s catalogue could no longer be described simply as progressive psytrance. It contained both full-scale psytrance releases and tracks designed for the space between trance, big room and mainstage EDM.
Alteza Records
In 2018, Vini Vici founded their own label, Alteza Records.
The label became a dedicated platform for modern psytrance and related crossover styles. Its catalogue and wider circle came to include Blastoyz, WHITENO1SE, Omiki, Reality Test, Berg, Ghost Rider, Animato and other representatives of the Israeli and international psychedelic scene.
Alteza gradually evolved into an event brand as well. The label received its own stages at major festivals, including Tomorrowland. In 2025, Alteza staged the first full psytrance stage takeover in the history of Ultra Miami, providing another indication of how the genre’s position within the global festival industry had changed.
Having their own label infrastructure allowed Vini Vici to support artists closer to traditional psytrance while continuing their own collaborations with performers from mainstream dance music.
Part of the Dream
In 2017, Dreamstate Records released Part of the Dream, a 17-track compilation connected with Vini Vici. It is not the duo’s second studio album, but a large psychedelic trance collection reflecting the musical environment surrounding the project.
It features Liquid Soul, Symbolic, Ace Ventura, Astrix, Freedom Fighters and other artists. The compilation format fits Vini Vici’s role as festival DJs particularly well: the focus is not only on their own production, but also on the broader context of the contemporary psytrance scene.
Life Is a Remix
In 2020, Iboga Records released Life Is a Remix, credited to Vini Vici, Ace Ventura and Astrix. The 18-track project brought together remixes and new versions of material associated with three major Israeli psytrance names.
The project differs from Future Classics: it is not a conventional Vini Vici solo studio album, but a collaborative remix project built around the interaction between several catalogues and generations of Israeli psychedelic trance.
Yama and further collaboration with Armin van Buuren
Vini Vici’s connection with Armin van Buuren did not end with Great Spirit.
In October 2021, they released Yama, featuring Tribal Dance and Natalie Wamba Berry. The track once again placed ethnic vocal material inside a modern psytrance structure, continuing a formula that had become one of Vini Vici’s most recognisable characteristics.
Mainstage, trance and psytrance in one catalogue
In the early 2020s, Vini Vici’s stylistic palette became even broader. In 2022 they released Far From Home with Timmy Trumpet and Omiki, as well as a new interpretation of Cafe Del Mar with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and MATTN.
The following period brought Home Alone with Marnik and other tracks balancing between psychedelic trance and festival electronic music.
In 2024, the duo released Spiritum with Maddix and Shibui, combining psytrance with acid techno; Rave Mozart with W&W incorporated motifs from classical music, while Hey Ya with Timmy Trumpet and Tiscore continued the movement toward big room techno and mainstage sounds.
This approach became a natural continuation of the idea established at the project’s creation: old-school psychedelic trance remains the foundation, while elements from other genres constantly change around it.
New collaborations
The later catalogue continues this model. Music Is The Answer with Tristan and Avalon brought Vini Vici back into more direct interaction with the psytrance scene, while Gaana Modam with Lilly Palmer and Shanti People combined psychedelic trance with techno and ethnic vocal material.
On Crazy People 2026, Vini Vici joined forces with Hardwell, MR.BLACK and Liquid Soul, while Free My Soul was created with French techno producer Space 92 featuring CERES.
These recordings demonstrate the consistency of the duo’s creative model: rather than moving away from psytrance, Vini Vici use its rhythmic language as a foundation for collaborations with trance, techno and mainstage producers.
DJ Mag Top 100 DJs
Vini Vici first entered the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs in 2017, debuting at No. 72. The following year, the duo climbed to No. 34 and received the Highest Climber title.
They continued to maintain strong positions in later years: No. 20 in 2021, No. 21 in 2022, No. 27 in 2024 and No. 32 in 2025.
Because the ranking is based on international audience voting, it primarily reflects the scale of Vini Vici’s recognition far beyond the specialised psytrance community.
The Vini Vici sound
The foundation of Vini Vici’s music is psychedelic trance, particularly its progressive and festival-oriented forms. A typical Vini Vici track is built around a fast four-on-the-floor kick, a continuously moving bassline, psychedelic effects and a gradual increase in tension.
Their best-known tracks differ from traditional progressive psytrance through the active use of large festival climaxes. The structure often includes an extended breakdown, a recognisable vocal or ethnic hook and a sharp return of the main rhythmic section.
Another characteristic element is world music and ethnic vocal material. The Tribe, Free Tibet, Great Spirit, Yama and several other works use voices, chants and instrumental elements that create a strong contrast with the electronic rhythm section.
In the later catalogue, these elements were joined by big room, techno, acid and hard dance. At the same time, the recognisable rolling bassline and psychedelic structure maintain a connection with the project’s original sound.
Vini Vici discography
- 2013 — Divine Mode EP
- 2014 — Veni Vidi Vici
- 2015 — Future Classics — debut studio album
- 2015 — The Tribe
- 2016 — Free Tibet (Vini Vici Remix) — Hilight Tribe
- 2016 — Great Spirit — with Armin van Buuren feat. Hilight Tribe
- 2017 — Chakra — with W&W
- 2017 — Part of the Dream — compilation
- 2017/2018 — Adhana — with Astrix
- 2018 — 100 — with Timmy Trumpet feat. Symphonic
- 2018 — Moshi Moshi — with Steve Aoki feat. Mama Aoki
- 2018 — The House of House — with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Cherry Moon Trax
- 2019 — Untz Untz
- 2019 — Alive — feat. Pangea & DEGO
- 2020 — Life Is a Remix — collaborative project with Ace Ventura and Astrix
- 2020 — Get in Trouble (So What) — with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
- 2021 — Yama — with Armin van Buuren feat. Tribal Dance and Natalie Wamba
- 2021 — Come Close — with Neelix feat. MKLA
- 2022 — Far From Home — with Timmy Trumpet and Omiki
- 2022 — Cafe Del Mar — with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and MATTN
- 2023 — Home Alone — with Marnik
- 2023 — Drink And Shout — with Prezioso and Shibui
- 2024 — Spiritum — with Maddix and Shibui
- 2024 — Rave Mozart — with W&W
- 2024 — Hey Ya — with Timmy Trumpet and Tiscore
- 2025 — Music Is The Answer — with Tristan and Avalon
- 2025 — Gaana Modam — with Lilly Palmer feat. Shanti People
- 2026 — Crazy People 2026 — with Hardwell, MR.BLACK and Liquid Soul
- 2026 — Free My Soul — with Space 92 feat. CERES.
Vini Vici’s role in the development of psytrance
The Israeli psytrance scene was internationally recognised long before Vini Vici appeared: Infected Mushroom, Astrix, Astral Projection and many other artists had spent decades shaping its history. Vini Vici’s place is connected with a different stage in the genre’s development — its increasingly direct integration into global festival EDM culture.
The Tribe demonstrated the potential of combining world music with modern progressive psytrance. Free Tibet brought psytrance into the Top 10 of Beatport’s overall chart for the first time, while Great Spirit carried that formula directly onto the biggest trance and EDM festival stages. Later appearances on the main stages of Tomorrowland and Ultra confirmed the change in the genre’s audience scale.
Vini Vici’s own Alteza Records added another dimension to their touring and production work — the development of a platform for psychedelic trance and related artists. Alteza’s expansion into dedicated festival stages demonstrates that Vini Vici became not only performers, but also curators of their own part of contemporary trance culture.
At the same time, the project’s central principle has remained largely unchanged since its earliest releases: psychedelic trance is treated not as a closed genre with rigid boundaries, but as a foundation that can be combined with trance, techno, big room, hard dance and musical traditions from different cultures. This model has allowed Vini Vici to retain their connection with the psytrance scene while simultaneously bringing their sound to audiences at the world’s largest electronic music festivals.
