Sonny Fodera

Australian DJ and producer Sonny Fodera cut his teeth on straightforward house sounds before evolving to include elements of pop and other strains of electronic music. He merged four-on-the-floor bangers with EDM-flavored snare rolls and drops on his 2019 release Rise and experimented with pop styles and extended collaboration on 2021 effort Wide Awake. Additional singles and a collaboration with Gorgon City followed in 2022.
Based out of Melbourne, Fodera began making music as a hip-hop producer in his teens, but his muse turned to house when he heard Derrick Carter’s booming dance tracks. In his early twenties, Fodera was working as a DJ and making tracks of his own, debuting with the It’s Time EP in 2013 on house maven Cajmere’s Cajual Records label. A proper full-length, Moving Forward, was released later that year, and the more collaborative After Parties & Aeroplanes arrived the next year featuring appearances from Ari Lourdes, Low Steppa, Doorly, and many others. With 2016′s Frequently Flying, Fodera incorporated more lead vocals and pop sensibilities. He kept busy with remixes, compilation appearances, live gigs, and the occasional EP releases before 2019′s extended mixtape-like collection Rise brought his most polished, pop-adjacent material yet.
No matter how close he leaned into pop impulses, however, Fodera’s music maintained a core of deep house rhythms and acid grooves. He continued blurring the lines between commercially accessible hooks and his house roots on subsequent tracks, releasing increasingly versatile singles like 2020 Diplo collaboration “Turn Back Time” and 2021′s danceable but melodic “Nah” featuring lead vocals from Sinead Harnett. Several other singles followed and in October of 2021, Fodera released fifth album Wide Awake. In addition to the previously issued collaborations with Diplo and Harnett, the album included contributions from Ella Eyre, MKLA, Sam Tompkins, and many others. A deluxe edition followed in 2022, as well as singles “Better” and “Remember” (with Gorgon City, Danny Howard, and Stevie Appleton). ~ Fred Thomas