Dance Music Dominance: Coachella 2025 DJs Discuss Festival's Evolving Soundscape

Whether it was electronic artists claiming the lion's share of the lineup or the countless individuals roaming Empire Polo Club with "sprouts" on their heads, the message in Indio this year was loud and clear: EDM and rave culture are reshaping Coachella.

As the merciless desert sun gradually lowered its bright yellow hues into the horizon, the iridescent structures within the fabled venue came alive as if through some sort of chromatic hypnosis. From the newly installed inflatable flower display to the iconic Ferris wheel, the expansive stages and art installations turned the festival into a nocturnal technicolor wonderland.

With darkened skies and thumping basslines emanating from multiple stages, the energy of the festival had palpably shifted, drawing parallels to the vibes found at beloved EDM fests like Tomorrowland and EDC.

From its inception, dance music has always been a part of the sonically diverse landscape that is Coachella. Elements of rave culture were long relegated to the confines of the festival's beloved Yuma tent, the fan-favorite Do LaB or the storied Sahara stage. But rarely did those heart-pounding beats make it past the Ferris wheel. 

However, as the tentacles of rave culture continue to grip social media and the airwaves, the trailblazing festival had to adapt. After expanding its footprint in 2024 to include the stunning new Quasar stage, which was designed with extended DJ sets in mind, Coachella doubled down in 2025.

From 'Chella veterans to first-timers, we caught up with a handful of influential DJs in Indio to discuss how dance music is changing the landscape of this multi-genre festival.

TOKiMONSTA

For TOKiMONSTA, returning to the Empire Polo Club is like coming home. Having first performed at Coachella in 2011, the LA native has a strong connection to the legendary festival.

"One of the main things that's special about Coachella is that it's close to home," she tells EDM.com. "I'm from LA, so this is our festival. Regardless of the press or influencers, all of our friends get together here. It's always so well-curated and there's always something here for everyone."

After attending Weekend One as a fan, TOKiMONSTA was excited to return the following weekend and DJ at the DoLaB stage, where she first performed exactly a decade ago.

"The DoLaB stage is such a unique presence at this festival, and it's crazy to think that it was exactly 10 years ago when I first played there," she recalls.

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TOKiMOSTA's Coachella appearance came on the heels of the release of Eternal Reverie, a warm, scintillating album she describes as a rediscovery of self. After having to cancel a tour due to a family emergency, she's now poised to hit the road in mid-May, but not before allowing herself to enjoy the diverse soundscapes found at Coachella.

"I make music because I'm a fan of music, so it's nice to be a fan at this festival and see artists like Lady Gaga, who was incredible," TOKiMONSTA adds. "I'm not the type of person who will sit in the middle of the crowd—it gives me anxiety—but I was there in the pit watching. It was so captivating."

As a multi-genre producer herself, she touched on the importance of representation in a festival like Coachella.

"The magic of this festival is that you come here just to see where the winds take you. It's always about the random sets that you pass by, and you say, 'What is that sound?' and you find someone new."

Massano

As a Coachella first-timer, Massano represented the burgeoning melodic techno scene with a b2b set alongside Mind Against. The red-hot Liverpool producer, who recently released one of the year's best debut albums, had finally shaken off the jet-lag from Weekend One and was excited for round two inside the Yuma.

"I'm excited to be playing alongside Mind Against and I'm kind of getting used to it now that I've played Weekend One," Massano said. "Since we're going to have the livestream for Weekend Two, there's going to be some stuff we wanna show off that will be different."

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The impression that melodic techno has made on American audiences is not lost on Massano, who grew up listening to legendary bands like The Prodigy and Faithless before being influenced by the sounds of CamelPhat and ARTBAT. He's now a vital contributor to the genre's recent surge in stateside popularity, especially after being selected as one of the lucky few to open for Anyma during the Italian techno superstar's groundbreaking Las Vegas Sphere residency, a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for which he feels immense gratitude.

"It's exciting," Massano says of melodic techno's rising prominence. "It's obviously been a crazy time the last three to four years in terms of everyone coming up in the scene. It's nice to see the hype come up from the likes of Afterlife and Tale of Us, and now I think everyone's starting to carve their own paths and people are developing their own sounds."

After his second stint inside the Yuma, Massano said he planned to be one with the people and walk around Coachella in hopes of catching sets by Travis Scott and Keinemusik.

Indira Paganotto

As a member of Blood Oath, the trio of femme fatales who took over the DoLaB during Weekend One, techno superstar Indira Paganotto was already in high spirits when discussing the experience of the festival's second weekend.

"The Yuma stage is so special," she gushes. "I'm a really big fan of the chill vibes, the underground hypnotic vibes. You see the people smiling with their eyes closed, and you can see they are traveling in outer space. I think Yuma was the perfect beginning in our mission."

That mission? The EDM.com Class of 2023 alum plays her cards close to her chest, only expressing that she was part of a global phenomenon that includes fellow techno superstar Sara Landry, who had been named to the following year's Class.

"My sister Sara Landry is the pioneer of hard techno, and I love that," Paganotto says. "She's kind of like Mulan from Disney. We are women who don't care, and we seek the truth and we follow."

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Opening up about her love of psytrance, Paganotto characterized the genre as poetic and romantic. "Psy has these beautiful Indian and ancestral sounds that are slowly getting to America. I think in a few years they will understand completely," she said.

Born and raised in Spain, she was thousands of miles away from the Goan shores where psytrance originated. When asked how she was introduced to the genre, she pointed to her father, who was a traveling doctor and spent time in India healing disadvantaged youth.

"My mom was an Italian super romantic listening to opera while my father was the hippie in the family," she continued. "He was a doctor without borders and was helping people in Asia, where he was introduced to the parties in Goa. Since it was the hippie movement, I think I may have a lot of brothers and sisters that I don't know about, if you know what I'm saying."

However, Paganotto, whose latest album is set to be released later this year, hopes she doesn't get pigeonholed strictly as a techno or psytrance artist. 

"I'm not part of the techno scene, and I'm not part of psy. I'm just an artist," she affirms. "I love to cook, I love animals, I love people and I love music. And this is just the beginning."

Pete Tong and Ahmed Spins

As they prepared for their second Coachella performance together, Pete Tong and Ahmed Spins came into the desert with two distinct perspectives. For Tong, the desert is a familiar landscape, having been a part of the festival since the early 2000s.

"I was lucky to be here the second or third year, and I've watched it grow," Tong told us. "I know the crew and I'm very proud of the effort they put into the build, every year it changes. After Quasar came aboard last year, it's evolved again this year, and the Sahara seems to get bigger and bigger, and it keeps moving around. That's what keeps it interesting."

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And then there's Spins, whose b2b sets with Tong mark the first time he's ever walked the grounds of the Empire Polo Club. Their performance inside the Yuma could be seen as a sort of passing of the torch from a veteran 'Chella performer to a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first-timer.

"It's my first time here, and it's been awesome. I have friends and family here with me and we walked around and took it in," Spins said, calling Tong a "legend" with whom it's an honor to DJ.

As for the trailblazing Tong, he's now gearing up for yet another musical venture later this year.

"I'm actually starting another label called Places in Spaces, which will focus more on my music," he said. "That will start rolling out in the summer."