RA Podcast

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 throu...

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 tweaki...

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 h...

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 furthe...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ca...

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 R...

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 Bro...

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 tal...

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...

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 founde...

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...

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 undergroun...

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 J...

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 dire...

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...

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...

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 prod...

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...

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...

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 EM...

"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 Londo...