Today, Belgrade-born, Amsterdam-based DJ and producer Bona Fide makes his triumphant return to Lee Burridge’s All Day I Dream label to release the Entropy double-EP.

Bona Fide first contributed to the label in 2020, collaborating with Lost Desert on ‘No Strings Attached,’ which charted for several weeks on Beatport’s Top 10 tracks. He has since been featured on All Day I Dream’s Summer Sampler 2021 and Summer Sampler 2022 compilations, in both instances collaborating with his close friend Draso.

For his debut EP release on All Day I Dream, Bona Fide showcases a diverse repertoire of sounds across the eight tracks. The record kicks off with the title track, where Bona Fide eases the listener in with soft percussion before incorporating fluttering melodic textures. Another highlight from the A-side is ‘Kikiri’ – a mesmerizing composition spanning nine and a half minutes which features filtered chanting over an enduring drum pattern, balanced out by mystical synth harmonies. On the B-Side, Bona Fide recruits Zone+ to collaborate on ‘Alter Ego’, a stripped-down groover with an infectious bass-line, and Wassu to collaborate on ‘Love Sparkles,’ a joyous track with maximum danceability.

Entropy may sound familiar to some, as unreleased cuts from the record have been staples of Lee Burridge sets worldwide over the last year and a half. Bona Fide’s main stage performance at the inaugural All Day I Dream Festival in Northern California left fans wondering when he would next be featured on the label. Delivering the eight track Entropy EP to be released in both digital and physical format, Bona Fide makes a massive contribution to All Day I Dream, as the world-renowned label adds another wonderful EP to their catalog.

WWD: Hi Bona Fide! We’re glad to have you for this interview! Where are you in the world right now? And what have you been up to recently?

Hi WWD team! A pleasure to catch up with you! I am currently in Amsterdam where I live and work! At the moment I am finalizing the last few details of my upcoming 8-track debut EP for All Day I Dream! I enjoyed these last few weeks of summer to recharge my creative juices, seek new inspiration and start planning out the rest of the year by exploring some gig opportunities in New York and Paris! More info to come very soon!

WWD: We were always curious to hear why ‘Bona Fide’? What does it mean to you?

Great question! Bona Fide as an adjective means genuine & real, and as an adverb it means sincere, without intention to deceive. That being said, my approach with music was to always make something truly genuine and authentic, and most importantly have my music represent my inner emotions and everything I am going through – hence why this name was born! Although despite a clear message behind the name, what remains a mystery is how people like to pronounce my artist name – and I leave it entirely up to them haha!

WWD: Why All Day I Dream? What has inspired you to release music there?

Bona: I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and playing a warm up set for Lee Burridge back in March of 2015 when I was a resident DJ in Bijou, Boston. I’ve been following his music for quite some time prior to that gig and been very inspired by origins of these dreamy melancholic sounds that Lee himself alongside Matthew Dekay started incorporating into their sets on those beautiful Brooklyn sunsets around 2011. I have really enjoyed watching the label evolve and create parties that became a global phenomenon, as well as observing how the label has evolved sonically thanks to the expansion of incredibly talented roster bringing a wide array of unique sounds from all over the globe! All of this allowed ADID to create an incredible community of like-minded Artists and most importantly people that follow this sound and the positive energies that fill these parties… Everyone is smiling, dancing and you really feel the love. Being a fan of ADID music and events myself, I have attended countless events and really connected with the community on a much deeper level. This allowed me to make music that I felt people will resonate with, and most importantly close their eyes and drift off into a parallel dimension forgetting all their day-to-day responsibilities and having a great time!

WWD: On September 30th, you will be dropping your debut release on ADID and it will be a thrilling double EP consisting of 8 tracks featuring some amazing collaborations with Zone+ and Wassu! Quite a big EP isn’t it?!

Oh yes! A true ‘dream’ come true (no pun intended haha)! Wassu is a dear friend that I met when I lived in NYC and I have had the pleasure of making music with him for quite some time now. We’ve made a ton of really great music and I can’t wait to release some of these tunes. Our collaborations were very easy-going and we felt like we created a powerful production duo in a way we approached each song and how we fulfilled the expectations of each song thanks to each other’s strengths. Zone+ is one of my favorite artists in the industry, and I simply love listening to his music and how incredible his sets are. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him finally at the ADID Festival in California and our energies matched so quickly, that writing music became very easy for us! It’s very important for me to click with people on a personal level, because then I know whether we will click when it comes to making music! At the end of the day, a lot of the music we write ends up being an extension of our personalities and certain inspirations, so if we get along as friends, we for sure will align on the expectation of each track and what we are trying to achieve!

WWD: That’s very cool! What about the 6 other original tracks you wrote yourself? What was the inspiration behind them?

All 6 tracks deliver something different to the crowd, whilst respecting the sound of All Day I Dream and most importantly how I feel the label will sonically evolve. Entropy is a track that I wrote when I was inspired by a track called ‘Vacation to Life’ by Tim Green! I adored the beautiful energy that the track had with gorgeous synths driving it and felt like I could approach the creation of a new track through that lens and that’s how Entropy was born! I have to thank Lee for playing it all over the world over the past 1.5 years and it really gave me goosebumps seeing people react to it emotionally! ‘It Comes Around’ is a really vocal-driven track with some powerful progressive basslines and complex melodies going on in the background that I felt like compliment the melancholic sound of ADID whilst giving it something new, because at the end of the day it’s important to stand out and not make the same stuff we hear over and over again! ‘Marimba Minimo’ is a track that has quite a simplistic tom-driven repetitive bassline and the presence of beautiful rhythmic marimbas with distant strings will hopefully evoke a lot of dreamy emotions that remind us of the origins of All Day I Dream! ‘Kikiri’ is a very dominant peak dancefloor track that has a very powerful bassline and an intricate arpeggio sound that compliments the complexity of the track! ‘Third Time’s The Charm’ is a track that’s very close to my heart, because it’s a very emotional one with beautiful distant piano chords and vocals. I always pictured this track to be one of the closing tracks to a beautiful sunset somewhere around the world. ‘Luminous’ is a track that I wrote as I started listening to a lot of lo-fi house, so I approached the creation of this track with the question in mind of how can I incorporate some of these elements of lo-fi house whilst respecting the sound of the label and this was the result! I hope it’s a memorable one for people out there!

WWD: All Day I Dream is surely taking over the globe and establishing itself as one of the most popular events and labels in the electronic music industry – what are some of the tips/recommendations you would give to producers out there who want to release on ADID?

I would say one of the most important tips is to focus on making truly memorable music that’s not a copy of something that’s already out there. I understand that we all get inspired by certain sounds and artists, but at the end of the day, each of us should have a unique sound that people can distinguish and resonate with. There’s far too many tracks out there that are way too repetitive consisting of the same elements that we heard over and over again. If you put yourself in shoes of label owners, think about the # of demos they listen on a daily basis – how do they sign tracks? It has to stand out and be something different. Another important aspect that I try to think of when making music is asking myself a question of ‘would you play this in front of a packed dancefloor excited to hear something new?’ If the answer is yes, then I am doing something right. If the answer is ‘no’, then I have to reevaluate the sounds and the direction of the track. Finally, I would advise all artists to envision the sonic evolution of a label.

With so many planned releases almost a year ahead, it’s crucial to consider whether your sound will be relevant by the time you actually release the track. Making something today because you got inspired by something that’s already out there and then releasing it in a year might mean it’s irrelevant and just got a bit stale – therefore always consider the relevance and uniqueness of the sound. My goal is to have people hear a new song, identify common elements and details and immediately say ‘oh yes, this is Bona Fide’!’.

WWD: Have you got anything else in the pipeline you are working on that you can tell us
about?

Absolutely! The plan is to work on finalizing a few other tracks and collaborations with the intention to create another EP to be released over the next few months. Additionally the long-term vision and goal is to slowly join the roster of DJs and perform at ADID events around the globe – that would certainly be my ultimate goal. At the end of the day, I just want to make people happy and help them create powerful memories thanks to my music!