2023 has been an incredible year for psychedelic art. With tons of new tools and an abundance of creative ideas, we’ve seen some of the most mind-blowing videos ever created! Welcome friends, to the top 10 psychedelic videos of 2023 brought to you by the crew at DailyPsychedelicvideo.com
10. Gum – Argentina
Starting off the list we have Gum with the song Argentina. You may know Gum as Jay Watson a member of the bands Tame Impala and Pond. Here he delivers is a really a nice, soft, vibey song. Video Directed and animated by Alex Aulson. This one is made with a img2vid AI, a technology that has only become possible this year. Looks like Runway gen2 or Pikalabs to me. Cutting edge stuff! The speed of AI development is just bonkers! I think we’ll see a lot more of this style next year. Checkout Gum’s newest album called Saturnia.
9. Symbolico – Don’t Be Afraid
Released earlier this year in march. Video was made by Yael Sokol ART. Looks like an earlier version of Stable Diffusion, probably SD1.5 with a low cadence. I think Symbolico’s sound design is really shines through here. Crisp, mysterious, and intriguing sounds hook you at every turn. Yael did a great job editing the visuals with lots of intricate and varied beat matching with the sounds.
Symbolico also posted a full 90min set earlier in January from his performance at Boom festival in 2022. This is a great video with some fun crowd shots, costumes, dancing and more. If you’re looking for a full music festival experience, I cant recommend that one enough
8. A Light Sleeper – “That To Which We Know Not What”
The song is a like blend of experimental jazz and post-rock with a mix of uncomfortable melodies and
beautiful organic sound. Video by our very own Matthew Shelton in his signatures melty style
The video combines Greek statues with abstract after effects for a juxtaposition of the past and present
that mirrors the music. Matthew also goes by FlexYourLoveMuscles and has a variety of unique content on his channel, check it out
7. Max Cooper feat. Kathrin DeBoer – With Me (Official video by Michael McAfee)
An absolute legend, I’m sure many of you know Max Cooper by this point. I could have chosen any of the dozen or so videos he released this year. We’ve featured him a ton in our posts every year, and one of the big reasons for that is his focus on artistic collaboration. Just scroll through his YouTube page and you’ll see he’s made videos with dozens of diverse visual artists in a ton of different styles from 2D hand animations, mixed media collages and dance videos, to 3D sculptures, AI renders, and generative shaders.
I really like how Max always includes a text description in each video where he gives a personal explanation of the inspiration for each piece as well as a breakdown of the creative process. Oftentimes the visual artist will also include a short passage in a similar vein. Take for Example, this awesome video by artist Michael McAfee where he talks about filming in New Zealand and using cool digital tricks like
photogrammetry, UI elements, and unreal engine shader rendering. Always check his video descriptions for fun tidbits.
Max’s live setups also look absolutely wild – with 2 layers of transparent led screens, his performances look like a feast for the senses. A true artist and collaborator, Max’s work never ceases to inspire
6. Cosmohedron – Duncan Hatch
This one is more like a short film. A surreal journey through the interconnections between all things. It feels like a intergalactic sketch show – specifically with transitions and how characters reappear in other scenes and different contexts. I particularly like scene of God scrolling through a tinder-like app with different metaphysical entities and weird characters. He gets to a profile of a brain in a jar and it has a 26.2 marathon bumper sticker on it’s jar, you know scenes that make you think and laugh. It’s a bit reminiscent of Futurama, Felix Colgrave, and Adult Swim shorts. Duncan’s style feels both familiar and fresh. It’s also impressive how he’s able to explore such wacky ideas with minimal animation and dialogue. Absolutely one to watch, you can find a lot of his content on Vimeo.
5. Amnesia scanner and Freeka Tet – Ride
A bit on the darker side of things, Amnesia Scanner are a berlin based duo who make music in the post-industrial and glitch hop genres. Idek if those labels do them justice. They use a lot of AI generated vocals from the software Oracle to make eerie and corroded tunes (this is actually one of their chiller ones). The video by Freeka Tet depicts the surreal experience of a delivery biker in a busy city. Again, a relatively simple, low budget video that really packs a punch. Performance art is kind of a dying genre and I’m really happy to see Freeka Tet silently tell a thought-provoking story about capitalism and consumerism. If you like darker stuff, definitely check out some of Amnesia Scanners other works.
4. Aesop Rock – Mindful Solutionism
Off Ae’s most recent album – Integrated Tech Solutions, this video features a ton of different multimedia scenes that illustrate the lyrics. Most of the video was made by – Justin “Coro” Kaufman with a variety of techniques. I know there’s a lot of psychedelic influence in certain parts of the rap world… and while I’m not too deep in that space, I always like to check up on what’s going on. This one really caught me by surprise. Potent, tight lyrics offer a nice reflection on the co-evolution of humans and technology. And, in a list full of videos made with cutting edge technology, its refreshing to see a relatively low tech production with a metacommentary on our relationship to that tech. To sum it up – “We cannot be trusted with the stuff that we come up with”
3. Julius Horsthuis – Algebra Of Awe
Julius has been at the top of the fractal game for years now. He’s got tons of videos, loops and tutorials in mandelbulb3D. You can see his work at many different festivals around the globe, and you may even be able to catch him mixing live! Tune here is ‘Cloudless Sky’ by Mirage of Deep. Havnt heard of them before but the tune fits perfectly here. Julius released a few different videos this year but this one is a bit special, as it is a celebration of 10 years of releasing fractal videos. Here’s hoping we get another 10 years of these mathematical masterpieces.
2. East Forest x Duncan Trussell – “So What?”
Video art by David Lobser. Very intentional, spiritual conversation with Duncan. This was a podcast segment turned into song by East Forest, who has made similar tracks with Ram Dass. I love this kind of use of AI video to fluidly illustrate every idea and word in a song or even podcast as it’s being spoken – kind of like a visualization of poetry. Duncan never ceases to amaze me with his ability to express wisdom and spirituality in a very approachable way. These complex topics don’t have to be stuffy and serious. Life is silly and funny and weird. This is one that has really stuck with me, I hope it brings you joy.
1. Kojo – Heavy and Tight
This is a lesser known video (3k views atm) but all of us here at daily psychedelic video were floored by this one. Video art by: Raphael Carmeli. Looks like an implentation of vid2vid AI, probably warpfusion by sxela. Both the audio and visuals here are deeply psychedelic on a level thats hard to put into words. We love giving exposure to lesser know artist doing incredible work and few are more deserving than Kojo.
Honorable Mentions:
I want to shout out a few youtube channels that I love to keep “tabs” on this year:
I only have 2 eyeballs, I can’t see everything. If you have any cool recommendations or think
I missed anything, leave a comment below, Id love to check out what amazed you this year. As always, you can find us posting every single day at dailypsychedelicvideo.com Catch my posts on Fridays. Stay weird out there my friends. Peace!
Full video recap:
The Daily Psychedelic Video 
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