"Special Measures" is the first album of experimental electronica by Cathode, released in 2004 on Expanding Records.

this just in (c90 mix)

Track made with a Behringer Deepmind (synth and bass) and a Roland T-8 (drums). 

Mind of Many

Ripped In Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 16.04.25

GW 002

Ripped In Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 21.05.25

Ripped in Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 19.06.25

S/HE IS STILL HER/E: LADY INCARNATE interviews Genesse P-Orridge - Radio Buena Vida 19.06.25

Ripped In Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 16.07.25

Andrew Weatherall's first official posthumous mix. The only b2b DJ Harvey ever agreed to. Six hours at Trouw. This one's special.

When mulling which direction to go in for RA's 1000th mix celebrations, many options came to mind. Some shadowy character 2-stepping around the fringe of our collective consciousness? An impossible-level IDM icon?

All tempting. But, ultimately, we are a DJ-forward publication and this is a DJ mix series. It felt truer to the history of the RA Podcast to release deep vault material from a time when the world of niche records felt different, tighter, more discrete.

The fourth-longest mix in the series' history is an unrepeatable marathon set recorded in 2012 at a superclub that no longer exists. 2012, incidentally, is farther away from 2025 than 2012 was from 2000... if we have to clock it, so do you.

It's the coming together of one British icon who passed away in 2020, and another whose time on the road has scaled back considerably as of late. DJ Harvey agreed to exactly one b2b set in his life: this one, with Andrew Weatherall.

The night took place at Trouw, an Amsterdam club already considered legendary before it shuttered its doors in the opening hours of 2015, as part of an RA series anchored around start-to-close combinations. Harvey was at the peak of an irresistible career second act, which dovetailed with a disco revival that dominated clubs for years. Weatherall, with infinite brownie points stockpiled from the '90s, remained everyone's favourite debonair psychonaut. 

What follows is 385 scintillating minutes of arpeggiated chug and slow-cresting climaxes: a moment when the resting heart rate of dance floors plunged lower than any comparable point in the 21st century. A masterclass, entirely self-contained in audio form.

If you've got time to spare, a fun side game is sussing out who plays what. A disco-dub cover of Echo & the Bunnymen? Smart money's on Weatherall. Exuberant EQ'ing of The Isley Brothers? Gotta be Harvey. As for the low 'n slow, lightly spangled house that was all the rage in the early 2010s (think Maxxi Soundsystem, Disco Bloodbath, Rub & Tug, C.O.M.B.I. and Full Pupp), it's anyone's guess. 127 BPM feels practically like an F1 car.

When we kicked off our RA.1000 campaign, we outlined a few goals: tick off a handful of long-awaited dream guests, honour architects who shaped the world around us and deliver recordings you truly can't hear anywhere else. Full send.

DJing and the mythmaking around it has undergone a quantum leap since 2012, let alone 2006, 1996 or 1989. For those of us who were kicking around in the former, there's a creeping melancholy that our prime is fast becoming a matter of historical record. The killing moon really did come too soon. 

Where will electronic music, DJ sets or any of this be in 2044? Hard to say. Best not to overthink that one. Instead, we want to say thanks to all contributors on the series so far. Now enjoy luxuriating in the company of two of the greatest to ever do it, together, for the first and last time.⁠ – Gabriel Szatan (Editor, RA)

@andrew-weatherall

Read the interview with DJ Harvey and Andrew Weatherall's family at https://ra.co/podcast/1016. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 DJ Harvey & Andrew Weatherall

Ripped in Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 20.08.25

Ripped in Glasgow - Radio Buena Vida 17.09.25

Cathode is Steve Jefferis from Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.  Cathode released two albums of precision-glitch electronics with a warm melodic sensibility for Expanding Records.

“Special Measures”, Cathode’s debut album, was released by Expanding Records in 2004 following early releases on Static Caravan and 555 Records.  The album was acclaimed for its winning combination glitched-up rhythms and melodic accessibility, gaining the judgement of “first class” from John Peel and neatly summed up by Metro as “a moody, melodic soundscape of carefully controlled clicks, beats and bleeps, producing a crescendo of beautifully blended electronic rhythms ... a sound as emotive as it is creative”.

“Sparkle Plenty”, Cathode's second album, combined the precision and warmth of the debut with a richer sonic palette – for instance, the skittering improv percussion of “Dream Feeder”, the strings, flutes and piano of “Without Memory Or Desire”, or the battered acoustic guitar and ticking clocks of “Nightly Builds”.  Centrepiece of the album was “Structure Hunger”, a juddering serialist-krautrock wonder, which has its origins in a collaborative project with film-maker Adam Finlay at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema to provide new soundtracks to a batch of vintage colour-saturated summertime movies.

Along with releasing remixes for Bauri and d_rradio, and a 7” single for Newcastle’s Distraction records, Steve has been spending his time since the debut album working on other music and film projects.  These include membership of The Matinee Orchestra, Tyneside’s pastoral-acoustic ensemble who released an acclaimed debut album on Isan’s Arable record label, and making short film soundtracks for filmmaker Richard Fenwick.

Steve is now a member of Warm Digits, who have released two albums of "krautophonic blizzard-wave" on Distraction Records to substantial acclaim, and can be found at www.warmdigits.co.uk 

The Cathode website is www.cathode.org.uk


this just in (c90 mix)

_Cathode