Gilbert Levey, known professionally as Goa Gil, was born on October 11, 1951, in San Francisco, California. He moved to India in 1970 and became a Sadhu under Guru Mahant Nirmalanand Saraswati. He began his career as a DJ in Goa in the early 1980s and is credited with founding the Full Moon Parties at Anjuna and Vagator beaches, which popularized the music styles of Goa and psytrance. He met Ariane MacAvoy (Nimba) in 1985, and together they formed the live act Kode IV in 1989, releasing their debut album Possessed on KK Records. Goa Gil released several DJ mix albums, including Techno Spiritual Trance (1995), Forest of the Saints (1998), and Towards the One (2003). He regularly organized annual festivals in Brazil starting from 2005 and in Germany from 2006 to 2022. He passed away on October 26, 2023, at the age of 72.
