VA - 20 Years of Lazy Days (2025)

Back in 2005, roughly 10 years into my musical career, everything seemed to be going my way with steady releases and an active DJ schedule. But creatively, I felt the need to have a playground that would allow me to release my own projects and those of friends or like-minded artists. I was also hitting a wall trying to find a label for a track that I truly believed in. That track was called Friday and it was a collaborative work I did with 20for7, an Australian collective featuring Vanessa Baker, which also included a Trentemoller Remix. This rejection became a blessing in disguise as it led to the creation of Lazy Days Recordings. Friday became LZD001 and it was an overnight success as well as our biggest seller to date. It was even considered by some to be one of the tracks of summer 2005. A few of the labels who passed on the release later confessed to me that they wished they had signed it.

Since then, the label has produced 150 releases by over 100 artists such as Atjazz, Shur-I-Kan, Art Of Tones and remixers such as Ian Pooley, Crazy P and Prins Thomas. It also hosted showcase label nights around the world in places like Fabric (London), Miami (WMC) and Montreal (Pik Nic Electronik/Igloofest) as well as a 20-year residency at Salon Daomé. Lazy Days Recordings also received 2 JUNO Award nominations.

Running Lazy Days has been a labour of love; love for the music, but first and foremost, love for the people I’ve been fortunate to work with. I dedicate this to all the artists, graphic designers, mastering engineers, distributor, PR companies, and of course, all the supporters of the label since day one. This wouldn’t be possible without you.

For the 20th years, I selected 20 tracks that I think represent the sound and the story of Lazy Days. I hope that you can discover or re-discover some of those gems and that you will continue with us on our journey.