c.me

Recording from nitsa night on december 17th 2021

John Talabot dj set @Nitsa (17Dec21)

Tribute mix to the one and only @smallville-records label. Deep, forward thinking music, elegant and subtle as it should be. Each and every release is a well thought addition to a masterclass catalogue. A label curated by people living for music, loving what they do and with great care for sound and design.

01 Moomin - Alone
02 L’Amour Fou - Sunday Haze
03 Benjamin Brunn - Queen Mary
04 Smallpeople - Beyond
05 Frantzvaag - Going Away
06 RVDS - Winter Moonness
07 Jacques Bon - The Sails
08 Smallpeople - Lazy Lama Legend
09 Move D Dman - All you can sweep
10 STL - One Day
11 Lawrence - Tangled Track
12 Christopher Rau - The Cool World
13 Smallpeople - The Loon’s Groove
14 Julius Steinhoff - Something like Wonderful
15 Jacques Bon & Drux - Celeste
16 Smallpeople - Black Ice
17 Julius Steinhoff - Flocking Behaviour
18 Moomin - Humbling Love 
19 Lawrence - Manhattan 
20 Steinhoff & Hammouda - Wondering while Wandering

Smallville

We’re bringing one out from the vaults ‘cause it was way too selfish to keep it just for ourselves. This is Vision 025 w/ Courtney Bailey—recorded live at Fitzroy back in September!

This one’s packed with slow burns and seriously warm heaters, building in intensity as the set goes on. In a time when BPMs just keep getting faster and faster, it’s a real breath of fresh air to hear something focusing on organic, lush, warm music. @courtneyey, on from midnight to 2 AM, delivered the perfect selection to set the tone for a long night that kicked off in the best possible way. Expect house slow heaters, a sprinkle of disco tunes and jazzy melodies, mixed with ghostly vocals, tribal touches, acid pads, and overall top-notch electronic music that connects straight to your soul.

Enjoy!

Vision 025 w/ Courtney Bailey (Fitzroy Club Berlin 2024)

Live recording from Fandango at the Lighthouse
Plötzensee, 09th February 2025

Wrap your ears around this cheeky excerpt from @kenjitazaki afternoon set in the first Lighthouse of the season. Dripping with bouncy hooks and building into bendy sunlit moves, let Kenji take you by the hand for ultimate dancefloor space travel.

LIVE AT FANDANGO - Kenji Tazaki

A memorable all night set at London's Night Tales Loft 
Big thank you to all the dancers!

Move D @ NT-Loft London 2025-02-21

The first half of RA.996 is Ron Trent's take on luxurious house.

As part of our countdown to RA.1000, a milestone in the 24-year history of RA's weekly mix series, we're switching up the usual format. The next few editions will pair two acts who complement each other's strengths, offering a fresh take on a particular community, scene or style. 

This week, we're zeroing in on Ron Trent and Ash Lauryn, two names who fly the flag high for old-school US house—a foundational pillar of the electronic underground. 

Trent takes the A-side. Hailing from Chicago, the birthplace of house, the pioneer is a master of finding the sweet spot where machine music meets organic instrumentation.  Listen to any DJ set or record in his extensive back catalogue and you'll find a wealth of exquisitely expressive melodies and deep, spiritual frequencies, making him the ideal narrator for any survey on house. (If you've only got a moment, sink into "Morning Factory," nine minutes of perfection.) 

Trent's return to the RA Podcast, 19 years after his debut in 2006, represents his many decades of expertise in fusing funk with gorgeous musicianship under the umbrella of heart-stirring house. Some may call it a masterclass but to us, it's just Trent doing what he does best.

Listened to as a whole, RA.996 is a powerful snapshot of house's elegance, class and most importantly, understated yet innately euphoric joy.

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/997

RA.996 Ron Trent

Part two of RA.996 comes from a modern-day house luminary. 

As part of our countdown to RA.1000, a milestone in the 24-year history of RA's weekly mix series, we're switching up the usual format. The next few editions will pair two acts who compliment each other's strengths, offering a fresh take on a particular community, scene or style.

This week, we're zeroing in on two names who fly the flag high for old-school, US  house—a foundational pillar of the electronic underground. The first half comes from Ron Trent, which you can read more about here. 

On the B-side is Ash Lauryn. Hailing from Detroit, she's a modern-day house savant. Her comprehensive understanding of the genre's history—knowledge gained from the Detroit greats who that inspired her—and her own inimitable blend of old-world soul meets new-school grooves make her a force to be reckoned with. 

A former RA contributor, Lauryn keeps it <i>real</i>, whether in the booth or beyond. A role model to a new generation of DJs, she can just as easily be found teaching workshops at Underground Music Academy in Detroit or sharing tricks of the trade in the green room at some of the best clubs in the world.

An unwavering champion of Black dance music, the Atlanta resident makes it a point to play as much Black American music as possible, as she told us in her 2019 podcast. Not much has changed since then. Her contribution to RA.996 spans favourites like Larry Heard, Mood II Swing, Byron The Aquarius, Moodymann, Ron Trent and plenty of Detroit heavy-hitters.

Listened to together, both mixes are a powerful snapshot of house's timeless elegance and, most importantly, understated yet innately euphoric joy.

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/998

RA.996 Ash Lauryn

The German minimal DJ returns to the spotlight with two hours of artfully subtle house and techno.

There's an old German proverb that goes "Der stete Tropfen höhlt den Stein." Literally, it means a constant dripping wears away the stone, but the point isn't about force but patience: slow, steady repetition can leave the deepest mark. It's an apt metaphor for the career of Kosta Athanassiadis, better known as XDB.

Active since the early '90s, first as a DJ and then producer by the decade's end, Athanassiadis has built a career less on hype than persistence. His catalogue spans labels like Dial, Metrolux and Echocord, alongside a steady trickle of EPs and remixes that have quietly cemented his reputation as one of minimal house and techno's undersung heroes.

That patience carries into his sound and production ethos. Where many of his peers embraced software upgrades and new workflows, Athanassiadis has long stuck to Cubase, a handful of trusty instruments and 30-year-old speakers he claims to have run "hundreds of thousands of tunes" through. He also still prefers to use inexpensive, straightforward gear—what matters, he insists, is not the tools but the feel. The result is a sound that’s stripped back, direct and enduring.

Lately, Athanassiadis has found himself back in focus. With minimal enjoying fresh attention, his calendar has filled, and with it a run of back-to-back sets—most often alongside PLO Man, a regular sparring partner this year. True to form, though, you won't find that his style has changed much. Over 30 years after his first gig, you can rest assured you'll still find him playing with patience, carving out long arcs rather than sharp peaks.

His RA Mix captures him in a reflective mood. Running just over two hours, RA.1003 is a hushed yet absorbing affair, moving seamlessly from the delicate atmospherics of Valentino Mora and Caldera to the machine funk of Robert Hood, Solid Gold Playaz and Marcellus Pittman. There are left turns folded into XDB's patient narrative arc, too: John Carpenter's brooding scores here, DJ Sprinkles' melancholic work with Will Long on "Acid Trax N (Acid Dog)" there.

It's the sound of a DJ who has been quietly chiseling away for three decades, and who understands the value of persistence as much as restraint.

@xdb

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1021

RA.1003 XDB

One of Detroit's most consistent producers takes the reins.

RA.298 Patrice Scott

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c.me

FLO REAL