A segment of my 3 hour set that was recorded live during the 2013 Ostgut Ton resident's night at Berghain.

Ben Klock - Berghain 10th Aug 2013

Horisont

Djupet

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

RA.980 Philippa Pacho

Full tracklist: https://bleep.com/bleep-mix-300-barker

Fresh from Stochastic Drift, Barker’s buzzing second album named Bleep Record of the Month alongside an exclusive 12”, Barker sends a mix that really digs deep into the unique sonic methodology he has constructed across his solo career width a suitable breadth for what is also a milestone in the series, Bleep Mix #300.

From Debiasing to Utility to Stochastic Drift, Barker has been reimagining club music without its definitive thump, instead driven by melody and tactile synthesis, and this selection of tracks expands Barker’s soundworld with a host of artists walking a similar path. “For this mix, I picked out some of my favourite uptempo ambient tracks, recorded at home with two decks and a mixer. It’s music I've used in a lot of different contexts, as a DJ and listener, and I hope you enjoy it.”

Though the occasional dancefloor thump makes itself known, such as on Adriana Lopez’ ‘What Lies Behind’, it’s mostly in quaking subs rather than actual four to the floor, providing some ground for this mix’s airy freeform variety to fly over. We have the wooden plunks and seaspray of Afefe Iku’s Kenyan island sound, the wonky gamelan of Tyler Friedman’s maze of bells and chimes, the dense atmosphere of shaker-produced rain and electrical chirps forged deep in the ruins of The Future Sound Of London.

The midsection of this mix contains some magic in particular: the maestro of drumless trance Lorenzo Senni creates motion from pure jagged synth energy on ‘The Power of Failing’, dissolving into the aether of an unreleased Barker track, which further discharges into the kaleidoscopic stutters of Caribou’s ‘Never Come Back’ with jubilant piano chords and vocal clips wrought into a glitchy, swirling maelstrom of Koreless' prickly warmth. Digital Justice’s ‘Theme From It’s All Gone Pearshaped’ follows, a timeless staple for anyone wishing to dabble in melodic motion and synthsmithery, or any DJ set seeking to add some lift without losing momentum, of which this mix is in no short supply.

Bleep Mix #300 - Barker

A rare club mix from the ever-evolving artist, with 90 minutes of shadowy, atmospheric pressure.

Music's therapeutic value is often linked to relaxation—gongs, singing bowls and the like. Dense passages of foggy droning and eerie static aren't traditionally considered restorative, but Laurel Halo makes a pretty good case for it.

The Detroit-born, Los Angeles-based musician's abstract, often improvised productions are heavy on sound design and emotional climax. Driven by atmosphere rather than rhythm, they push listeners to grapple with their innermost insecurities, fears and dreams. "I'm lucky my music has helped people through crises," Halo once told Discwoman. It's easy to see why.

Since her 2010 debut King Felix, Halo has built a stunningly diverse catalogue of classically-informed records. A multi-instrumentalist—piano, violin, guitar, keys—her sharpest instrument is arrangement. Inspired by the surrealism of Italo Calvino and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, her releases, from Atlas to Behind The Green Door, unfold with slow-burning narrative and dense emotional weight. Her soundworlds are layered and labyrinthine—an architectonic space where self-reflection happens almost by force.

Even in the club, the sought-after composer excels in immersion. Her sets extend the expressionist palette of her records, trading traditional rhythm for tension, space and surprise. It’s no wonder she takes a genre-agnostic approach to the dance floor—her deep roots in freeform radio began at WCBN-FM in Michigan, followed by Berlin Community Radio, Rinse FM, and now a regular show on NTS.

RA.992 stitches foggy ambient loops, propulsive techno, mutant percussion and heady left turns with care. Tracks from DJ Rush, Octave One and Eddie Fowlkes nod to her Midwestern heritage, balanced out by deeper, psychedelic fare from the likes of Polygonia and Cousin. It's the mark of an artist revealing both deep curiosity and a precise hand as a selector. Rare, indeed.

@laurelhalo

Find the full interview at ra.co/podcast/992

RA.992 Laurel Halo

The mastermind behind Basic Channel, Hard Wax and Rhythm & Sound doesn't do mixes. For RA.1000, he made an exception.

Trace Mark Ernestus's path, and you trace the evolution of electronic sound itself. The timeline of contemporary Berlin is unimaginable without him. At first, that meant Hard Wax, the crucial hub that shaped the early era of the city's techno revolution. Carl Craig once said it plainly: "Mark was ground zero."

From there, Ernestus never stopped. There's the birth of dub techno and the near-flawless catalogue that followed through Basic Channel and Rhythm & Sound. There's his immersion in Senegalese mbalax with Ndagga Rhythm Force. Lately, that means Open Ground the Wuppertal bunker that's letting people hear music as never before.

As part three of RA.1000, Ernestus has kindly supplied his first studio DJ mix. As you might expect, it's technically immaculate, but more than that, it feels like a substantial and generous conduit to one of the world's most vital genres.

Amapiano remains underexplored in music media. Publications like our own are still learning to keep pace with the South African sound's global pull, animating millions across the globe. 

You'll hear the range and richness of the genre across the near two-hour mix, from the gothic, percussive stomp of Caltetonic's "Bambela"  to the devotional glow of GemValleyMusiq's "Something Spiritual."

Through all of this, Ernestus has remained understated. He lets the music speak for him, with a quiet honesty that lies in decades of opening doors—creating the conditions for new sounds and scenes to flourish and carry the culture forward.

@opengroundclub @hardwax 

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1011. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 Mark Ernestus

For RA.1000, DJ Sprinkles' first mix in over a decade is a powerful meditation on the genocide in Gaza.

Dance music often relies on simple narratives: release, escape, unity. But those narratives can often feel inadequate, and even at times, hollow. Or, as Terre Thaemlitz might bluntly put it, just "shitty."

For her first mix in around 15 years, Terre Thaemlitz AKA DJ Sprinkles, challenges us to think differently. "I felt this 1000th podcast should reflect the moment in which it was made," she told us in her Q&A.

And what is this moment? Every day since Israel's 2023 assault on Gaza began, an average of 28 children have been killed. That's an entire classroom, every day, for over 600 days (at the time of writing). It's a staggering figure that only captures a fragment of the listless cruelty imposed on the strip.

Faced with such a genocide, what can music really do? How political can it truly be?  For their RA.1000, Thaemlitz gives us an unflinching rebuke to the idea that music should provide escapism. The mix weaves ambient fragments and jazz passages, woven around samples from Israeli media and the voices of outspoken Jewish critics like Gabor Maté and Norman Finkelstein. 

The result is not just a protest, but a document of our time. For Terre Thaemlitz, music is never just music. Her RA.1000 serves as a reminder that in an age of relentless suffering, the most political act is to reject the illusion of escape, and search for something greater.

Read the interview and find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1013. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 Terre Thaemlitz / DJ Sprinkles

The arena-conquering duo glide from gritty rave to skyscraping arpeggios on RA.1000, a mix many years in the making.

A new name undeniably entered the pantheon of major electronic live acts over the past decade: next to Faithless, The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers, now sit @feelmybicep.

The Belfast duo's music doesn't half reach for the stars: a melodic blend of ambient, breakbeat, trance and tech house, able to turn the biggest arenas into intimate affairs.

If anything, mainstream success, BRIT Award nominations and mammoth dance crossovers like "Glue" have only hardened Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar's resolve to keep innovating.

Their prized blog, running for nearly as long as the RA Podcast, regularly platforms upcoming artists. And you won't find many festival headliners releasing climate change-themed records with Indigenous artists, as they did recently on Takkuuk.

RA.1000 exists in that spirit. After many polite declines, and before a year off to usher in the next era, Bicep come through at the last: from dub techno and screwface breaks to São Paulo garage, before a tide of signature synths floods the zone. Stadium-sized intimacy at its finest.

@feelmybicep 

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1015. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co

RA.1000 Bicep

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

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Bruce Brus is Canadian/Swedish musician & producer Owen Meyers. “Brus” comes from the Swedish word for “noise”. Bruce Brus specializes in ambient noise meditation, sleep aid, and concentration tools.

Tags: techno, electro, ambient, experimental, white noise, binaural beats

Focal Point (Gamma Drone L131Hz R161Hz).wav

Owen Meyers / Bruce Brus

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