RA Podcast

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 <i>RA</i> 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

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

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

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

At the age of 16, Shinedoe was already comfortable in the club. The Dutch artist started dancing at parties as a part-time job while studying before finding her way behind the decks. She landed her first big DJ booking at Amsterdam club Paradiso at the tender age of 19 and her first single, "Dilemma," from 2004, quickly became an Ibiza favourite. All of this is to say that she knows how to move a room. Influenced by Detroit techno pioneers like Robert Hood, Shinedoe's mixes and productions are full of jacking kicks and big-room basslines. Funky, slamming rhythms are her forte and even when she focuses on minimalist tech house or darker sounds, there's always some zest sprinkled in, in the form of electro and breaks. For her RA Podcast, the Intacto Records and Music That Moves founder offers a variety of powerful techno cuts. There's DJ Godfather's turntablist take, her own acid-tinged mindbenders and a hard, no-nonsense banger from Glasgow duo Slam to conclude. It's the kind of punchy mix that can pull in any kind of dance music fan, techno head or not. @shinedoe Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/887

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daria Kolosova was one of the brightest stars of Kyiv's incredible techno scene, when the city was among the best places for the genre anywhere in the world (and remains so, even under duress). Now living in Berlin, Kolosova's style and sound feel both timeless and progressive. She's been DJing since she was a teenager—after falling in love with dance music via her dad's collection—and has built up a style that has taken her to the world's most renowned techno clubs and festivals. In spite of her popularity, Kolosova does things differently to many of her peers. She's spoken about her respect for and recognition of techno's origins, and her DJing style pays homage to the genre's history. Her sets span eras and continents, with a '90s bent that encompasses not just hard, rolling techno but breakbeats, electro, IDM and prog. Her RA Podcast is a brilliant collection of old and new, from Goa trance to Julia Govor, expertly mixed with a storyteller's hand. @dar_key Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/886

You might describe Cormac as a late bloomer. Or he might describe himself that way. Though he's been in the dance music game for a long time—a regular at Trash and Nag Nag Nag, and a resident and booker at the old Sunday WetYourSelf! parties at fabric—it's only more recently that he's come into a sound that he can call his own, something that connects more clearly with who he is. (These days, you're more likely to find him closing Panorama Bar.) That sound is rooted in the queer history so important to him. You could call his <i>RA</i> Podcast hi-NRG, to be general. It's that vibrant, pounding, melodic and synthetic sound that came out of the post-disco early '80s, combining the flair of disco with the strut of Italo. There's new and old here, because Cormac is a champion of evolving iterations of the genre. Over this two and a half hours, you'll hear Patrick Cowley and Madonna, but also a whole lot of other, less obvious stuff too. We could go on, but Cormac explains himself pretty eloquently in the interview below. Two hot tips: watch out for his label, Polari Records, and his upcoming Queerly Beloved podcast series, where he talks to queer artists about their relationships with music. @cormac Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/885

Since emerging (to most the world) on Ben Klock's Klockworks label, Ukrainian producer Etapp Kyle immediately caught attention of Berlin's techno cognoscenti, with a sound that seemed perfectly fit for the Berghain school: taut, slyly melodic and just the right amount of funky. Over the past ten years, he's refined his sound to a science, but also opened it up: his records on Ostgut Ton, particularly 2020's Nolove EP, showcase a mastery of sound and space. This is techno you can sit in, and let it wash over you. As a DJ, Kyle is generally associated with a functional, if atmospheric style of techno (and, more recently, electro), but on his RA Podcast he invites us into something of a different space. In a way, this mix represents the spirits of his productions, with a wide-open soundscape touching on everything from '90s techno and trance, including some goodies from Canada and Denmark, along with core electronic acts like Future Sound Of London, Autechre and today's modern electronica poster-boy, Skee Mask—BPMs and genres be damned. It's a mix that veers from melancholy to emotive to ecstatic, sometimes even silly, and it's a real pleasure, capturing one of techno's more creative and restless voices. @etappkyle Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/884

Co-mixed with @Aasthma. There are few people who have had as much of an impact on contemporary electronic music as Karin Dreijer, whether with their brother Olof in The Knife or with their solo project, Fever Ray. From massive indie-pop hits to paradigm-shifting dance records, Dreijer's work takes a psychedelic, plasticine approach to synth pop, with their trademark pitch-shifted vocals and psuedo-tropical beats. As Fever Ray, they've tapped into the global club music underground, working with producers like Nídia, Paula Temple, Deena Abdelwahed, Vessel and, on new album Radical Romantics—one of our favourite albums of the year so far at RA, hands down—even Nine Inch Nails. Other important collaborators in Dreijer's world are Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik, the Swedish techno producers who have been working with Fever Ray since the first album back in 2009. They co-mixed this RA Podcast. The mix is a survey of Dreijer's favourite dance music, some of which informs their one-of-a-kind sound world as Fever Ray. There's plenty of music from the groundbreaking East African scene centered around Nyege Nyege Tapes, plus DJ Haram, Equinkoxx, Tayhana and more, and even two exclusive, upcoming Fever Ray remixes from Avalon Emerson and Nifra. It's a rare look into the musical tastes of a true visionary. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/883 Photo: Flemming Bo Jenson

Before starting his own label Solar Body, Otik released music on labels like INTERGRADED, Keysound, 3024 and Shall Not Fade, doing his rounds on the imprints that make up a constellation of the UK's most exciting club music. (To keep it simple, we can call it broken techno, but that's not the whole story.) He hails from Bristol, and takes in that city's unique and enduring blend of techno, dub and drum & bass history, but what sets Otik apart is the sense of atmosphere and space in his music. Perhaps RA's Taylor Bratches put it best: "Otik's precise club music floats on a lush, celestial plane." You can hear it in his upcoming EP Xoul Trap, where even a straightforward house beat on "Unorthodox" rides an updraft of choral vocals and eerie synths, as if carried by the wind. Otik says his RA Podcast is meant to be a little more straightforward than usual for him, sticking purely to club music, but it's still full of twists, turns, throwbacks (hello, "Router" by Pangaea) and, of course, the melodic and atmospheric qualities that make Otik tick. @otikmusic Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/882

Hard work can pay off. Just ask Elisa Bee. The Sardinian producer and DJ has been working diligently since 2007, exploring and then refining a style of techno that has that rare, hard-to-put-your-finger-on quality: a soulful reverence, paying homage to the old days and the originators without just copying them. She struck it (relatively) big with an EP on Unknown To The Unknown in 2019 and has since become a fixture on labels like Hardgroove, Symbiosis and Balkan Vinyl, imprints that specialize in a kind of meat-and-potatoes techno that underlines both the fundamentals and subtle innovation. She's also a resident at Milan's Tempio Del Futuro Perduto, which she talks about at length in the interview below. Now, in 2023, Elisa Bee is part of a vanguard of younger techno producers who carry the flag for the '90s without resorting to pastiche or the bigger-is-better aesthetic of much of the rest of the contemporary European techno landscape. Her RA Podcast is as buttery smooth as it is propulsive, flying through tracks from like-minded artists like Austin Ato, Nocow and Black Girl/White Girl. Sleek, vintage and futuristic all at once. @xelisabeex Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/881

Bill Kouligas is the mind behind one of modern electronic music's greatest and most innovative labels, PAN. His remarkable ear for music meant that he released some of the earliest records from luminaries like Yves Tumor, Helena Hauff and Eartheater, helping to jumpstart several remarkable careers. And each PAN release is lovingly and lavishly packaged like an art object in itself, an approach you can read more about in this month's feature-length cover story. The Berlin artist's RA Podcast is an audio companion to that cover story, and it underlines not only Kouligas's range as a label A&R but also as a DJ. Reflecting the label's evolution from straight-up noise to musique concréte to leftfield dance music and then avant-pop, the mix cycles through stages of strange, staggered beats, almost celestial ambient music, passages of overwhelming noise and sound that sublimate into floating clouds before solidifying back into club music, and a couple engaging spoken word passages and endless manipulations of the human voice. In other words, it sounds a lot like PAN. @pan_hq Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/880

Once upon a time, V.I.V.E.K Sharda was unhappy with the sound at UK nightclubs and parties—sound that he felt couldn't capture the deepest, truest vibrations of the music he wanted to play and hear—so he just made his own sound system. (Naturally, he called it System.) That should give you an idea of how seriously Sharda takes his wubs and his sub-bass, and if you have even a passing interest in UK sound system culture or dub's crossover with dance music—including, yes, dubstep—then you've probably heard of V.I.V.E.K, or at least heard one of his chest-rattling records. Along with producers like Om Unit and Kryptic Minds—both of whom feature in the mix below—Sharda has never been one for following trends or concerned about scenes. Instead, he's fully devoted to the pulse of dub and the luxury of bassweight. He's put out slow but steady stream of ultra-heavy releases on his own labels System Music and VIVEK, and now he's on a mission to change perceptions of what 140 BPM music can sound like. That's what you'll hear on his RA Podcast, a meditative and occasionally tectonically-shifting mix that highlights dubstep, dub and its many offshoots—not just staggered drums and subterranean low-end but smooth swing and soulful melodies, too. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/879

There are DJs, then there are DJs who capture—and live—a moment in dance music's evolution. Born in Los Angeles, but based in New York for the better half of a decade, Akua has established herself as the latter, an important voice in the North American techno scene. Akua's DJing practice is fueled by her research in the '90s techno music archive, with a special interest in the history and roots of techno within America. Akua's sets are raw extensions of the foundations laid by the pioneers of '90s U.S. techno. Most prominently, the work and influence of DJs like Jeff Mills, Claude Young and Jay Denham can all be heard across her mixes, as well as the spirit of Underground Resistance. Her interest in fast-paced techno comes from these traditions as well as own individualist streak—while there's no shortage of DJs who play high-BPM techno, you won't hear anyone else play it quite like she does. Her old-school meets new-school sound has catapulted her from the New York underground into the European techno circuit, where recent gigs have seen her perform at dance music institutions like Berghain and Dekmantel. Akua's RA Podcast is her in full-throttle mode, featuring all the stripped-down, hypnotic groove of early techno aside rushes of searing acid, carefully speeding up until closing at a healthy sprint. @akua_dj Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/878

As he'll happily tell you, Eddie Fowlkes has been DJing for 42 years. That's a long time for anyone, but especially for someone who never really stopped. From his early records on Juan Atkins' Metroplex record label through to newer releases on his own labels City Boy and Detroit Wax, he's been doing his thing and staying true to himself and his timeless combination of Detroit dance music genres. He doesn't always get his dues alongside his fellow Detroit techno pioneers in the Belleville Three, probably because his sound was always more hybrid, a blend of techno and house that he would come to call techno soul, including on his landmark 1993 album with Moritz von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann, The Birth Of Technosoul. But Fowlkes is still a force of nature, and a master at mixing too, having four decades to hone his craft. You'll hear that skill on his RA Podcast, which comes in the wake of two more prominent releases, for Rekids and Classic Music Company/Defected, that might help (re)introduce him to a wider audience. Touching on soul, jazz and funk, this is functional but deep stuff played by a master selector, whose hands you can always hear in the mixing—a personal, human touch that defines techno soul. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/877

Mauricio Rebolledo is one of those veteran artists who has stood the test of time. He can play Burning Man, go back-to-back with DJ Tennis and mentor young producers with unwavering finesse, staying true to his signature sound of sparse, psychedelic chuggers. Where many of his peers have embraced a more commercial sound, the Mexican artist likes to keep it weird, opting for touches of Krautrock and hazy atmospherics in both his sets and on his albums. He tends to be associated with tribal drums and screwy trance, but in reality, the Hippie Dance cofounder and long-time Kompakt affiliate is a man of many influences—as heard on his RA Podcast. Whimsical interludes of French dance pop and retro synth-wave are interspersed with shoegazey electronics ("Dive" by Pale Blue) as well as plenty of his own productions, which blur the lines between minimal house and techno. This is a hypnotic, brooding journey that starts and ends with versions of Justus Köhncke's "Elan," which adds to the mix's loopy feel. (There's also a Prins Thomas remix thrown in for good measure.) No peaks or climaxes here, just long plateaus of zigzagging synths and winding chords. Turn on, tune in and drop out, as they say. @rebolledostyle Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/876

There's an old-school touch to ISAbella's sound. Breakbeats, rolling tech house, progressive house and trance pepper both her studio mixes and her debut EP, transporting listeners to a place of peak '90s indulgence. It's no wonder, then, that vintage rave sounds are a signature tenet of MARICAS, the club night and label that she helped start in 2018. Her love for the '90s is tangible on her RA Podcast, an emotional journey across breakbeat house, trancey techno and funky electro. First-rate throwbacks such as Canyon's "Move" and "Lightspan Soundwave" by The Shamen exude a carefree euphoria, while heavier cuts like Desert's "Moods (Club Mix)'' intensify the feeling of rapture. Even the contemporary releases, like Bashkka's excellent "C-quence Of Calamities," feel rooted in nostalgia. MARICAS mixes are usually energetic from the get-go, but ISAbella starts out nice and relaxed this time around. The mix's most striking element is how personal each track feels—a reflection of her intimate relationship with these records. Each one evokes a special poignancy and though these ephemeral selections were largely improvised, ISAbella believes they "show what's going on lately and what's going on forever." @bellasalmonella Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/875

"I am going to take you on a ride where I will challenge you to back down or go with me," Parrish Smith says in the interview below. "If you don't like to do this, and you see a glimpse of me, you will dislike me. But the second time it happens again, I will be there to change your mind again, just to be challenged." It's a confident, confrontational idea that goes with an unusually confrontational RA Podcast, a mix that represents a truly free spirit in the European dance scene. Smith, who also moonlights in the band Volition Immanent with fellow Dutch trailblazer Mark Knekelhuis, makes and plays hard, aggressive techno. But instead of gabber BPMs and overdriven kick drums, he directly incorporates ideas, sounds and influences from rock, punk and metal, a tricky combination that he nails like few others have been able to. (Just check his album Light, Cruel & Vain.) Case in point: this mix blends Regis, Tzusing and Playboi Carti with Sepultura, Juno Reactor and Celldweller. It's a journey to the end of aesthetics, where opposites don't attract so much as crash and melt into each other. It's a fierce hour-and-a-half but never quite overbearing or overwhelming, gracefully weaving in and out of chaos like the work of someone who knows the real impact and art of heavy music. @parrishsmith Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/874

Emma Blake is, musically, something of a nomad. She made her name—Solid Blake—that is, in Copenhagen, where she cofounded the influential Apeiron Crew alongside Mama Snake and Smokey. They were responsible in establishing the city's "fast techno" sound, which blended sleek techno and trance influences into something colourful and retro-futuristic. But Blake's side of things was always more rooted in electro, with a party-starting flair that you might be tempted to pin to her Glaswegian upbringing. (Her first release, <i>Mario</i>, came out on the label of the legendary Glasgow taps-aff basement nightclub La Cheetah.) And she's also spent time in Berlin, so she has those techno bona fides, too. Another EP, released on Modeselektor's Seilscheibenpfeiler, further fleshed out her electro-techno hybrid sound, also explored in her Historical Repeater project with Danish artist Ctrls. DJing has been her major focus, though—she has an excellent Rinse FM show—and you'll hear a refined approach on her excellent RA Podcast, which is like a club set in miniature, starting out midtempo and rushing towards a heady climax with tracks like Pariah's "Squishy Windows." It's loaded with creative grooves, toothsome textures and the kind of sleek melodies that helped define her stint in Copenhagen since the beginning. @solid_blake Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/873

Joe Delon loves music. You might think that would (or should) be self-evident in someone who DJs for a living, but the electronic music world would be a better place if everyone cared and thought as much as he did. In addition to being an increasingly in-demand DJ, he runs a stellar label, Welt Discos and moonlights as a music writer, with a beloved Substack newsletter that he usually updates twice a week. A blend of touring DJ travelogue and mix recommendations, it's a rich source of information and music from an artist with a warm, friendly voice—and perhaps more importantly, impeccable taste. It's that taste that has endeared him to many dance music fans around the world over the last few years, developing a dedicated fanbase who greet every new mix with bated breath (including, hopefully, this one). He's something of a record digger, but not in the clichéd way—he just loves to find records new and old full of melody, springy rhythms and a generally quirky, positive vibe. The music he selects often has an '80s tinge to it, even when it's not from the '80s, but it's hard to pin down what he plays, both because his sets are so unpredictable, and because it wouldn't be fair. His RA Podcast, as he explains below, is meant to sum up his last year of DJing, a carefully put together selection of favourites from 2022 (meaning records he played that year, not that came out last year). As always, it's a mix of familiar and far-flung records, mixed with Delon's breezy, unique style. Part of the reason why people have come to love his DJing so much is that it just kind of puts a smile on your face. Listen and you'll see. @joedelon Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/872

"I'm usually the first person to label Valentine's Day a commercial scam," says Kikelomo in the interview below, "however I recently realised that sharing music and connecting with people through sound is one of the ultimate expressions of love for me." When the Berlin-based DJ sent in her mix to RA, she subtitled it "All about love." It's nearly two hours of dance music that radiates warmth, positive energy and compassion, expressed through the wide, almost kaleidoscopic genre lens that Kikelomo has made her own. House, jungle, electro, hip-hop, you name it. The mix is even split into two distinct sides, like an old-school cassette mixtape. In addition to being a great and adventurous DJ, Kikelomo also started @orokoradio, a station based in Accra, that connects the Ghanaian capital—and other African cities—with the usual electronic music hotspots, and showcases homegrown talent and sounds through a platform of their own making. It's all part of her mission as a DJ to not only share music and love, but also to connect, uplift and create real community, as she also discusses below. It's not just a buzzword for Kikelomo, but a mission. @kikelomooo Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/871

People usually talk about Berlin, London, New York when discussing electronic music hotspots, and Paris doesn't always get its due. Case in point? It produced Jennifer Cardini, one of the most distinctive DJs to to ever come out of the city. (She's lived in Germany for a while, but the point stands.) Her sound lands somewhere between disco, house and EBM, rooted in a groovy, post-modern chug. You'll hear nu-disco, industrial, techno and electro too, usually built around big hooks. It's a sound that is not only instantly recognizable, but instantly likable. As a producer, Cardini also deserves her flowers. She's been putting out records since the mid-'90s, and with her first label Correspondant, she's built up a rock-solid catalogue from artists like Fort Romeau, Man Power, Cormac and more. More recently she started the Dischi Autunno imprint, a place for more crossover-friendly music that indulges Cardini's tastes for all things melodic (and maybe a little goth). Cardini's RA Podcast is a beautiful summary of all these ideas and influences. It's hard and banging, sure, but also lithe and athletic. There are plenty of tracks with the surge of EBM or the stab of industrial. Lots of reverb. Decadent melodies undergirded by tough drum patterns. And it's paced as expertly as you'd expect from someone who's been DJing for over 30 years. In the interview below, Cardini says she "loves how the young generation is digesting four decades of club / rave culture," and you can hear that history living and breathing in Cardini's DJing, too. @jennifercardini Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/870

We're not in the habit of quoting press materials all the time, but in Kajetan Łukomski's case, it feels appropriate. The first sentence of his bio is "Avtomat is a person with way too many interests." If you know any artists from Poland's wide-ranging, always-growing electronic music scene, chances are he's one of them. He's a DJ, producer, organizer and activist, once a member of the queer feminist collective Oramics, and is endlessly passionate about supporting, spreading and playing music from the Central European and Eastern European regions. With roots in metal, goth and electroclash, there's a certain spikiness to Łukomski's style, but also a polyglot knowledge and a hunger for new sounds. Lately he's been trying to mix club music with Polish folk traditions, which is the mission of Łukomski's RA Podcast, but it's also just the jumping off point. In these almost four hours of expert blending, genre-jumping and incredible pacing, Łukomski touches on almost every style of dance music you could think of, with aplomb and occasionally surprise (like that irresistible Bloc Party edit). If you can, it's worth digesting all in one sitting, so you can truly appreciate the ground he covers. @avtomatmusic Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/869

Before she was Femanyst, Akua Grant was called The Lady Blacktronika, also known as the First Lady Of Beatdown. Beatdown was a type of of ultra-deep house characterized by creamy chords, soulful melodies and, in Grant's case, honeyed vocals. She ran an integral label called Sound Black Recordings, home to some of her best tracks. But around 2017, she turned towards what was essentially the polar opposite: industrial-tinged super hard techno, full of distortion and anger. This is where we find Grant now, as Femanyst, with a mix that shows off heavy-duty techno that still has a heart. She started her own new label, called Dark Carousel, and has released on Paula Temple's Noise Manifesto. She manages to take some of the hardest techno around and imbue it with her signature melodic style. This is probably one of the toughest RA Podcasts yet, but it's also full of feeling, dynamism and tension. Get your best listening setup ready and sink in for two hours. @msladyblacktronika Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/868

Name a genre, and you can bet that Luis Garban has tried his hand at it once or twice. Once a staple of the mid-'00s IDM and breakcore scene—think Tigerbeat6—as Cardopusher, Garban found a temporary home in the dubstep scene afterwards, before shooting off in what felt like a million directions. He might be the only artist to release on both Hyperdub and Boysnoize Records. He makes music that can sound like the future or the past, sometimes both at once, and the Venezuelan-born, Spain-based producer's name is shorthand for musical adventurism and variety. Last year, things got even wilder with the debut of Safety Trance, a new alias that explores pan-Latin club music, with a focus on collaboration and shorter, structured songs. (Artists he's worked with include Arca, Iceboy Violet and Virgen Maria.) It's some of the best and most creative work of his career, riding a larger Latin techno wave producing some of the best music around these days. If that weren't enough, returning to Cardopusher, Garban has a career-best EP on the way for EVAR Records, pulling together the various strands of the project into a multi-genre, Gen-Z-friendly raveathon. Loaded with original tracks from both projects, RA Podcast could be billed as Cardopusher vs. Safety Trance, with highlights coming from Atari Teenage Riot, VTSS and Venetian Snares, which should give you an idea for the kind of controlled chaos you're in for with this one. @cardopusher Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/867

Roughly ten years ago—if we pretend the peak pandemic year-and-a-half doesn't count—Lars Dales and Maarten Smeets first came together as Detroit Swindle, before changing their name to Dam Swindle towards the end of 2020. The original name was meant as a tribute to one of their favorite musical legacies, but recognizing that it didn't come across how they meant it, the duo changed their name to pay homage to their other favourite place: Amsterdam. Dales and Smeets have become core parts of the Amsterdam house scene in their time, especially with their excellent Heist Recordings label, which they started back in 2013 (hey, now *that's* literally ten years ago). It's easy to understand why the duo have become so popular. In person and onstage, they're goofy, funny guys, the kind of people you might describe as the life of the party. And musically, they're massively appealing, marrying a European tech house strut to deeper and more soulful inspirations, a preoccupation reflected in Heist's impressive artist roster: Ge-Ology, Demuir, Byron The Aquarius, Matthew Herbert and more. Their RA Podcast comes at a time of reflection and change, looking back on the decade-plus history of both act and label and plotting their new album, which they say will expand their horizons even more. The mix is eclectic but smooth, pulling together tracks from the likes of Omar-S, Lil Silva, Ruf Dug and Genius Of Time (with one of last year's most underrated tracks). It's always a treat to hear consummate club DJs in a more relaxed mode, and this one's no exception. @damswindle Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/866