Once again it’s “get-off-the-couch” time with some thumping, energetic tunes from the genres of house, dance, and punk. There are eight tracks, ranging from 1997-2019. So load up on the carbs and go for it!
Franky Rizardo is one of The Netherlands’ finest music exports across the globe with his driving music that blurs the lines between Techno and House. He’s a regular at Ibiza, as well as hitting the “decks” at venues such as Fabric (London), Selter (Amsterdam), Amnesia, and Sound (Los Angeles). The featured track on this playlist is a single from 2019, “Rave Machine,” and it’s the first track for a reason!
Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll, known professionally as Kygo, is a Norwegian record producer. He first received international attention with his 2013 remix of the track, “I See Fire” by Ed Sheeran, followed by his 2014 single, “Firestone,” featuring Conrad Sewell. By late 2015, he reached one billion streams on Spotify, faster than any other artist, and by 2016 he had reached two billion streams. His debut album, Cloud Nine, was released in May of 2016. My featured track, “Fiction,” featuring Tom Odell, is from this debut album.
The Planet Smashers are a Canadian ska punk band from Montreal. You can’t blame a guy for giving a shout-out to his home town! They formed in 1993 and have been a staple of the Montreal music scene ever since. During the third wave of ska, they performed nationally and later internationally, with tours in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Founding member, Matt Collyer, helped establish Stomp Records in 1994, which featured many ska and ska punk bands, including Montreal’s The Kingpins, The Flatliners, The Know How, and Bedouin Soundclash. The band’s lyrics often deal with topics such as love, partying, and good times, although they sometimes use tongue-in-cheek innuendo. My featured track, “Whining,” is from the album, Life of the Party, which is appropriately named given their lyric content mentioned above. It was released in 1999. Although there have been some line-up changes over the years, the core duo of Matt Collyer and Dave Cooper are still at it with a variety of different sidemen, and their latest release (their tenth full-length album), On The Dancefloor, was issued in August of 2025.
Enjoy!
Los Angeles 2025
