RA Podcast

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 R...

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...

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 footste...

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...

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...

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'...

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, particula...

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...

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...

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 sin...

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...

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 U...

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...

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....

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 an...

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 Pod...

"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 confrontationa...

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...

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 twic...

"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, posi...

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'...

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 femin...

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 o...

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...

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...