Category: Quadzilla’s Playlists

Time again to get your “funk” on, whatever that may be for you. The seventeen tracks on this playlist cover a range of genres, including, jazz, Arabic/N. African, electronic, electronica, dance, R&B/soul, alternative and, of course, funk. While sixteen of the tracks are from the 21^st century (2003-2025), the lone track from the previous century, and the one entry from the genre that just makes me smile, alternative, starts things rolling. This honor belongs to the Red Hot Chili Peppers from their 1991 album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. I can almost picture whoever was listening to this album for the first time scratching their heads and saying: “I have no idea what to call this,” which is what the genre alternative really means!  But I digress. Let’s just say that there is something for everyone here, but before the aural assault, a little information on a few of the offerings.

Tom Browne (1954) is an American trumpeter who rose to prominence with Sonny Fortune and had major hits in the early 1980s. This fact makes what I said above about only one cut coming from the previous century a little misleading, as this track, as well as some other tracks are featured on compilation albums, with Browne’s contribution appearing on disc 2 of the 2003 album, Old School Jams 4. My featured tune, “Funkin’ For Jamaica,” was a No.1 hit for Browne in 1980. He has been plying his craft for over four decades and has worked with some of the industry’s best and brightest, having shared the concert stage with the likes of Bob James, Dave Grusin, Joe Sample, Melba Moore, and a host of others. He has released 12 studio albums over the years, beginning with Browne Sugar (1979), with the latest release in 2020, Come What May. He continues to tour, in addition to releasing new music on his own BeeHorn Records label.

The Torpedo Boyz are a German electronic music duo founded by Kenastic (Ken Steen, vocals and guitar) and Rolin Hand (Holger Schuman) in 2004. Their lineup expanded to include ODD (Daisuke Isomichi) on vocals, which led them to be labeled as a German/Japanese group, Johnny II on vocals and synth (since 2010), Kurtis Bo(sem) (Boris Nielson, bass), and Borat (Robert Memmler, drums). They have released several albums over the years, most notably Headache Music (2005) and Cum on Feel the Boyz (2007). There are two featured songs from this 2007 album on this playlist, “Japaneeze Boyz” and “Curry Rice.” While there are certainly elements of “funk” to their music, it is unlike what one might call traditional funk, whatever that may be! Their lyrics, tempo, and style make them, shall we say, unique, as you will no doubt discover when you listen to the two tracks. Kraak & Smaak is a Dutch musical production trio from the town of Leiden, Netherlands, consisting of Oscar de Jong, Mark Kneppers, and Wim Plug. They began recording in 2003, with their first album, Boggie Angst, being released in 2006. This album featured several artists, including U-Gene and Dez (who wrote and sang the single “Keep Me Home.” They have toured extensively in Europe and the US, always featuring guest musicians and vocalists. Dance magazine, IDJ, describes them as a “must see live band, alongside names such as The Chemical Brothers, Moby, and The Prodigy. Check them out on YouTube with a live performance of one of my two featured songs, “Sweet Time” (featuring Izo FitzRoy).

This track is from their 2019 album, Pleasure Centre. The second featured track, “Toxic Love Affair” (featuring Ivar and Sanguita), is from a 2017 compilation album by Jalapeno Records, Jalapeno Funk, Vol.9. They have released many albums and EPs over the years, their most recent being Velvet Seas in 2025. Other notable albums include Plastic People (2008), Electric Hustle (2011), Juicy Fruit (2016), and Pleasure Centre (2019).

Vulfpeck is an American funk/soul band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2011. The group was founded by Jack Stratton (keyboards, drums, guitar, Theo Katzman (guitar, drums, occasional vocals), Woody Goss (keyboards), and Joe Dart (bass). Touring partners and frequent collaborators are Antwaun Stanley, Joey Dosik, and Cory Wong. Other contributing musicians have included Jacob Jeffries, Charles Jones, Christine Hucal, David T. Walker, Bernard Purdie, James Gadson, and Blake Mills.

The band members attended University of Michigan’s school of music. They first came together for a recording session at the Duderstadt Center, a university facility that houses an arts library and other resources. After they read an interview with German producer Reinhold Mack, band founder, Jack Stratton, conceived of Vulfpeck as an imagined German version of the U.S. session musicians of the 1960s such as the Funk Brothers, the Wrecking Crew, and the Swampers. Their idea was to channel that era of the live rhythm section. All I can say is: “Mission complete!”

They have released four extended plays, six studio albums, and a live album through their own record label. The band gained recognition in 2014 for releasing, Sleepify, a silent album that exposed a loophole in Spotify’s royalty distribution and funded an admission-free tour. The band is one of the first to sell out Madison Square Garden without a manager or backing label and released the recorded performance as a live album in 2019. Their most current album, Clarity of Cal, was released in 2025, which contains my chosen track, “New Beastly.” If you love the bass, then you will love this track. Their live shows are quite something, so I am including two videos of them performing this song live, one with just the four of them, and another one from 2024 at North Sea Jazz, which features some of the touring musicians mentioned above. The bonus on this one is that there are three other songs that follow the featured track. All are worth watching.

Enjoy.

Los Angeles 2025

Time again to sit back and chill. What follows is over an hour and a half of tunes to help you unwind from that stressful day. Although I did not plan it this way, for some reason 12 of the 18 tracks on this list have artists/bands whose names start with the letter A, three of those being Alex! The majority of the tracks are labeled as electronic (11), with the rest labeled either dance, R&B/soul, or pop.  With the exception of four tunes from the late 1990s, the rest are from between 2008 – 2022. First up a little background on four of the “As.”

Alexis Latrobe, known professionaly as Alex Gopher, is a French mastering engineer, electronic musician, and producer. He worked as a sound engineer at Translab Studio, most notably for Angèle, Clara Luciani, Lomepal, Oizo, Etienne Daho, and others. Over the years, he has contributed a great deal to the French “touch” movement. This is one of the descriptors for French house music, along with “filter house” and “tekfunk.” It is a style of house music devised by French musicians in the 1990s. It is a form of Eurodisco and a popular strand of the late 1990s and 2000s European dance music scene. The defining characteristics of the genre are filter and phaser effects both on and alongside samples from the late 1970s and early 1980s disco tracks.

Latrobe began his career playing bass in the band Orange with future Air members, Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicholas Godin. After the group split, he began to create electronic music and embarked on a successful solo career. His musical style mainly consists of sampling, along with recruiting vocal talent. My featured track is “You My Baby and I,” from the 1999 two disc release of the same name.

Cassandra Monique Batie, known professionally as Andra Day, is an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, and actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including a Grammy Award, a Children’s and Family Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and has been nominated for an Academy Award. In 2015, she released her debut album, Cheers to the Fall, which contains my featured track, “Goodbye Goodnight.” At the 2016 Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for best R&B album, and its single, “Rise Up,” for best R&B performance. In 2020, Day became one of the most-requested artists among Jazz Joy and Roy Global Radio listeners. She made her acting debut in 2021, with her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lee Daniel’s biopic, The United States vs. Billy Holiday. She received her Golden Globe for best actress in a motion picture for her role, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.

Apry Brown (also known as Athlete Whippet) is the musical moniker of Robin Paul Braum. He is renowned for cleverly fusing different musical influences into timeless contemporary jams. Spreading himself across London and Berlin, he has become an integral part of both cities’ scenes in recent years with mixes and remixes for the likes of Toy Tonics, Aus Music, Rhythm Section, and Kitsumé Musique. In 2024, Brown took his joyful, high energy sets that combine club music’s intensity with the charm and intricacy of non-electronic, organic music, to stages across mainland Europe, the UK, and as far as Australia and New Zealand. He takes a communal approach to music making, Robin co-founded Athlete Whippet together with long-term friend and collaborator Aviram Barath, who he co-ran the artist collective and record label, Squareglass. My featured track, “Slow Down,” is from his 2022 EP, Nogueira.

Audio Lotion hit the music scene in 1999 with their debut album, Advanced Skin Care, a sensual blend of mellow drum’n’bass, ambient, jazzy downbeat, as well as elements from classic and Latin music. Consisting of Abu and Aleph, they are located in Zurich, Switzerland and have been making electronic music for 15 years, six of these as Audio Lotion. This band name, along with some of their album titles, suggest the concept behind the art: Audio Lotion is wellness for mind and body. It’s your daily beauty treatment applied to your ears in order to soothe your soul. Given what is going on in the world today, we should be listening to them 24/7!  Audio Lotion’s vocal muse and faithful companion has been singer Noreen, who has contributed her lovely voice and composing/writing skills to various tracks since their second album. She sings in the tradition of bossa nova starts such as Astrud and Bebel Gilberto.

And now for some music. Enjoy!

Los Angeles 2025

Time for another installment of “can’t make up my mind.” Seventeen tracks representing 48 years of music (1968-2016), and a wide range of genres: rock, electronic, dance, Reggae, and alt/punk. But first, a little info on a few of the featured artists.

Barenaked Ladies (BNL) are a Canadian band that formed back in 1988. Hailing from the Toronto suburb, Scarborough, Ontario, they began as a duo of singer-guitarists Ed Robertson and Steben Page, but grew to a quintet by 1990, adding brothers Jim and Andy Creegan on bass and keyboards/congas, respectively, and drummer Tyler Stewart. They released a self-titled cassette (remember those?), which became the first independent release to be certified gold in Canada. They signed with Reprise Records and released their debut album, Gordon, in 1992, with singles including “If I had $1000000” and “Brian Wilson.” Their popularity soon spread to the U.S with versions of “Brian Wilson” and “The Old Apartments” from their 1996 live album, Rock Spectacle, followed by their 1998 fourth studio album, Stunt. The band is also known for creating and performing the theme song of the American sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. Their style has evolved over the years, and their music (originally acoustic) grew to encompass a mixture of pop, rock, and folk. The band has continued to regularly tour and record new music, having released 14 primary studio albums of original material and three themed studio albums. The featured song, “Hello City,” is from their debut album.

Beanfield is a trio of German musician/producers allied with the groove label, Compost Recordings. The group evolved among a generation of dance acts like Faze Action, Filla Brazillia, and A Forest Mighty Black (the latter act are close friends of the trio) and balance their status in the electronic community by producing amazing organic sounds, inspired by earthy ‘70s sounds from funk to Latin and Brazilian jazz to disco. The trio formed around keyboard player Tobias Meggle and bassist Jan Krause (formerly with the acid jazz unit, Poets of Rhythm), along with Compost label boss, Michael Reinboth. After releasing several singles (1995-96), they released their self-titled debut album in 1997. My featured track is “Keep on Believing” from that debut album and is representative of a good deal of electronic music of that era.

Cake is an American rock band from Sacramento, California, consisting of singer John McCrea, trumpeter Vince DiFore, guitarist Xan McCurdy, bassist Daniel McCallum, and drummer Todd Roper. They formed in 1991 and quickly became know for McCrea’s droll, sarcastic lyrics and deadpan vocals, along with their wide-ranging musical influences, including norteño (Mexican folk ensemble), country music, mariachi, disco, rock, funk, folk music, and hip hop. There is “wide-ranging,” then there is this list.  After some personnel changes, they self-released their first studio album, Motorcade of Generosity, in 1994. Given their influences stated above, it should come as no surprise that the album’s genre list includes Alternative Rock, Lo-fi, Alternative country, and experimental rock. In other words, good luck trying to find the album in a traditional record store! After a few albums with Capricorn Records, they signed with Columbia Records, releasing their first album with that label, Comfort Eagle, which featured the single, “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” (the ninth song on this playlist), which hit number 7 on the Modern Rock Tracks. They have not released any new music since 2011 but continue to tour. If you happen to be in San Francisco on September 13, 2025, you can catch them at the Sound Summit Festival, Mt. Tamalpais, Mill Valley, CA.

Cassius was a French musical duo active from 1998 to 2019, consisting of producers Philippe Zdar (Philippe Cerboneschi, 1967) and Hubert Boombass (Hubert Blanc-Francard, 1967-2019). Under its different incarnations, the duo is linked to “French touch,” which is a subgenre of French electronic house music that emerged in the 1990s, characterized by its use of disco and funk samples, funky basslines, and heavy filter and phaser effects on vocals. They released nine albums between 1999 and 2019, and my featured track, “I Am Woman,” is from their 2002 release, Au Rêve. I have somewhat of a soft-spot for this duo, as when I first started dabbling and getting interested in the electronic music scene around the early 2000s, this is one of the first albums I listened to, and I was immediately hooked.

Enjoy the music!

Los Angeles 2025

The second installment of my “chill pill” replacement playlists. Time to close your eyes and let the music envelop you. Eleven of the twelve tracks on this playlist are “labeled” electronic or electronic/dance. Chill music and electronic go hand-in-hand, dance music is all over the music map, but I’m sure you all remember that last slow song that was, and probably still is, played at high school proms. If you’re old like me, you might even remember that “special” teacher/chaperone on the gym floor during that song with a ruler going up to couples and yelling: “Six inches…” Sure, now I have a smart-ass comeback, but not then! The lone track not designated as electronic/dance, is labeled “rock.” Now, rock music is not the first thing that comes to my mind when I want to chill. However, and in direct relation to my buddy Randy Dafoe’s (Mostly Music Covers) running series, “Genre-ly Speaking,” music provider’s genre labels are often misleading, if not downright wrong. That is exactly the case with the fourth song on this playlist by Zero 7, “Simple Things,” which is the antithesis of rock. Okay, I got that off my chest. Now for some “deets” on a few of the artists you’re about to listen to.

The oldest track on the playlist, “God Moving Over the Face of Time” (1995), is from the album, Everything is Wrong, by Moby. That is the professional name of Richard Melville Hall, an American musician, songwriter, record producer, disc jockey, and animal rights activist. He is often hailed as among the most important dance music figures of the early 1990s, helping bring dance music to a mainstream audience in the United States and the United Kingdom. He began playing in several underground punk bands through the 1980s, before moving to New York City in 1989, where he became a prolific figure as a DJ, producer, and remixer. It wasn’t until his fifth album, Play, in 1999 that he gained commercial and critical success. In 2000, the album became an unexpected global hit after every track was licensed to films, television shows, and commercials. It remains the highest selling album, with 12 million copies sold.

Bitter:Sweet is an American trip hop duo with jazz-like influences. Based in Los Angeles, California, the band is composed of Shana Halligan, who provides vocals and lyrics and composes the songs, and Kiran Shahani, who produces and composes the songs. The band was formed when Halligan answered a Craigslist ad for a singer posted by Shahani. Their 11-track debut album, The Mating Game, was released in 2006, which includes my feature track, “Heaven.” Their music has been featured in movies (The Devil Wears Prada, Because I Said So, and Shoot Em Up) and several television shows, including Grey’s Anatomy, Moonlight, Lipstick Jungle, Smallville, and Law and Order: Criminal Intent. It has also been featured in a variety of advertisements.

I:Cube (not to be confused with Ice Cube) is the alias of French DJ and electronic music producer, Nicolas Chaix. Paris based, he first gained attention and the limelight on Paris’ underground dance scene in the mid to late 1990s, most notably through his remix of “Around The World” by Daft Punk in 1997. Daft Punk had remixed one of his earlier songs, “Disco Cubizm” (1996). His music appears on many compilation albums, which is where I first heard my featured track, “Adore,” on a 2002 compilation album. The track is from his second album release of the same name in 1999.

The Dining Rooms is a band based in Milan, Italy, which combines ambient and electronic music, described as downbeat. The band consists of Stefano Ghittoni and Cesare Malfatti. They have had a long run as a duo with their first release, Subterranean Modern, Vol. 1, coming in 1999 and their latest, Sensibili alle fogile (The Lost Soundtrack), released in 2025! In between these two are fourteen releases between 2000 and 2024. They are one of my go-to groups when I want to, you know, “chillax!” And now for some music. Enjoy.

Los Angeles 2025