Resident Advisor podcast

"I'm an individualist." The Throbbing Gristle co-founder on extreme experimentation, difficult women and her new album, 2t2.

As long as underground culture has existed, there have been pockets of resistance—people at the fringes who challenge societal expectations and create work that pushes against societal norms. Cosey Fanni Tutti is one of them. She's a founding member of the defunct British band Throbbing Gristle, a visual artist, pornographic model, solo musician and writer.

Tutti, now 73, grew up in the English city of Hull, where she met like-minded performer Genesis P-Orridge. Together, they formed Throbbing Gristle and the collective COUM. Their activations and installations were, unequivocally, shocking. In one show, Tutti urinated on the audience as she swung naked across the stage. In another, the band performed alongside framed displays of her used menstrual pads.

Throbbing Gristle's extreme experimentations flirted with the erotic and the grotesque, pushing the limits of sound and frequency. Their outsider approach to making music—and their erasure of the boundary that separates life and art—went on to influence a generation of creatives across genres, especially in early techno.

After Throbbing Gristle disbanded, Tutti performed as synth pop duo Chris & Cosey with her husband and ex-band member, Chris Carter. Her work as a solo artist has blossomed in recent years. She published her memoir, Art Sex Music, in 2017. After turning 66, she also wrote two full-length albums and wrote another book, Re:Sisters, which explores the life and legacy of the late composer Delia Derbyshire who faced adversity as a woman in a male-dominated world, like Tutti herself.

In this Exchange with with Chloe Lula, Tutti discusses her dedication to living alternatively, expressing herself by any means possible and her forthcoming album, 2t2, composed during a time of extreme difficulty in her personal life. The underground icon also talks about mastering Mongolian throat singing and her upcoming solo art exhibition in New York, which will display the pornographic photos she took as a model in her 20s. Listen to the episode in full.

One hour of resolutely DIY club workouts, from one of the West Coast's most exciting producers.

If you've been in the club recently, chances are you've heard the work of Julian Edwards, AKA bastiengoat. Maybe it was the standout 2022 track "Tell Me If You Like It," which blends jungle breaks with a slinky sample from Cassie's R&B anthem "Me & U" to create a 130 banger perfect for modern dance floors. The Oakland-based producer has become a go-to name for party cuts that bounce, favoured by the likes of Bianca Oblivion and fellow Bay Area artist—and frequent back-to-back partner—Bored Lord.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Edwards is deeply connected to Oakland's underground rave scene. Reflecting on his early experiences, he explained how the region's unique blend of crowds—from "raw hardcore sound to hyphy house parties"—and legacy of DIY warehouse raves has always shaped his music.

While gentrification in the region has limited opportunities to throw parties in those spaces, Edwards, as part of the label and collective NO BIAS, is carrying that torch for a new generation, pushing jungle, UK garage and all manner of US club variety while maintaining a strong DIY ethos. As dance music grows increasingly global and commercial, Edwards and co offer a refreshing antidote.

A prolific producer, Edwards is hard to pin down musically. He can apply his distinctive touch to virtually any genre. Take "Slander," where he blends hardcore and electro with Jersey club. Or "at em" a collision of 2-step, bassline and furious breaks. At the core of his work is a transatlantic bass connection, much like fellow West Coast star Introspekt. Both have a serious knack for fusing intricate rhythms with the kind of deep, murky bass weight synonymous with so much UK dance music.

For RA.990, Edwards jumps between genres with flex and ease—one moment it's grime-like basslines evoking "Pulse X," then aqueous, melancholic club, before twisting into fast and furious breaks. Rough, ready, and rowdy, it’s music that’s equal parts technical showcase and peak-time firework display.

@bastiengoat
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/990

"My mission is to explore the boundaries of psychedelic music." The revered techno artist talks about expanding consciousness, breaking the rules and his new album on Tresor.

There has always been a strain of dance music that has leant psychedelic, from the leftfield psychoacoustics of pioneers like La Monte Young to the proggy techno taking over today's dance floors. One artist who embodies the spirit of psychedelia is Anthony Child, AKA Surgeon, a revered DJ and producer who has historically been placed in the world of industrial techno, but whose output over the years has consistently flirted with altered states of consciousness and a strong opposition to the mainstream.

Child is originally from Birmingham, where he and Karl O'Connor, AKA Regis, helped birth a style of powerful, loop-driven techno. Together, they're British Murder Boys and have released music on O'Connor's seminal label Downwards. But they've also ploughed successful solo careers, with Child putting out several releases on Tresor and performing live improvised electronics as Surgeon and as part of ambient listening duo The Transcendence Orchestra.

In this interview, Child talks about his most recent release on Tresor, the album Shell~Wave, and its innovative use of techniques associated with Jamaican dub. He also discusses the through line of psychedelia in his work and what it means to surrender oneself to sometimes uncomfortable processes—both creatively and in life—and come out the other side. There are strong links to spirituality and Buddhism in Child's work, many of which are designed to prompt listeners to question and reconsider the boundaries they've set around the reality they live in. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

Three hours of high drama, recorded live at Nowadays in New York.

We know what you're thinking: why did it take so long to get Binh on the RA Podcast? There's no easy answer, especially given that he's been a favourite of ours for over a decade now. So to make up for lost time, the revered digger lands on the series with a tantalising three-hour mix, recorded live at Nowadays in New York earlier this year.

Crammed with rare and unreleased gems spanning house, techno, and electro, RA.989 is heavy on drama, catching the Düsseldorf native in unbridled performance mode.

This is Binh in 2025. But rewind across the past two decades and you'll find a DJ who excels in pretty much any situation, whether warming up for Zip or Margaret Dygas, going back-to-back with masters like Nicolas Lutz or rolling out solo sets that stretch across ten or even 12 hours.

He's acted out all these scenarios most often at Berlin institution Club der Visionaere, the cosy canalside club that became a kind-of spiritual home. (He'd sometimes spend every night of the week there, before parenting duties got the better of him.)

To play for half a day you need a lot of records, and the backbone of Binh's craft has long been a freakish passion for vinyl. Along with Lutz, Vera, and others in CDV's orbit, he approaches the pursuit of wax, new and old, with next-level dedication and a fondness for blind buys.

That's true of RA.989, although among the un-Shazamables are many tracks that are either out or coming out on Binh's popular Time Passages label. The mix finds him on a house-y tip, luxuriating in roomy basslines, driving 303s and twinkly melodies—with just the right amount of evil. Lock in and savour a one-of-a-kind DJ, completely in the zone.

@binh

Find the interview at ra.co/podcast/989

A clinic in minimal from the elusive Acting Press boss.

Why do certain sounds cultivate a cult following? Simply put, it's often because they resist easy consumption. PLO Man and his imprint Acting Press lean into this.

Searching for the Berlin-based DJ and producer, you won’t find much online presence, interviews or conventional PR. What you will find, if you look hard enough, is a catalogue of records and mixes with a kind of tape hiss charm (a spiritual successor to Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, but scuzzier and lighter on its feet).

Founded in 2015, Acting Press once seemed to belong to the short-lived "outsider house" trend, but is now synonymous with a certain strain of modern minimal, one that is analogue, spacious and pointedly opaque. PLO Man's output is equally sparse by design: this week, he joins the RA Podcast with a characteristically elusive style, accompanying the near two-hour mix is a one-answer Q&A that gives almost nothing away.

Stripped-back, ever-so-slightly sleazy and coated in dust, PLO Man's RA Podcast continues that lineage in style. Opening with the featherlight microhouse of Margaret Dygas, RA.988 unfolds into a carefully curated spectrum of minimal, dub and deep techno. Among familiar names—look out for the blinding Rhythm & Sound and Moodymann blend—are deep cuts and left turns alongside the odd outlier, like lovers' rock pioneer Gregory Isaacs.

Like the best of his forebears, PLO Man wants RA.988 to take time for you to settle in. But once you do, you won’t want to leave.

@p_el_oh

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/988

Kinetic club energy generated by one of the sharpest talents in drum & bass and beyond.

Much of the best electronic music rests along the axes of versatility and curiosity: being able to a pull a broad array of influences into your orbit and alchemise it into something distinctive and fresh. That's gyrofield to a tee.

Kiana Li began making waves in drum & bass as a teenager, years before setting foot in a club or experiencing the sound on a proper rig. That's a key factor which helps explain how the deeply-considered, Hong Kong-born producer arrived at a style that eludes easy description. Li, one of the foremost trans women working in drum & bass today, marshals complex rhythms like a sluice and has a knack for detailed bass programming that floods the stereo field without ever dominating it.

2024's spellbinding These Heavens was the apotheosis of an already quietly prolific catalogue; we named it the seventh best record of last year, but in truth, it could have actually nudged up a bit higher.

Li's RA Podcast is a blur of rapid motion, featuring stalwarts (Dillinja, Skee Mask, Calibre, upsammy, Marcus Intalex), contemporary limelights (Nestax, Ehua, Aquarian, Maude Vôs), 17 of their own productions and a grip of truly uncommon selections, like Burnt Friedman & João Pais Filipe's "18-140." It's an ambitious mix from one of the most exciting talents at the vanguard of outer-zonal club music right now.

@gyrofieldmusic

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/987

Deep house with heaps of soul to guide spring into summer.

"House music to me is about emotion… it's about how it moves you," says Suze Phaff, better known as Suze Ijó. Emerging from a thriving Dutch scene, Ijó belongs to a generation of DJs reshaping dance culture from the ground up, restoring soul and musicality to the centre of house music. It's a conversation happening not just in her home town of Rotterdam, but globally, among kindred spirits like MUSCLECARS and Dee Diggs in New York, Errol and Alex Rita of Touching Bass in London, and OMOLOKO in Belo Horizonte.

You could call Ijó a deep house DJ, but it's much deeper than that. Her sets embody house music in its most musical sense, rich in nimble percussion, woodwinds, calypso drums, gospel vocals, and romantic string sections. They channel the jazz-inflected heartbeat of the East Coast, the breeze of Balearic shores, and the light-footed rhythms of the Caribbean.

As Ijó explains in her Q&A, her RA Podcast "hopefully feels like a loving embrace." Opening with Key Trunks Ensemble's "Calypso of House (Paradise Mix)," she sets a buoyant, life-affirming tone that carries through the next 90 minutes. As the mix unfolds, her affinity for timelessness is clear, with selections that hark back to the golden age of house, from Lonesome Echo Production's "Sweet Dream (Shrine Sweet Mix)" to the euphoric swell of Blaze's "Klubtrance."

Listening to RA.986, it's no surprise that The Loft—David Mancuso's legendary, much-missed New York party—serves as a key influence for Ijó. "He wasn't confined to just one genre but would just play 'good music' in the right context," she explains. "He allowed the music to breathe."

If ambient music is defined by its ability to breathe in and reflect its surroundings, then Ijó's RA Podcast is ambient in the truest, most human sense: a deep, enveloping soundscape that feels like sunrise, like community, like home—wherever you may choose to listen.

@suze_ijo

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/986

Relentless rhythms and Latin dance history, courtesy of the TraTraTrax innovator.

Percussion is, at the root, a conversation. It's about different instruments meeting each other, and interacting to form something bigger than the sum of its parts.

Few engage in this dialogue as boldly as Pablo De Vargas, AKA Uruguayan experimentalist Lechuga Zafiro, who draws from tradition, to make sounds like candombe and clave feel, well, completely new.

De Vargas' music reaches outward, building bridges between Montevideo and Bogotá, Tijuana, Berlin and beyond. He's a key figure in the hybridisation of Latin American club music, with releases on labels like NAAFI and an album on TraTraTrax.

His RA Podcast plays like a manifesto in motion. RA.985 opens with a recording of Jorginho Gularte, a Uruguayan composer, playing a jazz rhythm, from there, it expands: cuban guaguancó, Venezuelan drums, batida, tribal, techno—it's all here, stitched together with precision and intention.

De Vargas is also, crucially, reckoning with these roots. His 2018 EP Testigo confronted the colonial violence embedded in the history of the Río de la Plata. His sets are similarly alive with memory—asking, without nostalgia: what does it mean to inherit rhythm? Who gets to carry it forward?

He's also just a killer DJ, one of those rare artists who uses CDJs like an instrument. His sets are full of hot cues, delay FX and left turns. It's technical, but never cold. It’s, in a word, funky.

@lechugazafiro
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/985

A mix beamed in from the future by singeli's young star.

If singeli has a new era, DJ Travella is its leading light. At just 23 years old, the Tanzanian producer is pushing the genre into fast, frenetic and unmistakably futuristic territory. And while there aren't too many entries in the RA Podcast's 20-year history where you can say, "this has no parallel whatsoever," RA.984 shatters that assumption in style.

Singeli emerged from Dar es Salaam's underground in the early '00s, forged from limited resources and unlimited creativity. Producers looped and sped up taarab instrumentals using basic software like Virtual DJ, creating a sound that was chaotic, witty and lightning fast. With support from local studios like Sisso and Pamoja, singeli took root as the breakneck pulse of Tanzanian youth culture.

Travella—real name Hamadi Hassani—came up outside that infrastructure. He began producing music aged ten, self-taught and internet-savvy. By 2022, he was touring Europe with Kampala-based collective Nyege Nyege and gaining global attention for a distinct style he's dubbed "cyber-singeli."

Like gabber, hardcore and jungle before it, singeli is unapologetically go hard or go home. It's unique and utterly infectious. After all, what could possibly connect pop provocateur Arca to the late president of Tanzania? Not much—except singeli.

Travella's RA Podcast is a white-knuckle ride through this blistering sonic universe. It's wild and joyful yet controlled—a window into one of the most exciting young minds in global club music.

@user-643479850

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/984.

Tripped-out excursions through percussive club music with the Nowadays resident.

Ayesha Chugh, AKA Ayesha, makes club music that activates the body. The Brooklyn-based artist has spent the last few years carving out a distinct lane in modern club music. Her fusion of dubstep, techno and essential '90s rave elements into dynamite club tools that test and support dancers in equal measure. This time though, for her RA Podcast, Chugh purposefully tilts in a "more colorful wonky direction."

Since first turning heads with releases on labels like Fever AM and Kindergarten Records, she’s continued to refine a sound that feels both playful and punishing, marked by writhing basslines, rumbling drums and an innate ability to make bodies move. Her productions capture a kind of kinetic precision—tracks that are slippery yet forceful, balancing psychedelic textures with dubstep-like physicality and club-focused power. As Andrew Ryce wrote of her debut, Rhythm is Memory, her skill is "full of textures that wrap around the otherwise thudding, sub-heavy kick drums." After a serious accident in 2024 stopped her in her tracks, this year marks a full return to global touring with a new vantage point on life and the sound she seeks to push.

RA.983, clocking in at nearly two and a half hours, finds Chugh flexing that club muscle once again. Offering a tour through global club music both old and new, it's based around a set at her home base Nowadays this February. It's a patient but relentless ride: from deep, tunneling psytrance, progressive techno and slippery electro before really turning on the gas at the half mark, moving into slanted UK techno territory.

As she explains in the Q&A, it's a carefully curated selection of tracks that probes "what we perceive as tasteful." It's a mix that speaks to her deep knowledge of dance music’s lineage—and her intuitive ability to push it forward.

@aye5ha
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/983

Another Barker masterclass.

Sam Barker asks more from techno. The artist known simply as Barker is one of electronic music's most consistently conscientious and curious producers, challenging listeners to question the norms we accept about our shared culture—whether it's the music that fills the room, the process behind it, or the purpose of the space itself.

British-born yet based in Berlin since 2007, Barker forged a connection to many of the city's leading institutions, including Ostgut Ton, and over the course of a long and fruitful relationship, he carved out one of the more singular paths on the club and label's roster.

Not one for orthodoxy, Barker challenged four-to-the-floor techno framework in favor of melodic experimentation. By decentering or completely stripping away the typical trappings of kick drums and claps, his productions are both light and immersive, buoyant in low-end presence and shimmering in weightless space.

Six years after Utility, his sophomore album Stochastic Drift arrives this month. Shaped by pandemic-driven reinvention, it burrows deeper into harmonic twists and freeform drift. "At some point I became conscious of the process," he wrote of his latest album. "The only thing you can do is embrace the uncertainty and see every change as a potential positive.”

Consider his RA Podcast another sequel. Like his much-beloved 2019 mix for FACT, it's a collage of live recordings and a fitting expression of the artist's own internal spring. RA.982 radiates wide-eyed optimism: percussion cloaked in foggy, swirling pads and trance-like chords, neatly synched in synthetic glimmers.

All in all, it's an hour of music crafted for contemplation, collective euphoria, or heads-down epiphany—or for that matter, any moment, really, its emotive depth seemingly endless.

@voltek

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/982

Big feelings for big rooms with the Club Heart Broken founder.

Club Heart Broken is perhaps a misnomer. The party and label, founded in Cologne by MALUGI, may take its name from one of life's tougher emotions, but the vibe is all about unfettered, unadulterated joy.

It's a state of mind its founder fully embodies—he's called himself the "happiest man in dance music." (We tried fact-checking this, but watching him perform seems proof enough.)

Club Heart Broken's motto is simple: a party should be fun. A "party for lovers, loners and losers," the crew also made up of ferrari rot, SURF 2 GLORY and fellow maximalist Marlon Hoffstadt, represent the sound of young Berlin in the 2020s, notorious as they are beloved.

Since relocating from Cologne, the party has snapped the German's capital infamously serious techno stereotype with its anything-goes, unpretentious music policy. It's made him and Hoffstadt especially in-demand worldwide—queues used to extend out of the door of Watergate and across Oberbaumbrücke.

Musically, MALUGI is the most eclectic in the crew. His metaphorical record bag carries a lot of label material, from zingy Eurodance to upbeat pumpers, but also plenty of steppy, tuff UK bass music. Releases from Main Phase and Interplanetary Criminal, the likes of dubplate label ec2a, and even the odd Big Ang record pepper his sets, much of which you'll hear here.

MALUGI's RA Podcast is a window into the more house-y side of his sound. From bubbling garage to chunky chords, RA.981 is a testament to MALUGI's belief: the best parties should leave you grinning, not crying.

@malugienergy

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/981.

Modern hypnotics from a new techno star.

It's a tale as old as time: techno DJ moves to Berlin to chase a dream. Philippa Pacho is part of the latest wave of talent to tread that familiar path. But don't let that fool you. She's one of the classiest artists around—no TikTok gimmicks here.

Pacho's formative years were spent in her native Stockholm, navigating a vibrant DIY party scene that included warehouse raves and illegal parties. She eventually took up a long-standing residency at beloved local club Under Bron and the experience, as she details in this week's Q&A, sharpened her technical skills, teaching her to handle every type of set—whether opening with patience, supporting a headliner or closing with finesse. She also played with countless touring DJs, from Answer Code Request to Antony Parasole, which ultimately inspired her move to Berlin.

That relocation has firmly paid off. It's a testament to Pacho's talent that you'll find her playing pretty much every big club and festival across Europe, from Berghain and Dekmantel to FOLD and Monument (we were exhausted just looking at her upcoming listings on RA). Other recent highlights include closing out Bassiani's tenth birthday, and back-to-backs with Fadi Mohem and Sandrien.

Pacho's RA Podcast showcases her preference for classy, hypnotic techno, striking a balance between muscle and subtle groove. Her aptitude for what makes dance floors tick is also evident on her two labels—Phorum Records and positivesource (co-run with Blue Hour)—both of which mirror her DJ style, blending intensity with delicate textures. positivesource has released several standout records, including this year's "Psycho" by BLANKA and Phil Berg's "Psyckik" (which you'll hear on this mix).

Spanning 70 minutes, RA.980 is a window into Pacho's thoroughly modern sound (the oldest track is from 2018). And yet it retains a refined, sweeping quality. Give it a spin and you'll soon twig why she's in demand on dance floors worldwide.

@philippapacho

Read the interview and find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/980

Mesmerising dance floor tapestries from a singular experimental musician.

Can you reinvent the human voice? The oldest musical instrument in existence, our voices are the foundation of music as we know it, and few push its limits in electronic music today like Lyra Pramuk. On her masterful debut, Fountain the Berlin-based, US-born artist's voice was the only instrument. No drums, no synths—just her voice warped, synthesized and layered to achieve orchestral-like electronics.

Five years on from her breakout, Pramuk's practice has steadily evolved, with a continued interest in ideas of folk and futurism, and how technology can enable us to build community beyond boundaries of time and space. There’s a holistic nature to her artistry, one that extends seamlessly into her DJing.

As she explains in the Q&A accompanying this week's RA Podcast, she sees her work as "part of a continuum of sacred, folkloric, and communal music represented by many different subcultures and communities across the world."

It's an approach that, like much of Pramuk's output, feels explicitly choral in nature. The first voice we hear on the mix comes from Lonnie Holley, his woozy Southern drawl calling out, "Earth will be there to catch us when we fall." (Although, you have to wonder, if we keep flogging the Earth, will it?)

More voices follow across an eye-catching tracklist, from the poetry of friends (Nadia Marcus) to esoteric French chantresses from the ’80s (Anne Gillis), while Pramuk wraps an extensive amount of her own forthcoming material around tracks from SD Laika, Leyland Kirby, rRoxymore and 33EMYBW, to name just a few.

By the end, voice and noise become indistinguishable—stammering, glitchy vocals colliding with an orchestra of instruments. The effect is mesmerising.

Unfolding as one continuous composition, RA.979 exists somewhere between an ambient set at Kwia and the main stage at Unsound, voices and textures blurred into a fluid tapestry of sound. It's a singular offering to the series from a singular artist.

@lyra_songs

Read the interview and find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/980

Regis and Function's first mix in over 10 years is a unique paean to Silent Servant, heavy on unreleased material.

When it came time for RA to compile our Albums of the 2010s, one record with a tauntingly limited availability of 500 copies was never in doubt: Sandwell District's era-defining 'Feed-Forward'. Encompassing Karl O'Connor (Regis), Peter Sutton (Female), David Sumner (Function) and Juan Mendez (Silent Servant), Sandwell District had the underground in a vice grip for over a decade.

The collective imploded in 2013, with Sumner and O'Connor's relationship appearing beyond repair. And yet, an unlikely second phase is here, featuring imminent comeback LP 'End Beginnings' and their return to the RA Podcast after 16 years. In 2023, the trio of Function, Regis and Silent Servant had been performing and laying down new material before the latter's shock death last January. It's in the shadow of loss that this unique mix was forged.

Founded in 2002 as a spiritual sister to seminal Downwards, Sandwell truly began to hit its straps in the late '00s, as shadow-stalking cuts sliced through clubland orthodoxy like a switchblade. In parallel, the label's artwork—a noir recombination of Burroughs cut-ups, DIY zines and arthouse amour that Silent Servant made his own—helped fortify a movement which placed an aesthetic premium on grit, grain and sadism.

By the early 2010s, this fixation on the dark arts had utterly permeated the mood inside techno's masonic temples. Labels like Blackest Ever Black, Stroboscopic Artefacts, Avian and Modern Love were in their pomp, razorwire legends like Severed Heads and Chris & Cosey benefited from second winds, and it was briefly a jailable offence to not have a press photo in black and white. 'Feed-Forward' was the exceptional coronating statement.

RA.978 features a stack of unheard recordings from each of the trio, as well as close allies Stefanie Parnow and Tropic of Cancer, while also gathering many of Silent Servant's all-time favourite songs, including Psychic TV, Grace Jones and Galaxie 500. It's a strikingly vulnerable listen, one without many parallels on the Podcast. We're glad to run it. – Gabriel Szatan

Read more and find the tracklist here: ra.co/podcast/978
Read our new feature with Sandwell District here: https://ra.co/features/4426

Raucous club jams from the trio setting pace for a new generation of electronic fans: Dazegxd, gum.mp3 & Swami Sound, AKA EldiaNYC.

Something exciting is happening on the margins of online club music. As one generation ages out, another, predominantly made up of Zoomers and Zillennials who fell into rave music mid-pandemic or arrived via gaming, is on the rise. Some of the most dialled-in electronic fans out there have threadbare connection to formalised nightlife, filling their diet instead with DJ Ess, Jane Remover, Jet Set Radio and a thriving ecosystem of global splinter styles that would draw stares from anyone who settled into their preferences pre-2019.

Leading the charge—while pointedly reaffirming the value of connection as they go—are EldiaNYC, whose combination of jungle, garage, vintage Black American dance music, regional rap and screen-glued splinter styles hits like a shot of adrenaline. Swami Sound broke first with sexy drill-laced 2-step edits, and last year we named gum.mp3's "Black Life, Red Planet" as one of our favourite records—but it could have just as easily been Dazegxd's breaks-splicing "exhibition mode" instead.

Eldia stack sets on radio and at parties with startlingly-fresh producers, many still in their teens. This might also be the only RA Podcast to fold in soulful ghettotech from Mr De', head-in-the-clouds plugg from rising star 454, edits of both Bounty Killer and Toro Y Moi, and multiple names (Guido YZ, synta3x, DJ B) who haven't registered on the series before.

With one eye on the occasion, Eldia tip their hats to lineage, too. The trio kick off with a double scoop of Fred P, before ramping up steadily through slick forthcoming material and ironclad modern anthems on their way to a crescendo of footwork chops, baile drums and breakbeat delirium.

Leaders of a new wave in the US, it surely won't be long before Daze, gum and Swami have swept the international circuit. For now, RA.977 will leave your subs smoking.

@dazegxd
@eldia000
@masutaswami
@gum_mp3

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/977

21st century electro-futurism, Helsinki style.

Sometime around a decade ago, electro started to surge onto dance floors again. A new generation of DJs, from Helena Hauff and DJ Stingray, brought the sci-fi, cyborg funk to new audiences, as a modern retool of the style began enjoying the ubiquity of its four-to-the-floor cousins. And few embody its future for our current decade like Sunny Seppä, AKA Sansibar.

Cutting his teeth in Helsinki's underground with residencies at Kaiku and Post Bar, Seppä's sound draws from a broad range of influences far from the Finnish capital. His first releases channeled the high-definition Motor City school of electro, but he has since evolved.

Not one to be confined by the narrow confines of any genre, the Finnish producer and DJ's discography has steadily begun to encompass a wider palette of influences, including releases with fellow new-gen electro artist Reptant.

It's no wonder Seppä has found a home on Kalahari Oyster Cult. Sans Musique was released by Rey Colino's label, and both are united by a love for an amalgamation of gritty and ecstatic sounds of the '90s. As Colino put it himself, the Cult espouses "nostalgia with a modern sound design."

You can hear that peppered throughout Seppä's RA Podcast. From Simulant's stone-cold classic "Wav.Form" to shades of tech house from the late '90s and early '00s (as well as some of his own unreleased material), the full vision of his broad sound world comes alive on RA.976. You won't technically hear too much electro in this mix—but underscoring many of the selections is the retro-futurism that electro elicits, that bleary-eyed optimism of dance music's halcyon era.

@sunnysibar
@sin-sistema-sin

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/976

The in-demand US DJ unfurls dubby, dance floor poetry.

Where does sentimentality fit on the dance floor? For Liv Klutse, AKA livwutang, the answer is everywhere. The New York-based DJ is guided by a deep desire to stir connection, finding themes and points of correspondence across an impressively broad range of sounds, tempos and eras.

This emotional intuition lends Klutse's sets a depth few others can match. Her selections can seem unpredictable, rooted in an appreciation for feeling over genre—hard and soft sounds are carefully balanced with surrealism and bursts of nostalgia (for instance, the Lazy Dog bootleg edit of Everything But The Girl's "Tracey In My Room"). But as versatile as she is, a few signature traits colour her style, such as a love for dubwise music and rhythms from across the Black diaspora, alongside a refreshingly introspective energy that invites dancers to find moments of meditation—even during peak time.

A former staffer at our New York office, Klutse has long merited an RA Podcast. Her slow-burning blends and mystical selections have graced near-enough every major festival and club out there, from Dekmantel and Sustain-Release to Nowadays, where she's been a resident since 2022. Despite this cross-continental touring schedule, she still plays plenty of grassroots venues—testament to her days with TUF collective and Orphan Radio in Seattle, as well as her enduring belief in the power of DIY, community-orientated dance music.

"How did you come down off life?" James Massiah asks at the beginning of RA.975. Across nearly 90 minutes, Klutse's downright beautiful mix seeks answers to this question, reflecting on hedonism in times of political decay. She's in full-on dub mode, moving through meditative bassweight, glitchy house and flat-out weirdo techno with a deftness we've come to expect from one of the most promising, singular voices in dance music right now. She's got there all on her own terms—and we couldn't be prouder.

@livwutang

Read more and find the tracklist ra.co/podcast/975

Three hours of high-intensity heaters from the trio lighting up US club music.

"If the baby boomer generation had the three from Belleville, millennials can say…we have Black Rave Culture." Lofty praise from Spain's WOS Festival, and yet the undeniable buzz surrounding the Washington, D.C. trio of Amal, James Bangura and Nativesun makes it feel merited.

The Black Rave Culture experience is physical from start to finish. The trio's glide through the rich canon of Black dance music is, naturally, a huge chunk of the appeal. You can hear them slamming ghettotech into gqom, threading UK garage through East Coast club, stitching antic juke and swung techno, and landing the odd Mad Mike all-timer with flair.

Their productions mine a similar store of energy, and you'll find plenty of those on RA.974 too. Perhaps most importantly, their tangible chemistry and sincere, undimmed enthusiasm for tunes are what makes this group so magnetic.

While their RA Podcast is split threeways, it could just as easily be a round-robin session behind the decks. RA.974 is an exhilarating exercise in creating serious dance floor pressure while having a ball in the process.

@black-rave-culture @jamesbangura @dj-nativesun @ama_l

Read more at ra.co/podcast/974

Kaleidoscopic psychedelia from one of Australia's finest.

While it might feel early to call bets on DJs of the decade, Kia Sydney, best known as Kia, is undoubtedly one of them. The Animalia founder began in Naarm's (Melbourne) underground scene in the mid-2010s, crediting a trip to the influential deep techno Japanese festival, Labyrinth, as the inspiration behind her sound.

Deep techno might not cut it as a descriptor for Sydney's sound, though. Hypnotic ribbons of steely techno mix with atmospherics and nimble grooves, drawing from IDM, dub and tech house, sharing as much with DJ Nobu and Donato Dozzy (try to find the track that overlaps with Dozzy's own RA Podcast) as well as modern practitioners like Priori and Beatrice M.

This distinctly Australian scuttling psychedelia has made Kia one of the most sought-after underground DJs globally. Her brainchild, Animalia, showcases a plurality of sounds and scenes, serving as living proof of the fruitful shift of the 2020s: less serious, perhaps, but with a sense of open-minded worldliness that offers a far more promising vision of what dance music can be and achieve.

Sydney's rare talent lies in forging connections, bringing people, sounds and ideas together with a distinct playfulness. Her RA Podcast showcases this alchemy in abundance, weaving classics like Monolake and Enya with peers such as OK EG, Cousin and Command D.

As she told us in her 2023 Breaking Through profile, "people tell me I have quite a distinctive sound but I can't tell so much because I hear so many different versions of it." RA.973 serves as confirmation that Kia's style is, to say the least, the mark of a generational talent.

@kia-sydney @animalia-label @cirruslabel

Read more at ra.co/podcast/973

Party-starting stompers from a crossover star.

Even if you've never met Adam Longman Parker, AKA Afriqua, you can get to know him pretty well through his music. His lyrics ("Would you house me in a house, would you house right in my mouth?" from "Dr. House"), track titles ("Wagwan Bhagwan?") and cover art exude a charmingly cheeky demeanour that makes his music personable. It helps that his latest records are absolute smashers–funk bombs with jacked beats and bouncy grooves.

Once ensconced in the minimal world, the Virginia-born artist gravitated towards Miami bass, Midwest house and zesty techno before the pandemic. Thankfully so: his recent discography combines Moodymann's slinky swagger with The Neptunes' killer sense of rhythm. Just like those legendary acts, Parker carries weight in both the underground and mainstream—he's released with Tomorrowland label CORE Records and DJ'd at Ibiza superclubs, while still appealing to more headsy crowds.

His career expansion hasn't cost him his principles, either. A champion of Black history and culture, the classically-trained pianist infuses overlooked Black musical traditions like psyfunk into his work. Coloured, his debut full-length, was a tribute to what he called the "Black musical tree."

"Genre is just temporary housing," the now Berlin-based producer noted in a recent Instagram post. That mentality informs his RA Podcast. From '90s-inspired house and luxurious harp melodies to some of his originals and even a "Satisfaction" remix, it's a celebration of unpretentious, feel-good music. Put simply, it slaps—hard.

@afriqua

Read more at ra.co/podcast/972

Enter the wormhole with one of the techno artists we're most excited about in 2025.

Born in Osaka and now based in Tokyo, DJ MARIA. joins a decorated lineage of Japan's psychedelic elite, cut from a similarly explorative cloth as Wata Igarashi, Haruka and esoteric icons ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U and DJ Nobu. This nerdy sanctum of deep techno is a notoriously hard world to break into: only the very best make the grade. DJ MARIA.'s head-spinning sets emphasise why she's already part of the club firmament at home, and is now in the midst of a global breakthrough.

Her trademark is tapestries of acid, trance and techno that strike a perfect balance between vibrancy, impact and restraint. She bit the bug through a teenage discovery of DVDs showing legendary psytrance raves like Solstice and Vision Quest, yet it wasn't until 2014 that she started DJing, balancing gigs with shifts at Tokyo's Face Records and, as of late, motherhood.

Today, as well as producing and touring venues such as FOLD and Bassiani, she helps run two boutique forest festivals—Moment and Transcendence—both of which play a big part in upholding Japan's storied techno tradition. DJ MARIA. has reached these heights principally because of her exceptional talent as a DJ, which is on full display on this week's RA Podcast.

The two-hour mix is pure manna for psychedelic techno heads, though we're confident the depth of feeling, subtle pacing and seamless stitching will lure in fans from across the electronic spectrum. RA.971 is a total treasure—the latest wow moment from an artist destined to have a career littered with them.

@djmaria-jp

Read more at ra.co/podcast/971

The Dekmantel favourite kicks off 2025 in an exploratory mood.

Since her breakout in 2017, Thessa Thorsing has built an enviable CV: a debut release on Nous'klaer Audio, an album on Dekmantel and a residency at former Amsterdam clubbing institution De School. Over these years, she's honed a singular sound, navigating wild variations in tempo and mood that dance along the edges of techno, IDM and drum & bass (we could list many more, but you know the drill).

Her creative arc has seen her delve into ever more abstract concepts, such as 2024's ambient-leaning album, Strange Meridians, exploring the interplay between synthetic and natural textures through drumless experimentations. As she explained in her 2018 RA Breaking Through profile, "I just want to hear the weirdness in the music."

Thorsing's RA Podcast showcases exactly why she's one of the most consistently adventurous names in dance music. Describing it as "a mix with a narrative," the former landscape architecture student flexes her ability to build sonic environments, beginning in a landscape more akin to a swamp than a club.

Across 90 minutes, she moves through numerous layered terrains, exploring everything from Skee Mask's lucid, beatless techno to the piercing acid of Mike Parker. Unfolding with a restless sense of curiosity, RA.970 captures an artist challenging the boundaries of electronic music, ever upward.

@upsammy

Read more at ra.co/podcast/970

Ring in 2025 with a three-hour flex from a hero of UK club culture.

They don't make DJs like Lukas Wigflex anymore. The Nottingham DJ and promoter has a love for UK club culture that borders on the unfathomable—and he does it all with a gusto that is unmistakably, one hundred percent pure Lukas.

Wigflex started out as a "Wigflex Wednesdays," a free bar night in Nottingham with two-for-one pizzas to hook punters in. In the 19 years since, it has grown into one of the UK's most established party series, welcoming dance music giants while still championing homegrown talent. Recalling its journey from a modest bar night to powerhouse party, he told Stamp The Wax: "I created a mixtape and called it Wigflex 2000. It all just evolved naturally from that."

"Evolved naturally" is, perhaps, too modest. In an increasingly hostile operating environment, it's hard to overstate the achievement of Wigflex's longevity, a testament to his tenacity and distinctive spirit. Who else, let's be honest, could get away with taglining their event, "Survival of the Wrongest." But don't let the tongue-and-cheek persona fool you, mind—he's deadly serious about tunes.

His RA Podcast is a window into what Wigflex is all about: electro in all its shades, from the Hauffian to the Drexciyan, alongside wigged-out EBM and a healthy amount of Wigflex classics.

Even if you didn't know it was coming from him, you would certainly get the impression it sounds a lot like somebody who adores dance music. What better way to ring in the New Year?

@wigflex

Read more at ra.co/podcast/969

A wintry collage from one of 2024's breakout stars.

As far as crossover electronic success goes, Barry Can't Swim's 2024 scorecard would take some beating. His singles have racked up hundreds of millions of streams, he bagged a Mercury Prize nomination and has the range to both pack out festivals as a DJ and sell out tours worldwide with a string-accented live show.

Barely 12 months on from the release of debut album "When Will We Land?", it's fair to say Josh Mannie is one of the most in-demand artists working in dance and electronic music right now, with a follow-up LP nearly done, he says.

For RA.968, he pulls in the complete opposite direction from any of that. Sure, there are nods to Mark Leckey and late-night jazz haunts throughout his catalogue, and the ruminative clouds drifting across his signature golden-hour glow do suggest an artist with a sharp grasp on meteorological melancholy. But a beatless collage featuring Suso Sáiz, Slow Attack Ensemble and Lorenzo Senni? It's a surprise, and a welcome one at that.

Speckled with exclusive airings of brand-new ambient material, Barry Can't Swim's RA Podcast charts a path from This Mortal Coil to Ryuichi Sakamoto, with a detour through some Linkwood and Anthony Naples deep cuts we've not heard for a good while. (He even includes a Stars of the Lid favourite which namechecks Fulham's home ground, an act of mid-table grace for the diehard Everton fan).

RA.968 has the crackle of a frosty night walk set to tape—a holiday gift from one of the most popular acts in the game. 'Tis the season.

@barrycantswim

Read more at ra.co/podcast/968

A lesson in rhythm from a former De School resident.

When it comes to minimalist dance music, Ruben Üvez, AKA Konduku, is one of the best in the game right now. With a masterful and ever-shapeshifting understanding of rhythm, the Berlin-based artist crafts sublime dance music with a staunchly leftfield bent. Don't just take our word for it: how many DJs, after all, can claim to have moved De School to a puddle of tears?

Musically, Üvez is hard to pin down. He's often billed as a techno artist, but actually you'll find his sound sits outside of the genre's many conventions. With an outsider's curiosity, he leans into diverse moods, tempos and genres, though one throughline is always how he arranges his drums. Whether it be deep, Nobu-core techno such as 2023's Hayal EP or UK beat science á la Peverelist on 2019's Gegek, he leads with rhythm across his DJing and production. The end product is a hypnotic, one-of-a-kind sound that hits the body before the brain has time to catch up. In short, it slaps.

As Üvez's RA Podcast demonstrates, he's got a serious knack for crafting and selecting tunes that can deeply captivate a dance floor. Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, RA.967 is an excursion through a timeless sound, packed with long, layered blends, flick-of-the-wrist transitions, locked grooves and spine-tingling atmospherics. In 2020, we called Ruben Üvez one of techno's brightest new talents. This mix sees him ascending to a seat at the top table.

@kondukukonduku

Read more at ra.co/podcast/967

One of Mexico City's key players in session.

Paulina Rodriguez, AKA Paurro, came to club music relatively late in life. It took hold of her for the first time when she was in her twenties, during a chance visit to the legendary London institution, fabric, in 2008. One look at her CV today would confirm that she's definitely made up for the late start.

Sixteen years later, Rodriguez has worn nearly every hat in the industry, from radio programming, label management and PR to residencies at Mexico City's finest clubs. Nowadays, she's just as hard to pin down as ever, with a global reach: she currently holds a residency with Munich's Radio8000 and tours extensively across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

The House of Paurro, her party series, is much like its globetrotting founder: this year alone it's hosted events at Tresor in Berlin, Making Time in Philadelphia and Public Records in New York City. Oh yeah and don't forget, she's also producing absolute bangers, such as 2022's "Galavision," in the moments in between. It sounds like a lot, but you get the feeling the sky really is the only limit for Paurro.

Rodriguez's journey wasn’t without struggle. She's openly addressed challenges like breaking into the industry as a Mexican artist and facing sexual harassment. Today, she's a champion of community-focused global club culture, embodying optimism and ambition.

At the heart of it all: sharing unabashed joy, wherever that may be. Her RA Podcast is no different—it's a joyride through the House of Paurro, weaving together influences spanning a rich fusion of UK, Latin and truly borderless sounds.

@paurrro
ra.co/podcast/966

The producer best known as Huerco S. accompanies One Day, our record of the year, with two hours of minimal and dub introspections.

This summer, Kansas-raised DJ and producer Brian Leeds released One Day under his revived Loidis alias. Enamoured with the restrained, loopy sounds of early '00s dance music, the album’s eight tracks linger in the air, luxuriating in dubbed-out chords, swung beats and sub vibrations. It's our favourite record of 2024 for a reason.

It's a sound he's coined, in his typically teasing fashion, "dub mnml emo tech." All winks aside, it’s no wonder One Day became the soothing balm we all needed. In a scene overwhelmed by hard and fast trends, the softer—and Leeds might argue, more sincere—stylings of minimal and dub techno enjoyed a welcome second wind.

Not only was One Day one of our favourites of the year (more on that this week), but it also inspired us to break our usual no-repeats rule, inviting Leeds back to the RA Podcast under a different alias after his 2019 turn as Huerco S.

"The prevailing trends in dance music are more and more maximalist," Leeds noted. "I missed restraint, subtlety, and sensuality." Clocking in at just under two hours, RA.965 embodies that ethos in spades.

@huerco_s

Read more at ra.co/podcast/965

The longtime Perlon affiliate goes for big basslines and big grooves.

It's 1996, and a young Fumiya Tanaka is shelling out hefty yet minimal percussive techno at Club Rockets in Osaka to an audience enraptured. Released as Mix-Up, the 90-minute recording captures Tanaka sounding rather like Jeff Mills or Surgeon. It's far cry from the sound he's known for today.

Fumiya Tanaka's creative arc has seen him move away from these thunderous sounds to warmer shades of house and minimal. Since 2016, he's found a home on the inimitable German minimal label, crafting out a distinctive sound within the labels roster with an affection for tumbling basslines and spooky atmospheres.

From 1996 to 2023, Tanaka ran a party series in Tokyo, Osaka and Berlin called "Chaos," which encapsulates the ethos of freedom Tanaka brings to a party. "When you hear music you've never heard before and encounter unknown territory, you will be so happy and totally absorbed," he told us back in 2019. "I want to keep that feeling."

RA.964 achieves exactly that. Nearly three decades removed from his burst onto the scene, and after a good few years of asking, Tanaka's RA Podcast captures him in full house mode. Recorded at a Slapfunk party in Manchester, the Perlon maestro keeps the vibe funked-up, chunky and warm, punctuated by the occasional big breakdown and the odd lick of garage rudeness. No tracklist for now—but as Tanaka knows well, half the fun lies in the mystery.

@fumiyatanaka_official

Read more at ra.co/podcast/964

Punk house and techno from a modern Midwest icon.

Every DJ has their own genesis story: a pivotal sound, a formative scene, a defining philosophy. In Kiernan Laveaux's case, her philosophy, rooted in psychedelia and experimentation, sets her apart. Inspired by Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and New Order, she came of age in Cleveland’s acid house and queer party scenes, developing an ethos that constantly pushes dance music’s limits. Her DJ style is scrambled (in the best way), with zany tricks like scratching, creative EQing and modulation.

This approach reflects the Midwest's DIY tradition, where artists thrive in isolation and cultivate a radical disobedience, as seen in contemporaries like Eris Drew and ADAB. As Laveaux recounted in a 2023 interview with GROOVE Magazin, "Titonton Duvante once told me that being a Midwest DJ is about playing music from anywhere and making it sound like a piece of your spirit."

Spanning two and a half hours, Laveaux's RA Podcast showcases this spirit. It’s a testament to her decade-long career, blending tracks from friends and cherished memories into a transcendent mix. It’s "music to shake your hips to and decalcify your pineal gland." (For the curious, the pineal gland helps regulate your circadian rhythm.) RA.963 will make you dance and think in equal measure—a beautiful, restless and resolutely wicked journey through a singular imagination.

@kiernan-laveaux

Read more at ra.co/podcast/963

A dubstep legend roars back.

When dubstep ruled the roost in the late '00s, electronic music had no shortage of icons and spinoff variants to rally around. But one rumble from Bristol stood out: the Purple sound. Popularised by Joker, AKA Liam Mclean, with Guido and Gemmy in support, it hit like a beam of bright light flooding through the basement dank.

When America cottoned onto bass quakes in the next decade, Mclean's taste for chiptune-coded synths and maximum intensity kept his vision alive at arena level, even while he retreated from view as an actively touring performer.

In 2023, "Tears," a collaboration with Skrillex and Sleepnet, helped remind the world just how much Joker's juddering sound could put us in a headlock. True to form, this year's gargantuan "Juggernaut"—Mclean's first solo single in six years—crashes through the speakers with as much glorious crunch as earlier classics like 2009's "Purple City."

Mclean has kept busy in the studio applying his perfectionist streak as a producer and engineer to many sound system anthems, which means his influence is never far from a dance floor being turned inside out. The fact that Joker had never laid down an RA Podcast before was, being honest, a blemish in our copybook. RA.962 fixes that in style.

@jokerkapsize

Read more at ra.co/podcast/962

Dubstep-tech hybrids from one of 2024's most forward-thinking breakouts.

Born in France to English parents, Beatrice M. is a product of two environments. And like many third culture kids, this lends the Rinse France resident and Bait label head a knack for seeing the realm of possibility beyond arbitrary borders and binaries.

Beatrice M. is a part of a wider cohort of artists spearheading an elastic take on dubstep: take Carré and Introspekt in the US, EMA in Dublin and Mia Koden in London, to name a few. Collectively, they are not only pushing greater representation and diversity, but ensuring a broader palette of sounds find home within the genre's renaissance.

Where dubstep got trapped down a brostep cul-de-sac in the early 2010s, 2020s already seems to be all about a charming phrase Beatrice M. employs: siblingstep. Their RA Podcast, a "full femme, non-binary, trans productions set," is testament to that.

RA.961 finds Beatrice M. embracing the softer, more intimate edges of their sonic world. There's cuts from Grace Jones and rRoxymore, a fresh tech-house venture under the alias B. McQueen and heaps of siblingstep. All in, it's an hour of past reverberations, present rhythms and glimmers of future horizons.

@beatricemasters

Read more at ra.co/podcast/961

A new record for the longest RA Podcast ever: Ten hours from the powerhouse duo sweeping techno, Chlär and Alarico.

Both commanding performers in their own right, sparks fly when the Swiss-Italian duo of Funk Assault combine. The buzz surrounding their productions, DJing and their label Primal Instinct is at fever pitch, and short wonder: when it comes to gritty, high-impact sets that barrel through multiple shades of techno, few are in their league right now.

RA.960 was laid down at Watergate this March during a signature Funk Assault marathon. The pair ramp up incrementally, and even before they hit top velocity, you can hear them ripping through records with tenacity and verve. You don't need elbows in your face to tell the place is rocking.

We're informed that ID'ing the set would probably take longer than playing it (fair enough), so no tracklist for this one. Instead, fill in the blanks at your leisure. As well as 150+ BPM stompers and groove wormholes, there's everything from tribal to ballroom, electro to bassbin rattlers, and plenty of classics.

As an encapsulation of a night out's full arc, RA.960 does the business—and best of all, you won't even need a trip to the bar for water. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

@primalinstinctrecords @funkassault_og @chlaer @alarico_katana

Read more at ra.co/podcast/960

Effervescent club cuts from one of Southeast Asia's rising DJ stars.

In Indonesia, the term santai (relaxed) is more than just an adjective—it's a lifestyle, one endearingly embodied by DITA. The New Delhi-born, Bali-rooted DJ's breezy attitude to life is reflected in dreamy, blissful euphoria.

DITA's RA Podcast is a window into both her disposition and sound, blending wiggly breakbeat into tweaking acid, Detroit house into Spanish electro, Balearic to '90s house and some grittier club fare, too. Her sets are rooted in a feel-good philosophy that allows her to freely play with energy and mood.

Don't just take our word for it: DJ Harvey hand-picked DITA to be a resident at his new club Klymax, nestled within the world-renowned Potato Head Bali, where DITA is also Head of Music. With gigs at everywhere from Panorama Bar (the first Indonesian woman to play) to Rainbow Disco Club and Dekmantel under her belt, the world is now taking notice of DITA's killer groove. A breakout 2025 surely beckons.

@dita-putri-widyanti @headstream

Read more at ra.co/podcast/959

A journey through 35 years of house from the godfather of UK rave.

In popular mythology, the '90s are without question, the halcyon days of dance music—an era of free raves and unadulterated hedonism. It's a myth that Matthew Nelson, AKA Slipmatt, knows better than most–he was there.

During the late '80s, as the rave scene in the UK began to boom, Nelson began moonlighting as a DJ. He would land his first residency at Raindance, the East London rave that launched in September 1989 and would become the UK's first legal rave. By 1991 , he'd reach number two in the UK charts with "On A Ragga Tip" as one-half of SL2 and two years later, sell over 10,000 copies of the first pressing of SMD#1.

Nelson has got a lot to share (as you'll see in his interview) so we'll let him do the talking. He's been variously called the godfather of rave and happy hardcore, but what you'll hear on RA.958 is as "a journey through my 35 years of house." A DJ with this much pedigree brings much more than that, of course: touching on the breakbeat, jungle and acid house that soundtracked that golden age, as well as nods to the rich cross-pollination with scenes beyond the UK, from Joey Beltram's "Energy Flash" to Stardust's "Music Sounds Better With You."

@slipmatt-1

Read more at ra.co/podcast/958

The singular Príncipe artist showcases her shapeshifting sound.

Before she was simply Nídia, Nídia Borges was Nídia Minaj. Modelled after a musical idol of hers, Nicki Minaj, in 2017, she shed the borrowed surname. As she later said in an interview with The New York Times, "Today I have my own identity. I'm not going to imitate something that someone has done already."

And Nídia couldn't be further from an imitator. As one of Príncipe's two non-male members, her body of work stands apart even within Príncipe's unique sonic universe. She traverses a broader emotional territory and extends to collaborations with Fever Ray, Kelela and Yaeji.

Her RA Podcast is a restless affair–60 minutes of pushing, pulling, tiptoeing and gliding through the sounds of the Príncipe universe. True to the label's communitarian foundations, the mix contains predominantly original and unreleased material from her colleagues.

In 2014, DJ Lilocox told RA: "Whatever your age, skin colour, sexual orientation, money in the wallet, clothes on: Noite Príncipe is for all who come to dance... forgetting the outside world." A decade on, RA.957 echoes this sentiment, a celebration of Príncipe's enduring magic: delirious, transcendent dancing for all.

@nidiasukulbembe

Read more at ra.co/podcast/957

Maximalist house from the sibling duo at the forefront of Berlin's new wave.

Berlin is built on dance music. But of the many DJs who live, work and play there, few represent the evolution in the city's club culture like Tania and Dominik Humeres-Correa, AKA S-candalo. If the city was once governed by the tyranny of minimal, the post-pandemic era has cemented its reputation as the spot for "more-is-more" club soundtracks. It's still house and techno, but the chords are big, the drums are big and the basslines are even bigger.

Nowadays, S-candalo are firm favourites at hotspots across the German capital, from Panorama Bar to Multisex and Radiant Love (not forgetting La Noche, their own burgeoning party). The duo find rich inspiration in '90s-era Latin house, a sound that takes New York house and incorporates rolling percussion from Latin genres such as samba, popularised on labels like Cutting Records and Strictly Rhythm (there's not one but two records from the latter in this mix).

RA.956 fittingly lands at the beginning of Hispanic Heritage Month in the US (more on that to come) and it's a resolutely fun affair. The duo's RA Podcast has got drive, sultry vocals and enough bounce to make you want to keep dancing way beyond the 90-minutes, marrying percussion-heavy house and ballroom with trance-inflected Eurodance from the '90s and early 2000s. (Oh, and a Shakira moment.)

Genres aside, the duo's musical raison d'etre is pleasure. Perhaps the real scandal here is how it took us so long to get them on the series.

@s-candalo @thc_dj @dhc_bln

Read more at ra.co/podcast/956

Living, breathing, banging techno from an artist defining the highly-textured new frontier of the sound in 2024.

Lindsey Wang, AKA Polygonia, has an amorphous style you could call organic—or, better yet, harmonious. She interweaves unfamiliar elements with a mercurial touch. Wang can make something completely otherworldly sound totally, well, natural. It's made her a fixture everywhere from Munich's BLITZ to major festivals like Sustain-Release and Draaimolen.

Unsurprisingly, Wang is not one to be pinned down. Be it the sound design-anchored side project Lyder, her own label QEONE, or co-producing an album's worth of experimental percussion alongside jazz drummer Simon Popp, it's fair to say her personal output matches the feverish energy of her mixes. There's multidisciplinary, and then there's Wang: Poly-disciplinary, you might say.

Wang's entry into the RA Podcast series is no different, another stellar emphasis of her artistry. RA.955 is a voyage into wild variations of texture, rhythm and feeling, guided along by the principle of endless metamorphosis. Supple driving grooves meet crinkled surfaces, scuttling hi-hats meet chattering sonics, and good luck keeping hold of a consistent drum pattern for long. Behold a living organism raised by the club and the great outdoors in equal measure.

@polygonia

Read more at ra.co/podcast/955

Three sizzling hours from the mind behind one of the world's best labels, Kalahari Oyster Cult.

What you'll hear on this week's RA Podcast is the closing slot of 2024's Organik Festival—already a coveted moment. But as the sun dipped on Taiwan's north coast, something else was going on: Rey Colino was laying down quite possibly the set of his life.

We're big fans of Colino, AKA Colin Volvert, here at RA. Few do it better when it comes to the type of pacy, lysergic thumpers that have become synonymous with both Kalahari and the distro One Eye Witness. A quick glance over the Belgian label's impressive alumni confirms how deeply his work flows through contemporary clubs.

On RA.954, Volvert's sharp ear and swaggering DJ style are on full display. He locks in with many shades of his record bag, alongside a grip of new and forthcoming KOC cuts—some so fresh, the ink on the deal is barely even dry. We could go into the particulars, but it's best to just get stuck in: this one's a deep, deliriously effective trip.

@reycolino @kalaharioystercult @oneyewitness @smokemachinetaipei

Read more at ra.co/podcast/954

In time for 9/9, here's… 999999999.

The Italian duo's reputation as a rave demolition crew has made them one of the most in-demand acts on the global circuit. Too nosebleed for 'business', and too close to Defqon.1-level hardstyle to be hard techno in the classic sense, 999999999's headline sets practically require a new category to convey the sense of scale: let's call it megatechno.

Following a string of unsubtle yet undeniably impactful hit records in the late 2010s, Carlo B. & Giovanni C. became fast favourites of a generation who prefer their 303 cranked to 11. Their rampant velocity arrived at the right moment, proving parallel compatibility with acid lifers and younger audiences making the leap from EDM to hard dance. Flash forward to 2024 and they're flanked by flamethrowers while mashing down colossal crowds at festivals like Awakenings.

Here, they purposefully strip it back and emphasise the core elements of the 9x9 formula—high drama, jackhammering kicks and the kind of tweaked-out acid air sirens that would make the likes of Hardfloor and Miss Djax scrunch their noses in approval. In other words, non-stop wrecking balls trained squarely at the foundations of a hangar near you.

@999999999music

Read more at ra.co/podcast/953

90 mins of Two Shell, live from Horst.

We've been angling for an RA Podcast from Two Shell ever since they shifted from lowkey producers into hijinx hackers rummaging around the dance music mainframe.

Now that we've bagged a mix from clubland's premier iconoclasts, it still poses more questions than it answers: Was this pre-recorded? What's the deal with that AI voice guiding the set along? How can we be sure it was even them? Hang on: is "even them" even them?

What we can tell you is that the duo floored RA's stage at Horst Arts & Music 2024. Few genres were left untarnished as they veered off-piste on a thrill seeking mission toward breaking the 170+ BPM speed barrier. No tracklist, so ID crew over to you (Alex Gaudino makes an appearance, you can have that one as a freebie.) True to form, Two Shell always do it their own way.

@twoshell @horstartsandmusicfestival

Read more at ra.co/podcast/952

Ask Berlin's network of revered deep diggers who their favourite "DJ's DJ" is, and there's a strong chance you'll hear one name immediately pop up: KRN.

Phil Kearney, AKA KRN, is one of those rare types who has built a reputation away from the limelight. Formerly a resident at The Ghost's Hoppetosse party as well as a Get Perlonized devotee (plus, full disclosure, reviewing events and working at RA in the mid-2010s), he's well-versed in both wiggle and waft. The hubbub around KRN can be put down to the fastidiousness of his approach: he unearths rare gems from the roots of the underground, before mixing it up with a deft hand.

Kearney's RA Podcast, sweetly subtitled "Dadhouse," is an ode to his partner and newborn, as well as a window into his personal palette. He starts in serene IDM territory, before shifting into playful grooves and tactile house oddities. Good lucking ID'ing many of the tunes—we asked for a tracklist but, deep down, already knew the answer. We know this, too: one listen and you'll be hooked.

@k_rn @theghost

Read more at ra.co/podcast/951

A glorious ode to sound system culture. For her RA Podcast, Brooklyn-based DJ Ayanna Heaven celebrates vibrations echoing down the ages, connecting seven decades of trailblazers and trendsetters. It's a soundtrack we've timed with an eye to that golden late summer run of Notting Hill Carnival, Brooklyn's West Indian Day Parade and several crucial dates in the Jamaican calendar.

Since 2020, the Brooklyn-based DJ, ethnomusicologist, dancehall advocate and promoter has held down two shows on the city's most popular stations: the monthly "Sounds of Heaven" on The Lot and biweekly "Across 110th Street" on WKCR. That's roughly 72 hours of radio every year. Light work for Heaven, though, whose sound traverses the limitlessly fertile ground of reggae, dancehall, funk, soul and beyond.

From Sly & Robbie, Aswad and Vybz Kartel through contemporary heaters and reskins of platinum-plated standards like "No Games" and "Sun Is Shining," RA.950 is a story of a thriving culture, grounded in the past yet with intentions set firmly on the future.

@ayanna-heaven

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/950

A roaring hour from one of the most vital talents in Naarm: First Nations producer Paul Gorrie, AKA DJ PGZ.

The Gunai/Kurnai and Yorta Yorta artist is a fixture of forward-thinking dance music in Australia, with releases on labels like Butter Sessions, Pure Space and !K7, as well as numerous club and festival gigs on the circuit. An international breakout moment for the Naarm (Melbourne)-based talent feels inevitable.

There's much to be said about the lack of visibility and support for Indigenous artists within the global electronic ecosystem, but at the root of all PGZ's disparate interests are community building and the advancement of marginalised peoples.

To that end, DJ PGZ's RA Podcast is notably laced with multiple cuts from Nene H's Gaza fundraising compilation. It's distinctly fresh—the oldest track you'll find is from 2022—as he gallops through Kalahari-style wigged-out prog and techno, through to harder drum syncopations. Consider this a firm tip from us: PGZ is the truth.

@dj-pgz

Read more at ra.co/podcast/949

Speedy percussion meets screwface basslines: the Parisian club maestros are in session.

Trying to find one word to describe the music of Amor Satyr and Siu Mata could run you into difficulty. But if we were to try, we'd reach for amphibian: slippery, nimble and evading borders with ease.

With solo and shared releases on labels like SSPB, HARDLINE, TraTraTrax and their own WAJANG, they have evident kinship with what moves contemporary dance floors. The pair are also linked to the rise of an alchemical style they like to call "speed dembow"—taking the looping rhythm of dembow before pitching it up to modern club tempos and adding muscle.

Combining tribal techno, baile funk, dubstep, jungle, dancehall and beyond, their RA Podcast makes for one hell of a ride, with over two hours of romping percussion, lysergic effects, high drama and plenty of wobble.

@amorsatyr @siumata

Read more at ra.co/podcast/948

What does great techno sound like in 2024? Enter LYDO. This week's RA Podcast captures @lydole in full flow, combining the old-school vernacular of European and North American techno—reduced rhythms, hi-hats and punchy 909s—with tracks from the new guard (Sev Dah, GiGi FM, D.Dan) sprinkled throughout.

After moving to New York in 2015, the Vietnamese-American sound artist and X-XTRA.SERVICES founder became one of BASEMENT's first residents; the scene built around the revered Queens club has helped nurture their adventurous sound. Lately they've been making waves beyond North America, playing with the MARICAS crew in Barcelona and locking down slots at De School, Bassiani and Draaimolen.

RA.947 is the sound of artful hypnosis: it's techno with elegance, depth and just the right amount of thump. Rig this up on a proper system, turn off the lights and any worries—about the genre's direction of travel, or otherwise—might melt away.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/947

Bangers from around the globe. Dar Disku launched with a question: how to channel heritage into dance floor elation? Well, when your name translates to 'home of the disco,' the brief feels pretty self-explanatory.

In the first few years, that meant crafting edits of Khaliji hi-NRG and Bollywood soundtracks to fit contemporary 'crates. They took off as DJs through a run of radio and parties in the UK—where they currently reside—flexing deep finds from across the SWANA region. Their vibrant debut album, out in September on Soundway, furthers the mission.

True to form, their RA Podcast is stuffed with heaters from all over the map: Algeria, India, Chile, Jordan, Australia, Turkey, Libya and Morocco get a look-in, as well as a few staple acts that betray the kind of high-wattage European festivals the duo increasingly frequent. It's not hard to see why—this mix is 90 minutes of sunshine.

@dardisku @soundway-records

Read more at ra.co/podcast/946

Wormhole techno from a DJ you need to know. KYRUH is a high-impact specialist forced in the crucible of modern NYC's notable spaces, including WIRE, Dweller and Bossa Nova Civic Club. Their sound is that of a DJ skilled at pressure without requiring shortcuts through obvious terrain, adept at hammering it without defaulting to speed alone.

After years burning a hole through the American underground, 2024 is proving to be a tipping point. KYRUH's appearance on Kelela remix compilation RAVE:N in spring lit the touchpaper for a run of gritty productions and increasingly prominent slots across North America and Europe.

The tracklist for their RA Podcast goes deep, accommodating producers like x3butterfly and Faster Horses alongside veterans Lady Starlight, Femanyst, House of God resident Paul Damage Bailey and underrated Swedish ripper Tobias Von Hoftsen. To those still wondering where to find 'proper techno' in 2024: look no further.

@kyruhx

Read more at ra.co/podcast/945

As a producer and DJ, TSVI is in the form of his life—which you can't always say for an artist a decade in. He's been an enduring presence through several underground cycles for a reason: the man knows how to flow.

TSVI's RA Podcast features a solid number of new and forthcoming cuts from the current vanguard pushing club music forward, amongst them Verraco, Surusinghe, DJ Plead, Doctor Jeep, DJ JM, WOST and Dj Babatr—who just dropped a split 12" with TSVI on TraTraTrax last month.

Alongside the names you might expect, TSVI also leans into a streak of personal history. On RA.944 you'll hear fast, deep and percussive '90s and '00s cuts from Spain, Latin America and his native Italy, with a particular focus on the kind of playful progressive trance minted by the late, great Franchino. It makes for a truly dynamite mix.

@tsvisions @nervoushorizon

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/944

Pure energy from one of electronic music's brightest lights: Sofia Kourtesis. Clamour had built around the Peruvian artist's poignant brand of house music following a string of EPs and 12"s, culminating in last year's Madres—a passionate, vulnerable and excellent album that resonated widely.

Madres packed in rare specificity for a dancefloor record, combining paeans to the power of sound with direct tributes to the neurosurgeon who saved the life of Kourtesis' mother. (Kourtesis even took him clubbing in Berlin as an additional thank you.) The album's earworm melodies and approachable aura helped launch Kourtesis from bubbling to breakthrough on the global stage. In both sound and impact, it mirrors another record: Swim, the 2010 classic made by Kourtesis' friend and mentor, Dan Snaith.

Speaking of @caribouband: RA.943 kicks off with a brand new Sofia Kourtesis & Daphni collaboration, before powering through summer-ready cuts from LUXE, Floating Points, IceMorph, DJ ADHD and an old Oliver Lieb classic. Even as her reputation as a recording artist swells, this power-hour mix is a sharp reminder of Kourtesis' DJing chops, teeing up a victory-lap summer ahead.

@sofia-kourtesis

Read more at ra.co/podcast/943

DJ Flight has been a constant throughout the many peaks and troughs of drum & bass. She's one of the genre's key chroniclers, with a real-time history of drum & bass in her archives as a radio presenter, and a level of behind the scenes involvement that spans decades.

While Flight's advocacy for equitable gender representation in drum & bass through her EQ50 collective is the most visible, it's by no means the sole initiative. Her work also extends to the Prison Radio Association—the only radio station made specifically for incarcerated people—as well as the Windrush Stories series, which focuses on the cultural history and contributions of Afro-Caribbean migrants to the UK.

Flight is also, plainly, a wicked DJ, who doesn't prefer one scene or subgenre over another—which also makes her a font of knowledge. (Her history of 2000s drum & bass is among the best genre deep dives we've ever published.) This RA Podcast is two hours of majestic, freewheeling beats that touch on every corner of drum & bass: from the minimalistic and razor-edged to ragga looseness, with a killer downtempo outro to smooth out the final landing. RA.942 is a first class journey from one of the scene's most enduring heroes. Big up Flight.

@djflight

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/942

The first thing you might realise during a MUSCLECARS set is the sheer musicality of the duo's selections. Vocals glimmer at the centre, unfolding into enchanting, soulful coos, while drums strike captivating rhythms and gilded synths reach towards the sky. It's a jazzy New York house sound mythologised by pioneers like Joe Claussell, Carlos Sanchez and Timmy Regisford (whose songs all make it to this RA Podcast). For years, New York natives Brandon Weems and Craig Handfield have run their Coloring Lessons party as a way to introduce a younger generation to this vital piece of dance music history. In a city that prides itself on fast walking, fast talking and, as of late, fast BPMs, their music is an invitation to ease into a more relaxing pace.

This RA Podcast comes at a golden time for MUSCLECARS. In May, they released their RA-recommended debut album, Sugar Honey Iced Tea!, whose sultry (and undeniably catchy) lead single "Tonight" has gotten the stamp of approval, and a remix, from New York legend Louie Vega. And this Sunday, they hosted their annual Juneteenth block party outside the Lot Radio, where scores of Black dancers latched onto one another during sets from a multigenerational crew of Black DJs including Ron Trent, Lovie, Shawn Dub and MUSCLECARS themselves. This two-hour-plus mix takes us through the spiralling jazz of Herbie Hancock, the flashy disco of The Originals and lands us, finally, in "Water," the track that also closes out Sugar Honey Iced Tea!.

@musclecarsnyc

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/941

Young partygoers might know Man Power, AKA Geoff Kirkwood, as the earnest geezer going back-to-back with DJs like Ewan McVicar, Paul Woolford, La La and Skream—peak-time specialists with a fine line in boofy bangers and ravey techno. Kirkwood is also a dab hand at the kind of elliptical house and deep cut detours favored by '00s labels like DFA and Optimo.

In spite of a long track record as a producer and promoter, if you had to boil Kirkwood's work in recent years down to a single quality, it might be altruism. He hails from North Shields, a small town fringing the boundary of Newcastle in England's oft-neglected North East, and wears his heritage proudly. The Me Me Me label boss's involvement in a flurry of civic restoration, and no-filter paeans to the importance of working class involvement in culture, have become as central to his life as music-making itself. For an accomplished DJ who has played at nearly every good club you could name, that’s no small feat.

So which side of Man Power were we in for? The answer on RA.940 is: both. '60s free verse poetry, Zebra Katz, Gesaffelstein and John Carpenter in the opening stretch? Makes sense. Octave One punching through Rozalla? You got it. An extended Joe Claussell workout atop Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place"? Why not. In Kirkwood's hands, it all goes down as smooth as a pint of Newcastle Brown.

@manpower-1

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/940

People tend to remember the first time they see BEIGE DJ—and a lot of the times after, too. One RA editor described them as "doing some crazy shit" after seeing a set. The Detroit DJ is all about playing to party rock, but also gently subverting expectations. It's a cliché now that good DJs can make whole new tracks out of blending existing songs together. Few embody this as easily or effortlessly as BEIGE, who loves to take sounds you already know and present them in a context you've never heard them in before.

BEIGE started DJing after they moved to Detroit roughly a decade ago, and has since become a vital DJ in the Motor City's ecosystem, bridging gaps, scenes and genres. Their DJing style is adaptable and versatile, but you can count on a few things: a techno foundation, rollicking drums, throbbing basslines and vocals coming at you from all angles.

Their RA Podcast flows beautifully, with just the right amount of bumps and left turns to keep you from getting comfortable. And the edits? There's plenty of head-turning moments here, like DJ Chap's downtempo drum & bass remix of seminal emo band American Football, a 150 BPM version of "Energy Flash," a cheeky Skrillex flip from Darian and excellent weirdo beats from the freakier ends of the US underground, including producers like Davis Galvin, Alien D and the late Jasen Loveland.

@justbeige

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/939

Actress' highlight reel needs little exposition. Darren J. Cunningham has been a prominent yet inscrutable figure in electronic music since the late 2000s, typically flickering to life from the margins before receding into the shadows. Beloved albums like R.I.P., Karma & Desire and Splazsh may switch up the template, but the Actress hallmarks of haze, murk and showstopping beauty remain.

As you'll see in the interview below, he's a man of few words—that's in character for him. What's characteristic, too, is a taste for surprises. Ahead of the release of tenth studio album Statik on esteemed Norwegian label Smalltown Supersound next month, here's the "Дарен Дж. Каннінгем RA Mix"—a tapestry of 100 percent original and exclusive Actress music you won't find anywhere else. Flowing between pensive, rugged and stargazing moods across an album's worth of unaired tracks, Actress' first time stepping up on the RA Podcast was clearly worth the wait.

@actress1

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/938

Julia Govor is one of those artists who can take the fundamentals of techno and make it sound hers. At this point in her career, the Georgia-born, New York City-based artist has established a style that feels half-Rome school, half Japanese hypnotic techno, but fully Julia Govor. Her label Jujuka has become a home for the stuff, featuring plenty of her own work along with like-minded folks like EMIT and Victoria Mussi, and she recently put out the biggest and best release of her career with the hefty Laika And Ulka Were Here on Semantica.

Her production style carries over to her DJing. Govor's RA Podcast is made up over half her own tracks, and the cuts she picks from others match her style: twirling arpeggios, rushing cascades of synth, heavy but groovy kicks. Much has been made of her childhood in a military family, and how she fell in love with techno via her classical musical education, where she felt drawn to the darker, romantic shades of composition. You get some of that here, but to call Govor's style "dark" would be overly simplistic. Instead it's sleek, aerodynamic and fluid, the kind of techno that gets you lost in a wormhole.

@juliagovor

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/937

"All in my life, I've gone back and forth between North and East London," Karen Nyame KG said in a recent mini-doc about her studio process. "These areas are multicultural [...] you just become a sponge for that type of energy." More than two decades into her career, these parts of the UK capital remain a defining influence on The Rhythm Goddess, whose music weaves together ideas from across London and the diaspora, blending R&B and soul with global dance music forms.

A leading face of London's hybrid club sound, KG's sound is seductive and luxurious. Her excellent productions, which span UK funky, amapiano and East Coast club, have a velvety touch, as if cut from high-end fabric. Her ear for smoky, sultry grooves, showcased on her Rhythm In The City party-turned-label, is impeccable, and her tracks have become more song-oriented, ranging from sultry to braggadocious. Her classy DJ mixes are a study in bounce and groove, incorporating everything from highlife to Afrotech to dubby rollers.

Since re-entering the club circuit in 2018 after a six-year hiatus, KG has become a role model for women talents in the electronic music world. Her stance on racial and gender disparities within the industry has helped orchestrate safer spaces in music, inspiring aspiring Black creatives in the process. KG's RA Podcast is nothing short of sexy, loaded with swung rhythms and lithe drums across gqom, Afrohouse and jazzy deep house. It radiates a level of confidence and intimacy that can only come from years of vision—and a constant passion for sensual, soulful music.

@KARENNYAMEKG

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/936

This past February, Tesfa Williams released his debut album—over 20 years into his career. Raves Of Future Past distilled decades of experience on London dance floors into a potent and powerful blend of grime, house, rave and techno. Made with an Elektron Digitakt to imitate the rough textures of early '00s UK dance music, the LP is an anachronistic history lesson that throws everything in a blender, imagining what gqom might sound like as an Eski track and giving new life to the short-lived "sublow" sound Williams helped invent with classic tracks like "Invasion," released under his earlier alias DJ Dread D.

Since the sublow days, however, Williams has become a torchbearer for UK house music and African diasporic sounds like Afro house and gqom in London. He's put out soulful hits like "Heartbeat"—recently reissued by Local Action—and released a steady stream of dance records for PMR and Strictly Rhythm. He's what you might call a jack of all trades, except for that he's actually a master of them all.

His RA Podcast charts his musical journey in reverse chronological order, starting with smooth, African-influenced sounds and winding through grime and dubstep, eventually landing at jungle. He threads a needle through diverse genres (and eras), and posits that the traditional UK hardcore continuum is a bigger spectrum than you might think, with gqom's heave and amapiano's log drum equally important in the musical equation. It's nearly two hours of UK dance music past and present, from a DJ who has lived it all.

@twilliamsmusic

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/935

Simon Aussel is known for a particularly wild DJing style and leftfield bassy bangers, and it's his curious and playful approach to clubland that's won him loyal fans over the years. Whether photographing drink tokens from gigs or creating an 8-bit version of his debut album on a Game Boy cartridge, he seems to approach every endeavour with childlike joy and wonder—rare qualities in an industry that can leave so many jaded.

The Nantes-born, Paris-based artist's love of club culture, digging and world-building has set him on a blazing path in club music. He's released an exceptionally wide range of music, including a Memphis rap tape for Trilogy Tapes, dubstep-trap-jazz hybrids with Egyptian singer Abdullah Miniawy and deadly hard drum for Livity Sound. His mixes, meanwhile, are fast becoming DJ lore thanks to his knack for connecting seemingly opposed genres like new wave and fast techno. Look no further than his now-infamous Dekmantel Selectors set from 2021 or a marathon back-to-back with Skee Mask in 2022.

As the French DJ gets more comfortable with story-telling, he's getting more personal and focusing on deeper, slower sounds. That's evident on this RA Podcast—six months in the works—which incorporates woozy downtempo, weighty dub and bleepy beats. Of course, in the chaotic middle section there's plenty of huge basslines, plus old-school electro, acidic techno and even a bouncy edit of the Montell Jordan classic "This Is How We Do It." Showcasing his quirks, influences and growth, this is Simo Cell in prime time.

@simocell

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/934

By anyone's standards, KI/KI has had a meteoric rise. She started DJing at queer party SPIELRAUM in Amsterdam in 2018, and by now she's one of Europe's most-talked about DJs. She blends modern strands of techno with trance and acid in a way that feels all her own, veering away from the sugar highs of other DJs or the clobbering kick drums of so much fast dance music. Her style is aerodynamic and sleek, not bludgeoning.

In addition to her DJ career, KI/KI runs the label slash, which has put out music from the likes of Alpha Tracks, Peachlyfe and Newa, artists who share her canny blend of trance and techno aesthetics and sneaky pop sensibilities. Acid is another big love, as shown by her 5HRS OF ACID concept. The decades-old sound has become a key part of her style and appeal, as you'll hear on her RA Podcast. It's a barreling 90 minutes through techno and trance with trap and dubstep accents, breathless but perfectly paced.

@ki_slash_ki

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/933

Earlier this year, we described Los Angeles act 1morning as one of the funkiest young producers in modern-day techno. And we stand by it. The fast-rising upstart is building a solid fan base around North America and beyond with a rugged, vintage style of swung techno and hardgroove. His all-vinyl DJ sets and pumping productions on the likes of Fixed Rhythms and Mála Ádh stand out for their distinctly old-school flavour—steamrolling hi-hats à la Robert Hood, swift choppage behind the decks and deep, deep grooves. Like many of his all-vinyl heroes, he's also a treat to watch behind the decks

The up-and-comer had a hell of a year in 2023, from playing in Japan to going on his first European tour, and his momentum shows no signs of slowing. He debuted at New York's dweller festival this year and K9 Unit, his duo with Bloodhound, recently did a night with fellow hardgroove king Regal86. It's only a matter of time until 1morning gets to a festival or a club near you so until then, enjoy his RA Podcast for now. The mix unfortunately came with some less than stellar circumstances, as the records 1morning pulled were stolen from his car, and so instead this RA Podcast became a statement of resilience and creativity—and, in his words, "an outlet for my rage."

@1morning

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/932

Sam Coates took to techno like a diligent pupil, falling in love with the genre through labels like CLR in the late '00s. It didn't take long for the student to surpass his proverbial teachers. Almost immediately, the Manchester native was putting out pitch-perfect, functional techno records with everything intricately balanced. The requisite move to Berlin only sealed his fate as a future techno luminary, and by now, based in Kyiv, he's one of techno's most reliable, yet exciting, workhorses. Setaoc Mass records (and those on his label, SK_eleven) are minimalist but colossal, deceptively simple but not easy to pull off.

We've praised him in these pages for his "sense of economy—how to get the hardest impact out of just a few elements," and that's the idea behind his RA Podcast as well. Put together from records old and new, and intricately layered, Coates's mix is like a time-travelling wormhole connecting disparate eras from techno, and highlighting the genre's most timeless attributes: mechanistic rhythms, careful pacing, rudimentary melodies made out of the strangest sounds and, of course, the power of the bass drop. It's hard to imagine anything that sounds more capital-T techno than this mix, which is a high compliment. It's easy to hear why his records and DJ sets are only more in demand from techno heads across the geographical and generational spectrum.

@setaoc_mass

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/931

Most underground movements in the arts can be boiled down to one key ingredient: friends doing dope shit together. Childhood BFFs Luca Medici and Delbert Perez have been doing just that with INVT (that's "innovate"), a multidisciplinary art project that spans club music and streetwear. Before exploding onto the international stage and playing to massive crowds in Ibiza and Tulum, the Miami natives built a solid community at home through electrifying DJ sets, releases and fashion. They might be globe-trotting artists now, going back-to-back with artists like Skream and playing Panorama Bar, but their raw DIY spirit stays strong.

Their tunes and live hardware shows fuse jungle, techno, East Coast club and dubstep—and lately, tech house and tribal house—with bass-heavy Latin genres like cumbia and guaracha. A reflection of Miami's diverse demographics, their genre cross-pollinations bring together skaters, dancers, artists and various subcultures. Their clothing lines are equally cross-cultural: repurposed vintage items made from screen printing and acid washing, using photos and designs that represent their home city's vibrant street culture. True to their grassroots ethos, everything's done in-house, from mixing and mastering tracks to embroidery.

The next-gen duo's ultra-rhythmic productions, characterised by deep, swinging drums and trippy textures, is delivered to the world at a rapid-fire pace, testament to Medici and Perez's seemingly insatiable hunger. Their explosive career has helped bring fresh shine to Miami talents who feature heavily in their sets, including this RA Podcast. Featuring DJ Babatr, Coffintexts and plenty of their own unreleased heaters, INVT's mix represents their friendships, community and Miami's thrilling melting pot of dance music that they're still a core part of even as they move across the globe.

@invt305

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/930

Last year, when we wrote that "the best UK garage is coming out of Los Angeles," we were talking about Introspekt. The US DJ, who has since moved to New York, really understands the genre—its appeal, swing and unique, bassy whomp. Listen to any of her tracks, like last year's "Forlorn," and you'll hear someone who produces like she's been making UKG all her life. This is probably partly because she comes from a dubstep background, but either way, if you're looking for new UK garage beats, Introspekt is one of the best going right now.

Her DJing also hits a distinct sweet spot, zeroing in one of the proto-dubstep, dark UK garage days when producers like El-B were making the hottest shit around. Her sound is both retro and forward-looking, as you'll hear on her RA Podcast, which balances vintage Big Apple cuts from Skream & Benga with new-school tunes from Amaliah and Surusinghe. It's not so much a throwback as it is a rejuvenation of an old sound—a new way to look at it and a new way to make it. If hindsight is 20/20, then Introspekt has perfect vision, and mixes like this are the perfect way to educate listeners, make them move and innovate a little in the process.

@sageintrospekt

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/929

Berlin label and collective Live From Earth crew does things its own way. And it works. Over the past ten years, the team has become a major force in the city, mixing a killer ear for techno and house with a sense of humour and pop sensibility that has proven irresistible to audiences and scenes around the world. That's why we chose Live From Earth for our latest cover story: its DIY attitude, humble origins and tenacious spirit are everything we love about underground dance music.

Accompanying the cover story, this RA Podcast features a recording of a live back-to-back between two of the label's chief artists, DJ Gigola and MCR-T (the latter of whom has produced some of Live From Earth's biggest hits, including horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules"). The hour-plus recording makes for a handy microcosm of the label's sound, rushing through contemporary and vintage techno with plenty of raunchy vocal samples and hip-hop a capellas. It's blazing but never too hard, catchy but never predictable. Above all, it's fun—the group's guiding principle.

@mcr-t @djgigola @livefromearth

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/928

Of all the Berlin DJs who make a living spinning strange, I'm-not-sharing-the-tracklist kind of records, Sugar Free, originally hailing from Madrid, might be the most fun. She plays bold, colourful tracks with an air of sci-fi and sleaze, somewhere between Italo, hi-NRG, electro and house. (Her Dimensions Mix last year was one of our favourites of 2023.) She's the kind of DJ who messes with your perception of genres and tempos by how she blends tracks together, and also a DJ with a rare grasp of mixing melodies and moods—just check out the first transition of this RA Podcast for a spine-tingling example.

Sugar Free doesn't speak much publicly, and you won't find a lot about her on the internet. She prefers to let her DJing speak for itself. And her RA Podcast says a lot: proggy basslines, heart-in-mouth descents into reverb-heavy breakdowns, eerie vocals and a general feel of psychedelia and '80s decadence. It's difficult to tell what era these records are from, which is part of the charm. For a bonus point, try and pick out two just-completed Sugar Free originals, some of her first productions ever after her debut track came out on Limousine Dream in 2022.

@freesugarfree

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/927

FAUZIA is an artist of many moods. The UK talent moves from IDM to soul on her NTS Radio residency, while her club DJ sets reveal her love for '90s-style breaks, electro and bass-heavy sounds. In the studio, she explores her softer side through self-released homespun dub and ambient jungle.

In recent years, she's gravitated towards live performances. Her gossamer vocals, one of her strongest suits, cuts through live instrumentation like a hummingbird in agile flight. In 2020, the London-based talent told Mixmag that she was done being categorised as a "dance music" artist—and so far, she's succeeded. While she incorporates clubby touchstones into her work, there's a deep level of cross-genre knowledge and blending at play.

FAUZIA's RA podcast makes that clear. Free of any four-to-the-floor music, it moves from experimental jazz to orchestral melodies to R&B ballads for a thoughtful and introspective journey full of her own unreleased music that points towards her newer interest in composition. This is music to be felt, so let your guard down and let it wash over you.

@FAUZIA

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/926

Shubostar's RA Podcast begins and ends with video game music. (The beginning kind of sounds like Mary Poppins, actually.) Lots of DJs and producers play or make music that emulates the nostalgic sounds of old-school gaming, but the South Korean artist goes direct to the source. Before falling in love with dance music, she went to an animation-focused high school and learned how to make video games—so it's basically in her musical DNA. And while her DJing isn't as out-there as you might expect from that description, '90s and '00s Japanese video game (and anime) soundtracks offer a good idea of what her playing sounds like: lush, synthetic and a little naive, full of wonder and positive vibes.

With releases on labels like Permanent Vacation, Internasjonal and her own uju Records, Shubostar is also a student of cosmic space disco, inspired by artists like Daniele Baldelli, Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas. Lately she's been rubbing elbows with Âme and Dixon. She picks tracks from across eras and genres on her RA Podcast, with cuts from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Baldelli and Kraftwerk alongside selections from DJ City and Private Agenda. It's a mix full of mood shits, dazzling keyboard runs and, of course, melodies that seem to reach out towards the heavens—or outer space.

@shubostar

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/925

If Bitter Babe was a perfume, her scent would be animalic—heavy musk, bergamot, worn leather and burnt spices. The Bogotá-born, Miami-bred and now Berlin-based artist has a heady, ultra-rhythmic sound that feels made for sweltering summer nights and feral fantasies. Combining pan-Latin styles with hard drum and industrial touches, she's crafted a singular mood that defines her DJing and production: hazy, high-energy and sensual.

Bitter Babe's ascent on the international circuit has been tied to her role in Miami's electronic renaissance. Whether it's proto-reggaeton, dense ambient or guaracha, her sets and productions are characterised by evocative low-end, darting synths and distorted frequencies that exude drama. With releases on TraTraTrax, Air Texture and SVBKVLT, she's cemented her position as an experimentalist, leaving the door open for more deconstruction and abstraction.

As cofounder of multidisciplinary project LATITUDES, Bitter Babe seeks to unify Latin America's electronic music communities. Her mixes are a great source for discovering under-the-radar acts from Peru, Brazil and beyond, some of whom are featured on her RA podcast. Starting with subby downtempo before moving onto swampy baile funk, technoid mutations of dembow and cheeky UKG, it showcases her expertise for trippy yet deeply kinetic grooves.

@bitterbabe

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/924

Detroit might be synonymous with techno, but it also has a rich house tradition. And Rick Wade—FKA Big Daddy Rick—is one of Detroit house's key players. Along with the likes of Keith Worthy, Theo Parrish and the late Mike Huckaby (who Wade had a lifelong friendship and friendly rivalry with), he created a hybrid sound that is both techno and house, effortlessly soulful, sculpted and glowing—and Midwest to the core. As Tajh Morris said in a retrospective review of one of his classic records, "growing up in Buchanan, Michigan, meant that Wade was much closer to Chicago than he was to Detroit."

Many of Wade's best records were released on Harmonie Park, his era-defining label that also featured plenty of work from Huckaby. Those EPs still sound fresh and timeless today, qualities that extend to Wade's RA Podcast, which features 90 minutes of smooth-as-butter house old and new. Over the years he's kept the flame burning for the smouldering sounds of Detroit house, working in sounds from younger producers like Folamour along the way. Enjoy listening to a master at work.

@rick-wade

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/923

Mogwaa is a Seoul-based DJ, producer and multi-instrumentalist who can seemingly do no wrong. Since his debut EP in 2017, he's developed a stellar track record of releases and live performances that have made him an in-demand name across East Asia and beyond. And he's only just getting started.

The South Korean artist's multi-genre palette and hardware expertise have earned him the description of boy wonder from peers and collaborators. His work is awash in bright textures and dreamy moods, whether it's electro-fused techno for Peggy Gou's Gudu Records, limber jungle for Klasse Wrecks or dubby dancehall for Sound Metaphors. At Wonderfruit festival in December, he played a thrilling live set of spacey techno and loopy acid, infusing rich sound design into elastic groove. His stamina and enjoyment of music is tangible—he could probably play all night long and still be raring to go.

After learning classical piano, guitar and trumpet in his early years, he taught himself to compose and produce. He's now determined to work with South Korean producers through Walls And Pals, a label he runs alongside Jesse You.

Mogwaa's RA Podcast offers a glimpse into his multi-faceted sound. It's full of club-ready heaters, from trippy house to breakbeats, that pack a serious punch.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/922

In the music video for her new single with Manni Dee, Manuka Honey embarks on a money heist, robbing a venue with a comically tiny Louis Vuitton bag. Wearing a barely-there outfit, her cutesy goth girl demeanour and memeworthy one-liners capture many facets of modern-day pop culture. Whether through her music, fashion or astrology practice, the artist, born Marissa Malik, speaks to a large demographic of fans. Her sound is a composite of club genres from across the globe—everything from baile funk to gqom to pop edits. She he describes herself as an "unhinged, hostile girl" and is known for unfettered self-expression. "When you come to my sets, often, my tit will accidentally fall out or I'll step on the decks," she once told RA.

Malik brings a sort of sensual chaos to the dance floor. Her DJ sets and productions are rooted in hot and humid rhythms that often distort into acrobatic shapes or blend into one another in a maximalist approach. Last year's Machete / 777 for Club Romantico combined elements of reggaeton with ballroom, while one Boiler Room show last year went from Waka Flocka's "No Hands" to new-school guaracha banger "Calentura Vaginal" (which translates to "vaginal heat"). She's dedicated to supporting the worldwide Latin diaspora through her music, which heavily skews towards regional styles like guaracha and raptor house, as well as with her collective and party SUZIO.

Malik's many influences shine on her RA Podcast. Moving from dancehall to Afro house to bassy dembow, the hour-long high-intensity workout captures her core sound palette. It's energetic, steamy and a little disorienting—just how she likes it.

@manuka_honey

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/921

Whoever Client_03 is—their official bio says "neither human nor machine"—they certainly love electro. In the interview below, they say making it is "all I do." The stubbornly anonymous project has been making waves across continents and scenes, introducing audiences used to dubstep, drum & bass and trap to the distinctive joys of electro. Through a series of self-releases dating back to 2019, Client_03 has earned a fanbase with simple graphics and wonderfully jargon-y titles—"Prosperity Stream Divider," "Interpersonal Relationship Assessment"—that more than live up to the genre pastiche with genuinely funky electro grooves. Pitched between loose and robotic, their tracks are what we call rollers: stackable, interlockable and reliable.

This RA Podcast was recorded live at last year's Bass Coast Festival, where the masked producer's set was among the most anticipated. They—or it—didn't disappoint, and here we've got 60 minutes-plus of smooth and occasionally raucous electro that eventually mutates into dubstep, jungle and beyond. There are several spinbacks, tons of Client_03 material new and old and a few select tracks from artists like Sam Binga, Nikki Nair and Fixate. It's the sound of a certain kind of future, as refracted through its past.

@Client_03

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/920

Ariel Zetina is as charming as she is talented—one of the many reasons she was named "Chicagoan of the Year for Pop Music" by the Chicago Tribune last month. A straight shooter with strong principles, her witty personality shines through on social media and in person. She radiates both best friend and boss energy.

Musically, she wears her heart on her sleeve, infusing her personality into her DJing and production. Her sets and mixes are adventurous, moving from hard to soft to playful with precision. From producing theatre shows and opening for Beyoncé to releasing her RA-recommended debut album on Local Action in 2022, the smartbar resident approaches each venture with meaning and depth. That LP explored the complex experience of being a Belizean-American trans woman, using fiery house and techno to express vulnerability and triumph.

Ariel Zetina's multifaceted personality is on full display in her RA podcast. There's baile funk-infused techno, crisp drum & bass and plenty of tracks from queer producers from all sorts of scenes, including Michael Cignarale, StrikeStone! and Perfect Lovers. It's a grand statement of power, flow and seriously good taste.

@arielzetina

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/919

Soul Summit is a New York institution. The DJ trio have been putting on a summer festival in Brooklyn's Fort Greene park for well over a decade now, and those gatherings have become a yearly house music pilgrimage for fans from all over the Five Boroughs. The party embodies the ethos of house music: free for everyone, open to families both blood and chosen, a place where everyone is welcome to groove (or just relax) to uplifting, old-school dance music with inspiring lyrics and bumping basslines.

Sadiq Bellamy, Tabu and Jeff Mendoza have created something truly special, and more and more lately, they've been spreading their gospel outside the park, too. They've become residents at Nowadays, where this RA Podcast was recorded as part of a Mister Sunday party. It was also released as part of the Mister Saturday Night's cassette box set to celebrate the party's 15th birthday. This one features an hour of the cassette's 90-minute runtime, plus an additional 20 minutes only available here. It captures this trio at their soulful best, letting vocal tracks play out long and leisurely with expert blends and gentle transitions. The feelings of warmth, love and welcome land with every kick drum and flow through every bassline.

@soul-summit-music

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/918

Purelink have been described more than once as an "ambient boy band." (They themselves say "jam band.") It's not meant dismissively—the American trio purposefully mean to function as a band, even if their main instruments are laptops. Ambient might not quite cut it as a descriptor, though. The group's music crosses eras and scenes, touching on the late '90s clicks & cuts boom as well as the billowy ambient techno put out by labels like 3XL, West Mineral Ltd. and NAFF.

Their most recent LP, Signs, released on enigmatic imprint Peak Oil (and one of our favourite albums of 2023), is especially impressive, made of stuttering rhythms and glassy textures. In other words, it's ambient-not-ambient. While members Concave Reflection, kindtree and Millia have all made excellent music on their own, something special happens when they come together.

Purelink's RA Podcast is another stellar contribution to our post-New Year's tradition, where we highlight a more laid-back sound to soothe weary minds and frazzled brain cells after the heavy holiday celebrations. This is 90-plus minutes of intricately textured downtempo, dub techno and even UK garage, all cut through with a floaty, almost drowsy quality, with plenty of exclusives and unreleased cuts from the likes of Nick León, James K, Downstairs J and more. It highlights Purelink's position as a bridger of worlds, sounds and tempos.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/917

Dr Banana is a name that commands a lot of respect in certain corners of the dance music world. The man has his Ph.D in record digging—not literally, mind you, but play along—and key to his success is the sense of fun, joy and ecstasy he brings to his DJing. UK garage historian? Sure. Blinding DJ? Definitely. He likes to play records you've never heard before, records that not only make you dance but might remind you of some of your favourite, formative records of yore.

The UK artist started out with a fashion line and some records and ended up an influential label boss, collector and DJ. He made his name with skippy, retro UK garage—sometimes from new producers and sometimes unearthed from the archives—and nicely coincided with the genre's explosion in popularity. Since then, he's highlighted everything from old-school German garage to new-school producers like K-LONE. His DJ sets have only become more adventurous and, crucially, even more bumping. Jungle, R&B, tech house, you name it. His RA Podcast zeroes in on a vintage-sounding, rollicking kind of house music, full of seismic disco basslines and quirky vocal samples. It's as celebratory as it is mysterious.

Once, Dr Banana was a not so well-kept secret for the heads—the kids in Berlin and London who were starting to realize the similarities between UK garage, minimal and tech house. Now, he's for everyone, and starting to earn the wider recognition he deserves.

@dr-banana

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/916

Quest's RA Podcast starts slowly, with a thrum of synths that feels like watching a rocket take off in slow motion. Before you know it, you're in outer space, floating through zero gravity with waves of synths and gentle breakbeats. The Italian DJ is a premiere selector in the world of digging for rare records, but his outré taste shouldn't be confused with willful obscurity. He's a beloved DJ partly because of his approachability. There's a serene, early '90s feel to RA.915 that's reminiscent of some of the earliest and best ambient techno.

When he's not DJing, Quest runs the label La Nota Del Diablo. He's only put out two records, including this year's Red Tears EP from his dear friend (and fellow esteemed DJ) Christian AB, which RA's Henry Ivry described as "a careful balance of late-night tension and early morning twilight." That's not a bad way to describe Quest's RA Podcast—if it's not a soundtrack for an astral journey, then it's perfect for an afterhours, for when the laid-back vibes come to a simmer for one last stretch of dancing.

@questwax

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/915

Detroit dance music thrives on intergenerational connections. In the late '70s and early '80s, the late Ken Collier mixed disco, soul and early electronic dance music in eye-opening DJ sets that left a mark on up-and-coming artists like Delano Smith. Once Smith established himself in the city's explosive techno community, he, in turn, influenced soon-to-be legends like Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Jeff Mills, Norm Talley, Mike "Agent X" Clarke and others.

Now an elder statesman, Smith is etched into our history books as a crucial contributor to Detroit dance music, both house and techno. He's known especially for the Detroit beatdown sound he pioneered alongside Talley and Clark—slower, sexier records than what Detroit techno is generally associated for. (The trio even put out an RA Podcast under the name in 2010.)

It's more recently that Smith has become known as a producer. He started his own label, Mixmode Recordings, and became a regular on Berlin imprint Sushitech, where he released many of his albums, including the jazzy deep house masterclass An Odyssey. His style has evolved over the years to incorporate ambient, dub and more contemporary techno influences.

More recently, Smith's career has been sidelined by an ongoing battle with a rare and untreatable form of cancer. He's hosted livestreams throughout his ordeal to keep in touch with his fans. His RA Podcast, which he calls his "Legacy Mix," is a celebration of his favourite sounds: euphoric chords, jacking drums and deep-space melodies, the elements that have and will continue to reverberate through Detroit and beyond. It also marks the beginning of a more hopeful period for Smith, as he gets ready to travel again, especially with his Legacy Detroit series, which celebrates the lineage he's an indelible part of, and always will be.

@delano_smith

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/914

It would be no exaggeration to say that 33EMYBW is one of the most original club music producers we've heard in recent years. In addition to being a talented visual artist and a bass player in the experimental band Duck Fight Goose, her solo productions are a highlight of Shanghai’s bustling underground scene—home to forward-thinking artists like Tzusing, Osheyack, Swimful and Hyph11e—moving with their own rhythmic language. She has a lexicon of drum sounds borrowed from all over the world, including tablas, bongos and mallets. As 33EMYBW, she puts together strange, multi-limbed rhythms that bring to mind images of dancing spiders and insects, something she addressed directly on 2019's showstopping Arthropods LP, released on the influential SVBKVLT label. As she says in the interview below, you basically need more than two legs to dance to her music. Maybe even eight.

Her music deals with creatures that vary from the mythical to the everyday (her first album was called Golem). On her latest record Holes Of Sinian, also out on SVBKVLT, she imagines the mostly-unknown organisms from the recently discovered Ediacaran period. It's more esoteric, atmospheric and arguably even funkier than her previous work, with Marina Herlop on one hair-raising track that you can hear in a demo version on her RA Podcast. This mix is actually a version of her live set—a favourite at influential festivals like Unsound and CTM—featuring plenty of productions from across her career in mutated and improvisational forms. It's creepy, crawly and undeniably danceable. If you can keep up with it.

@33emybw

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/912

What some refer to broadly as "Latin club music"—from dembow to raptor house—is having a moment on dance floors around the world. Since making his mark at Manchester's legendary Swing Ting parties in the 2010s, Florentino, who is of Colombian heritage, has melded high-pressure perreo, cumbia and other styles with high BPMs and fat-bottomed bass in his DJ sets and productions. The result is an ultra-kinetic, cross-cultural sound that's influenced by UK soundsystem culture as much as the sounds of the massive, diverse scenes across Latin America.

The pan-Latin influences are a big part of Florentino's sound palette, but they by no means define him. Interspersed with dancehall and baile funk are dubstep, pummelling techno, house, UK funky, grime and more. Over the years, his experimental side has also crystallized, whether it's through the deep, sometimes trippy, reggaeton of Sangre Nueva, his collaborative project with Kelman Duran and DJ Python, his sought-after bootlegs of deconstructed guaracha, or the releases on his Club Romantico label. Most recently, he's signed with UK giant XL Recordings, including for his latest EP, Kilometro Quinze.

His dizzying range and propensity for rhythmic contortions is on full display in his RA Podcast. This is a riotous mix with big drops, bouncy basslines and crispy textures, showcasing Florentino's talent as a proper party-starter.

@deejayflorentino

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/912

At this point, Shy One might be familiar to most music fans as one of the hosts of NTS's daily breakfast show, Soup To Nuts, where she helps listeners across the UK and Europe settle into their morning routines with an eclectic and soulful selection of dance music and downtempo. But the London artist has been around a lot longer than that, with a discography that goes back well over a decade.

She started releasing music as a regular on Scratcha DVA's label, and it was there that she sketched out a recognizable but impressively varied approach rooted in her home base of London. On her records, Shy One sometimes feels like London incarnate, synthesizing the histories of Black British dance music—drum & bass, grime, UK funky, broken beat, jazz, you name it—into one syncretic and immensely appealing sound. But her music glows with the warmth of American deep house, too, which lends it a timeless, ageless quality that has proven immensely appealing. She furthers this mission with Private World, a party she started with Ruby Savage. The name kind of says it all: she's inviting you to her own personal space, but what awaits is a whole wide world of music and culture.

Her RA Podcast feels like a hybrid between a club DJ set and her morning show, and here, she zeroes in on a the lineage of American house music from the '90s and beyond, featuring tracks from the likes of Green Velvet, Marcellus Pittman, Roy Davis Jr., Wbeeza, Jay Daniel and more, plus a spotlight from Baltimore club king DJ Technics. It's patient and easygoing but perfect for a small dance floor (or a livingroom party), focused but stylistically diverse. It's everything we've come to expect from an artist like Shy One, who weaves stories and histories with her DJ sets, and does it effortlessly, too.

@shyonebeats

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/911

Last month, with Goldie's guest curatorship of Resident Advisor, we focused on the history of one of the most important music genres and scenes to come out of the UK: drum & bass. With this RA Podcast from Kasra, we switch over to the style's cutting edge. He's probably best known for his long-running Critical Music label, whose name is instructive. You'll find some of the most essential, crucial drum & bass of the last two decades through its 20-plus year-old back catalogue.

As a DJ and producer, Kasra embodies everything great about Critical and its approach: drum & bass with flair and personality, forward-thinking while staying true to the roots of the sound. The kind of music he plays is wide-ranging, but it usually leans towards the tight and minimalist. The basslines stop and start like stuck engines, drums hit with the mechanical precision of a Swiss-made watch, the MCs move with a tactical flow. Kasra's RA Podcast is a blend of new and old cuts from the likes of Skeptical, Halogenix, Break and the boundary-breaking Ivy Lab, plus a few cuts from the man himself.

@kasra-critical

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/910

909 is a special number for us at RA—the name of one of the most hallowed drum machines in all of music, and one of the foundations of techno music—and we're more than happy to offer it up to a DJ who has been a long-time favourite of our team: Glasgow's Bake. In fact, we commissioned this mix roughly ten years ago, but you can't rush perfection.

When Bake emerged as one of the heads heads behind the label All Caps—a relatively short-lived but influential imprint that released massive tracks like Flørist's "Marine Drive" and Kowton's "TFB"—he also quickly became one of the most impressive DJs in the post-dubstep access, appearing frequently at Hessle Audio events and sharpening his skills behind the decks at the country's best parties. Now he runs his own, Spirit, at Sub Club.

He has a wide-ranging style that touches on all kinds of leftfield techno and broken drum patterns. His nearly two-hour RA Podcast finds him at the end of a sort-of comeback year, and it touches on tracks from Shackleton, Laksa, Batu, Karima F and Levon Vincent, to give you an idea. It's the kind of mix that oozes expertise and practice without feeling showy—the signs of a truly great DJ. If you don't know Bake, then now you do.

@bake-all-caps

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/909

With their Wisdom Teeth label, British artists Facta and K-LONE are at the vanguard of a sound that mixes New Age-inspired ambient music with loopy tech house and the staggered swing of Bristol techno. Now split between the West Country hotspot and Brighton, the duo have perfected a balance of carefully considered long-players and wicked club EPs, making Wisdom Teeth one of the most essential labels anywhere in the UK right now.

As DJs, their sound leans more towards the clubbier end of Wisdom Teeth—and don't sleep on K-LONE's lovely other labels, Sweet 'n' Tasty (for garage) and Wych (dubstep-ish)—but they've got a slightly softer, slow-and-steady approach than many of their peers from their spiritual home of Bristol. It's clubby, but it's more hypnotic and loopy than loud and banging. The duo jump through a fair amount of sounds—and you'll still get some bass wobbles—touching on tracks from Genius Of Time, Martinez Brothers, Jan Driver, Polygonia and more, bridging not only genres but local scenes and continents. There's a measured and steady touch to the way they DJ, like musicians who know the instruments like the back of their hand, and as always, it's a pure pleasure to hear them put tracks together like only they can.

@facta @k-lone93 @wisdomteeth-uk

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/908

Before moving to San Francisco, Iranian-Canadian artist AIDA got her start in one of the world's more unlikely, yet nourishing, rave scenes tucked away in the southwest corner of Canada: Vancouver. There, amongst the basement raves, forest parties and yeast-perfumed gigs on top of bakeries, she found a home amidst a small but strong scene of record-digging minimal lovers, finding power in their pure passion for music. This is where she started, though over time her sound has developed along with a lot of the minimal scene, touching on electro, breaks and progressive house.

The latter is the focus of her RA Podcast, which comes amidst a year-long sabbatical from her dayjob to focus on music. It seems like the extra time is paying off: she's playing out more than ever, around the world, and playing more kinds of music, too. This mix revolves entirely around her love for the original wave of progressive house, gathered from records chosen over a period of weeks and then put together with a firm but idiosyncratic touch, as she explains below. It's as much a testament to the timelessness of this music as the cyclical nature of dance music, though it's also a bit of history lesson, a reminder of the broad world of sounds and rhythms beyond the au courant revival.

When she's not DJing, AIDA also runs a record label rooted in activism around her Iranian heritage. Inspired partly by the Woman Life Freedom movement in Iran, her imprint Apranik Records focuses on artists of Iranian and Persian heritage from the country and across the diaspora, as well as raising money for charities and nonprofits.

@aida-dj

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/907

Back in the day, drums were used as signals for festivities and war because their sounds travelled the furthest. Azu Tiwaline has long understood that. A master in the dark arts of percussion, she makes deep and profound percussive music that seems to communicate forgotten rituals from centuries past. Her sound is dense, as if pulled from the depths of the Sahara desert in Tunisia, yet still feels spacious thanks to polyrhythmic contortions and sparse, elegant melodies.

Her productions largely fall into the confines of percussive techno, but unlike the genre's springier variants, her dubby textures and psychedelic rhythms command seriousness and move with immensity. Her Livity Sound debut, the Magnetic Service EP from 2020, connected Amazigh music with dub and techno and is a masterclass in restraint and hypnosis. Her latest release, The Fifth Dream, continues to showcase her skills in balancing light and dark tones using field recordings from her home in Tunisia's El Djerid desert, minimal ambient techno and haunting notes.

Mirroring her discography, this RA Podcast features plenty of twisted rhythms, trippy techno and straightforward club cuts. Created for movement rather than hypnosis, these selections show off a different side of her drum palette—perky breaks and syncopated kicks—wrapped in her usual weighty atmospheres.

@azu-tiwaline

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/906

For our 905th RA Podcast, we're proud to welcome Goldie, one of the most famous, talented and important electronic music artists of all time. Starting out as a graffiti artist, he eventually made music under the name Rufige Kru, helping push the then-nascent genre of jungle forward with tracks like "Krisp Biscuit (Power)" and "Terminator." The latter was released under the name Metalheads, which would later become the name of his label (with a z instead of an s). Metalheadz—which he cofounded with DJ Storm and the late Kemistry—celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and remains the defining outlet of drum & bass, the genre that grew out of jungle that Goldie helped invent with records like 1995's massive crossover album Timeless (alongside countless other classics). He's a producer, DJ, actor and all-around celebrity, a huge personality in UK electronic music.

Goldie is also RA's guest curator this month, and his tenure starts with this mix. We'll have more to come starting this week—check our editor's letter later today for more information—but for now, here's a survey of drum & bass past and present from a man who helped invent the genre. With plenty of new Metalheadz material plus a healthy dose of older tracks, these two hours lay out the history of Metalheadz, drum & bass and its various subgenres, from twinkling liquid to rumbling techstep. It's the first part of a month celebrating Goldie's legacy, and we can't wait to show you the rest.

@goldie-official

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/905

When Smoke Machine started doing parties in Taipei, and then created a revered online mix series, it was clear that it was the work of someone with impeccable taste. That would be Diskonnected, once a resident at the beloved Taiwan club Korner who now posts up at Pawnshop and 宀 in Hong Kong. He's also behind Organik, a festival that takes place on the coast of Taiwan and has become one of the world's top techno gatherings in just over a decade.

True to his alias, the elusive artist likes to switch off from the world. He rarely makes his presence known online, sparingly accepting press and mix requests. He's not one to seek attention—in fact, he actively avoids it—but there's a spotlight on him regardless.

Everything Diskonnected does is executed with patience and class, but don't mistake that for restraint. His style of weightless techno shimmers with the spirit of nature, moving with aerodynamic force. On his RA Podcast, we hear a six-hour all-night set recorded at 宀 earlier this year, keeping an open-ended view of techno as it barrels on, gradually getting faster all the while. It's clichéd to say that if you know you know, but truly, anyone who knows about Diskonnected knows that he's one of the world's greatest techno DJs, with a style and flair that feels both old-school—or maybe just late '00s—but also cutting-edge.

@diskonnected

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/904

For the past few years, RA cover star Jlin has been churning out complex percussion compositions that sit at the intersection of IDM, trap, mutant techno and sound art. Her tracks are tactile and structurally complex, stacked drums interlocking with glistening melodies and heaving basslines on groundbreaking albums like Dark Origami. Her rhythms gracefully crosscut over one another like towering blocks in an architecture sketch for a truly cerebral experience.

Growing up in Gary, Indiana, the former steel factory worker wears many hats. She produces mind-bending club music—usually for Mike Paradinas's label Planet Mu—scores modern dance performances and arranges for instrumental ensembles. Her process of collaboration is deeply symbiotic, as shown on her new EP, Perspective The acoustic version of the record, written for and performed with Chicago's Third Coast Percussion, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize this year, an unprecedented honour for a dance music artist.

Jlin's style is sometimes described as avant-garde, but modernist is a better word. She originally started out making footwork and despite moving away from the genre in recent years, footwork's jittery energy still flows through her productions, a testament to her ability to experiment across styles. Being a math whiz only adds to the angular, carefully calculated feel of her production.

In celebration of Jlin's career, Mike Paradinas serves up a 40 minute mix that shows off her range and most importantly, her passion for this music.

@mikep @jlinnarlei

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/903

Di Linh name-checks Ben UFO and DJ Masda as two of her favourite DJs in the interview below, which underlines the lovely duality of her style: her sets are adventurous but buttery smooth. One of Vietnam's most buzzed-about DJs—and a resident at the all-important Hanoi club Savage, as well as Equation festival—she was a punter before she was a DJ. She fell in love with the music at Savage and eventually playing her first-ever gig there, as if it were all kismet.

Her sets are remarkably diverse but also remarkably consistent, with a refreshing, mid-tempo pace marked by well-placed bursts of energy. And so her RA Podcast is impeccably mixed, with the pacing and patience you'd expect from someone who has been DJing for decades. Bookends from Dust-e-1 sandwich an hour of house and techno from the likes of Kerrie, Schacke and Mac Declos. Linh finds a common thread that's all about tactile textures, catchy melodies and beautifully mixed-down drums, a sound you'll hear across the current wave of increasingly revered Southeast Asian DJs who prefer mood and storytelling over genres. Di Linh is one of the best of them.

@dilinhofficial

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/902

New York party Merge is often described as a queer techno extravaganza. Over the past two years, it's built a loyal community from the ground up while integrating everything from high-energy trance to disorienting acid into its rave repertoire. Resident Clarisa Kimskii has played a defining role in the collective's growth, largely thanks to the ultra-kinetic and rhythmic pace of her DJ sets.

Time and time again, the Washington DC native has demonstrated her ability to lock in dancers through captivating and hypnotic selections across various sub-styles of techno. There are tribal, witchy cuts. Jacking, Detroit-style funk. Psychedelic, DJ Nobu-style grooves and austere sounds that nod to Sandwell District. It's the kind of range that explains why Kimskii has been booked worldwide many years over, and more and more as of late. Her deep understanding of techno's myriad flavours come from two decades of industry experience as well as esoteric productions on labels like Mysteries Of The Deep and L.A.G. (her own short-lived, underrated, essential techno platform).

Kimskii's long time in the techno scene, her experience and her expertise is expressed in full form on her RA Podcast Moving from industrial grit to gentle transcendence to heady acid, the mix feels free, fluid but also remarkably precise, just like Kimskii herself.

@kimskii

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/901

Ashland Mines, AKA Total Freedom, AKA Big Gay Idiot DJ, AKA Bobby Beethoven, is one of the best and most influential DJs of the 21st century. Starting out at pioneering parties like Mustache Mondays and Wildness (which he cofounded with Wu Tsang)—and a regular at GHE20G0TH1K—Mines helped to define the style that would become known, however cringe-inducingly, as experimental club or deconstructed club, directly inspiring fellow visionaries like Arca.

Like some of the best DJs before him, Mines uses the CDJs as an instrument, but that doesn't mean just fancy tricks and looping. Instead, he artfully throws together clashing sounds—effects, samples, monologues, pop and R&B acapellas, and beats that run the gamut from dancehall to kuduro to breaks and techno. He's not afraid of the grotesquerie of human life and movement (just check out the monologue at the beginning of this mix), and he likes to push buttons. Once he put on a party where dancing wasn't allowed. Some of his sets are intentionally anxiety-inducing, evoking horror movies and modern classical composers like Penderecki, while others are bouncy and ebullient, weaving between genres and tempos like an old-school platformer. The best are both.

On Mines's RA Podcast—a milestone 900th in the series—he shows off this inimitable style, sharpened and reinforced over a decade-and-a-half of playing some of the world's best parties, fashion shows, you name it. He's the kind of DJ who creates his own music as he goes along. He makes you hear old tracks—especially pop music and R&B—in a whole new way. Titled "Cursed Piercing," this is a near-hour of controlled chaos that'll confound you at one moment and deeply move you the next.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/900

Talk to any veteran artist and they'll tell you consistency is the secret to longevity. Staying relevant in a competitive industry requires unwavering dedication to the craft—a lesson that nobody knows better than the godmother of house music, Stacey Hotwaxx Hale. The gear head, educator, music nerd and Detroit legend is considered the Motor City's first woman DJ to play underground house music. Her inquisitive mind, passion for audio equipment and community spirit has led to a decades-spanning career that has inspired countless women and expanded Detroit's rich musical heritage.

As a teenager, she learned to record on reel-to-reel tapes before learning the ropes from club king Ken Collier in the late '70s. Mastering the art of what she called "sneak-a-mixx"—seamlessly mixing vinyl records continuously—she beat over 600 artists to win the 1985 Motor City Mix competition. DJing remained a given in her life, even when she pursued a full-time engineering degree. She's often described in interviews how she would do math homework in between mixing tracks during gigs in her 20s. When she's not behind the decks or playing in the live ensemble Nyumba Muziki, she teaches DJing and production classes with the goal of teaching her students self-expression.

Hale's sound is warm and dynamic, incorporating everything from gospel, electro, hip-hop, techno and live instruments with the goal of spreading positivity and happiness. Those feelings and cross-genre moods are all tangible on her RA Podcast. Moving gracefully between disco, funky techno, R&B and classic house, Hale's mix feels like the perfect night out, showcasing her versatility, love for vibrant rhythms and her sharp ear.

@hotwaxx

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/899

People in Los Angeles usually remember the moment they first saw Colored Craig DJ. He cuts a memorable figure: throwing down records on the turntables and dancing like he's in the crowd, not behind the decks. He's one of those rare selectors who's almost as fun to watch as he is to listen. But the rest of the world should be listening. Over the past few years, Colored Craig has become one of the LA area's most in-demand DJs, not just because of his considerable skills, but because of his old-school, loved-up ethos. He plays classic house records with a verve and style that you can't really teach or learn. You just have to have it.

A choreographer by trade, everything about Craig has to do with movement, the joy of it, the energy you both gain and lose through dancing. His RA Podcast, recorded in his living room (a sort of nightclub in itself) gets across the infectious, uplifting energy of his sets, blazing through tracks from Kerri Chandler, Masters At Work and Chez Damier, and even including a disco house track that samples the Price Is Right theme. You might call this sound nostalgic, but it doesn't feel that way coming from Colored Craig, who is obsessed with the now, and the power of the moment. That outlook is all over this mix, and with any luck, you'll be hearing and watching him DJ around the world outside of LA sometime soon.

@coloredcraig

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/898

Broken beat, or bruk, is intrinsically collaborative. Its London originators often recorded together, taking inspiration from jazz, hip-hop, deep house, drum & bass and Afrobeat. Because the genre was born of fusion, it brought together heads from all corners of the music spectrum—sound system purists to junglists to Latin Nuyorican aficionados—who each resonated with bruk's complex rhythms in their own ways.

Ian Grant, AKA IG Culture, is an early pioneer of bruk, and his story underlines the style's synergetic nature. Starting out as an MC, he struck fame in the early '90s as one half of Dodge City Productions but quickly grew disillusioned with the major label business. After immersing himself in early George Duke records, Fela Kuti, Fuji music, The Headhunters and the like, he started experimenting in the studio. The jazz inspiration, plus his roots in reggae and background in hip-hop and acid jazz, led to his now-seminal, late '90s productions as New Sector Movements—widely considered as the starting point in bruk history.

Since then, Grant has kept building infrastructure for the hybrid sound. Alongside Bugz in the Attic, Phil Asher, Dego of 4hero, Demus and Orin Walters, he cofounded the legendary CoOp party, which became a meeting place for diverse musical minds and enabled bruk to keep evolving. Grant remains deeply committed to co-creating, as seen by the Selectors Assemble artist collective he runs with Alex Phountzi (the two are also known as NameBrandSound), his releases with Psykhomantus as Shall I Bruk It, his Afrofuturist take on bruk as Likwid Continual Space Motion and various other projects.

On his RA Podcast, the veteran artist presents a forward-thinking portrayal of bruk, adjacent styles that were directly inspired by it and other global club cuts. There are cerebral, jazzy cuts from his CoOp label, Nigerian cruise music, percussive UK garage, 2-step swing, dancehall dub and much more. This is Grant's world, where rhythmic and swung beats reign supreme.

@ig-culture

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/897

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound.

https://soundcloud.com/atikka-music
https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio
https://www.pr-t-n.org/
https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound.

https://soundcloud.com/cockwhoreandmacho
https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio
https://www.pr-t-n.org/
https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound.

https://soundcloud.com/lyravalenza
https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio
https://www.pr-t-n.org/
https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound.

https://soundcloud.com/teateatea123
https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio
https://www.pr-t-n.org/
https://soundcloud.com/oencph

Kerrie started a label called Dark Machine Funk, a name which hints toward the kind of music she plays. And while the Irish artist might be a capital-T techno DJ, her idea of "dark" is a little different than the black-clad legions of her generation. You won't find whiplash-inducing BPMs or racy pop edits in her sets. Her idea of techno is more classicist, without veering towards the stuffy or the retro. Her DJIng and her productions bridge the divide between Euro and American styles. Hints of breakbeat or other broken patterns bring in ideas from the UK techno that she loves so much, such as the pivotal label Blueprint, where she's become a regular as of late.

With her, the devil's in the details (listen to those deliciously twisted hi-hats in recent track "Transient Belief"), and that comes down to mixing records, too. Her RA Podcast is a fast but measured run-through of 90 minutes of techno by artists like Exium and Tensal and from labels such as Token and Soma. Though none of her own tunes make the tracklist, this mix perfectly captures Kerrie's style. She's someone who appreciates that the real power and force of techno comes from its groove, not just the impact of the kick drum or pure speed.

@kerrie_DJ

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/896

Like most multi-genre music fans, London-based Ruby Savage approaches DJing through a wide-angle lens. Whether she's touring, playing her post-punk disco party, In Flames, or hosting her monthly show on NTS, the Amsterdam native opts for warm, bouncy tunes that traverse dub, jazz and '80s proto-house. As she once Mixmag, she isn't beat-matching but "heartbeat-matching." For her, a dance is a means to feeling the full spectrum of emotions in a healthy way.

Years spent behind-the-scenes at influential institutions have added to her understanding of energy and flow. She's worked the counter at Honest Jon's Records, managed Theo Parrish's Sounds Signature label (plus created the Wildheart Recordings sister label) and Gilles Peterson's Brownswood imprint, in addition to helping the Worldwide FM don launch Arc Records. When she's not DJing, Savage is spearheading community initiatives like Don't Be A Creep, an educational platform about club safety, as well as Artist Recovery Club for creative growth among music-makers.

For her RA podcast, the vinyl enthusiast crafted a house music odyssey through soul, disco and gospel-inflected cuts like "Glory" by Waajeed and Dames Brown. It's an uplifting excursion through joy, catharsis and self-affirmation, relayed straight from the heart.

@kwasiba3000

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/895

House music started in Chicago, but what gets lost in history lessons is how it evolved and mutated in New York. None of that would have happened without Todd Terry. Bringing together hip-hop and house with his distinctive drum sounds, Terry not only created a whole subgenre (hip-house—check out Jungle Brothers' 1988 classic "I'll House You") but helped redefine the sound as a whole, bringing it to the mainstream with a string of classic remixes that stretched well into the '90s.

Through his catalogue of records as Hard House, Orange Lemon, Bombshell, Masters At Work (before Louie Vega and Kenny Dope would take that name) and many others, Terry built a discography unlike any other in dance music. Even if you only have a vague idea of who he is, you've definitely heard a record of his, probably ten. (That legendary remix of Everything But The Girl's "Missing?" That's him too.) His sound is loose, punchy and often deliriously catchy, rooted in the ethos of the classic hip-hop he started out playing.

Terry's RA Podcast focuses on a golden era of house from the late '80s to the early '90s, including classic cuts from Marshall Jefferson, Inner City, Crystal Waters and, of course, Terry himself. There's also a modern update from Amine Edge & DANCE. As he says in the interview below, it's a way to "show where house came from." Whether you're a newcomer or have heard these tracks hundreds of times before, there's nothing like hearing them from an innovator of the form.

@todd-terry-inhouserecords

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/894

This RA Podcast is a celebration of all things Moodymann, and by extension, Detroit. The long-time DJ and producer Dez Andrés calls Moodymann his "big brother," and here pays tribute to the true expanse of Kenny Dixon Jr's music, from core house cuts to rambling funk jams to remixes of artists like Dua Lipa and Solomun, which really hammers home how important Moodymann is on dance music from across the world and across genres.

Andrés himself is also a legend. Active in Detroit since the '90s, he's a dance music Renaissance man, known for incredible hip-hop beats, disco and house, including massive hits like "New 4 U," one of the last decade's biggest dance music hits and RA's favourite track of 2012. His archive of records and mixes are essential listening for any house music or hip-hop fan, and he represents that distinct blend of influences and genres that defines Detroit—the same thing you can hear in this all-Moodymann mix.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/893

As a producer, Lamin Fofana makes ambient music that makes you think. His painterly compositions may be beatless, but they're full of movement, expanding and contracting from modulations and shifting frequencies to create a sense of infinite vastness. This immensity of sound creates a cerebral mood, allowing the Sierra Leone-born talent to explore sociocultural issues close to his heart, like the geographies of the African diaspora and what he calls Western rationality in music.

He translates this heavy subject matter into textural sound using narrative structure, field recordings and archival material. The final product could be an album or an audio-based installation. Rooted in themes of identity and belonging, his exhibitions seek to disorient the senses and have been shown around Europe, including the Biennial in Venice and Liverpool.

On his RA Podcast, the New York-based artist presents an all-original mix of loopy techno that mirrors the dynamism of his ambient productions. Laced with acid and pulsing synths, these cuts are faster paced and geared for dance floors, but they share the atmospheric touch of his earlier work. Based on the interview below, it seems like we'll be seeing more of this side of him in the year ahead.

@laminfofana

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/892

A spark of light erupting from a naked, crouched body adorns the cover of Sodomy, the new EP from Jorkes on their label Freeride Millenium. The image, serious yet playful, seems to represent an outburst of ideas and emotions from a person's inner core, literally. It's the perfect metaphor for Jorkes, whose palette of rugged house music, slick disco, '80s synth-pop and booming acid always feels unapologetically earnest.

Their sonic identity, built around their queerness and self-described empathetic nature, is both cheeky and deeply thoughtful, washing listeners over with feelings of love and human connection (and lots of catchy vocal hooks). Anyone who's attended their resident nights at Stuttgart club Romantica or listened to their shows on Munich's Radio 80000 can attest to Jorkes' sense of unbridled enthusiasm, sweetness and passion for their queer community.

All of that is tangible on their RA mix, a lively and poignant journey through exuberant house and emotive nu disco with plenty of classics like Club 69's "Let Me Be Your Underwear" thrown in for pure, feel-good energy.

@jorkes

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/891

Of all the one-word techno project names out there, Truncate has to be among the most descriptive. The name started as a name for David Flores's most pared-back tracks, different from the stuff he was making as Audio Injection at the time. As happens with people who are really good at techno—or just understand the genre fundamentally—Truncate's DJ tools took off quickly, because people in the scene could recognize the craftsmanship. You don't need more than a few elements to make something pop. Rather quickly, Truncate became Flores's main squeeze, bringing him to a new level of international attention and acclaim.

Flores is part of a vibrant LA techno community that's probably never been more vibrant or diverse. He helped build the scene alongside producers like Drumcell, and now the city is home to several great techno parties every weekend. You'll see his name on the flyer of quite a few of them, though probably less now that he's an international star. His RA Podcast represents the ethos of not just the Truncate project, but his work writ large: stripped-back tunes, yes, but also electro and some choice vocal cuts. It's a vibrant look at capital-T techno, an approach to the genre that's about building on foundations instead of sticking to templates.

@truncate

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/890

This is a re-recording of a set @compuma played at an April demonstration against the redevelopment of a Tokyo park that Ryuichi Sakamoto spoke passionately about before his death.

"We gathered in front of the trees scheduled to be cut down in Jingu Gaien to align with Sakamoto's attitude and will," organizers said.

Read more on RA: https://ra.co/news/79189

Tracklist:

Ryuichi Sakamoto - 20210310
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives
Ryuichi Sakamoto & The Kakutougi Session - Neuronian Network
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Tibetan Dance（Version)
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Neue Tanz
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Behind The Mask (Remix）
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Ballet Mecanique
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Self Portrait
Ryuichi Sakamoto - andata（Electric Youth Remix)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Riot In Lagos
David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Bamboo Houses
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Perspective
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thatness And Thereness
Ryuichi Sakamoto - 20220304
Mark Stewart - Forbidden Colour

In 2020, Mell G dropped out of law studies to pursue music full-time and hasn't looked back since. For good reason too—she's far too busy for any potential regret. Over the past three years, the Hamburg-based artist launched JUICY GANG RECORDS, switched up her DJing style from ghettotech to electro, began touring and started producing. Her year-and-a-half old label is now a go-to source for brazen, bouncy club bangers and her refocused, electro-heavy sound has led to bookings alongside DJ Stingray, Pearson Sound and other heavy-hitters.

The rising star is certainly having a moment, yet it hasn't been all smooth sailing. These sudden career ascents can be tricky to navigate emotionally and her upcoming debut album ISSUES expresses some of the mental health struggles she's faced along the way.

Her RA Podcast is similarly personal. Moving from retro synthwave to acid-laced techno to UK bass before ending on funky electro, it embodies the core sounds that are near and dear to her. Loaded with lots of gritty low-end frequencies, it's a thrilling ride across contemporary club music that cements her status as an in-demand DJ.

@djmellg

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/889

You never know what you're going to get if you see the name Hieroglyphic Being on a record or a flyer, but there's a good chance it'll be some of the best, most jacking house you've ever heard. Jamal Moss embodies the the spirit—and the past, present and future—of Chicago's house music scene, but he also carries the torch for Afrofuturism, free jazz and avant-garde music. He follows in the footsteps of important figures like Sun Ra and Ron Hardy, his work blending these traditions with a healthy dose of post-punk, too.

For over two decades, Moss's Mathematics Recordings label has been one of the premiere sources of raw, analogue house music, helping put producers like John Heckle on the map. He has a sprawling solo discography, encompassing projects like I.B.M., Members Only and The Sun God. He also put out one of our favourite albums last year with Thank U 4 The Tracks U Lost, released on Modern Love under his given name.

Live, Moss usually jams on a few pieces of gear, to fantastic and sometimes bewildering effect. This RA Podcast is a two-hour recording of a live set from public records in New York. It features all the raw, powerful house music you'd expect—made with two iPads and a MIDI controller—but it's also loaded with gorgeous, ghostly melodies and an opening section that touches on trance, trip-hop and '90s electronica. This is a rare live recording that captures a genius at work.

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/888