Nicola Capobianco, performing as Liquid Soul, is the Swiss producer who, alongside Ace Ventura, has come to define the modern Iboga progressive-psytrance sound. He started DJing in 1993 and spent the 1990s playing progressive trance at major raves and festivals alongside artists including Tiësto and Armin van Buuren before discovering the psychedelic side of the genre and launching the Liquid Soul project in 2001.
His debut full-length album Synthetic Vibes was released in 2006 on Iboga Records, followed by Love in Stereo (2008), the remix album Cocktails (2009), Devotion (2009), Future Tense (2014), Revolution (2013 — earlier in the catalogue), and Dark Matter (2020) — a release cycle that has placed him at the centre of the Iboga roster for nearly two decades. Beyond Iboga, he founded his own label Mikrokosmos Records in 2006 and partners with Martin Knecht in the duo Earsugar.
Awards and recognition include winning the DJ Awards in Ibiza for the Psy-Trance category and three Beatport awards (twice for Best Track and once for Best Artist). His long-running collaborative project with Ace Ventura — the Liquid Ace alias and joint releases like Aurora (2014) — has produced some of the most-recognisable Iboga tracks of the era. Liquid Soul performs regularly at Boom Festival, Ozora, Sonica, and the modern progressive-psy circuit, and the recent Psy-Nation compilation series (compiled with Ace Ventura) extends his curatorial influence beyond his own production work.
Sound Style
Warm, melodic progressive psytrance with cinematic chord work, plucked-guitar elements, and a focus on hooks rather than peak-time attack. Frequently collaborates with Ace Ventura.