RA Podcast

The weekly RA Podcast features an exclusive mix of electronic music from top producers and DJs around the world.

RA Podcast Archive: 500-750

The mixes we were feeling in 2025 so far. 

Find the full list at ra.co/features/4425

The Best Mixes of 2025

RA.996 Ron Trent & Ash Lauryn

Dr Banana is a name that commands a lot of respect in certain corners of the dance music world. The man has his Ph.D in record digging—not literally, mind you, but play along—and key to his success is the sense of fun, joy and ecstasy he brings to his DJing. UK garage historian? Sure. Blinding DJ? Definitely. He likes to play records you've never heard before, records that not only make you dance but might remind you of some of your favourite, formative records of yore.

The UK artist started out with a fashion line and some records and ended up an influential label boss, collector and DJ. He made his name with skippy, retro UK garage—sometimes from new producers and sometimes unearthed from the archives—and nicely coincided with the genre's explosion in popularity. Since then, he's highlighted everything from old-school German garage to new-school producers like K-LONE. His DJ sets have only become more adventurous and, crucially, even more bumping. Jungle, R&B, tech house, you name it. His RA Podcast zeroes in on a vintage-sounding, rollicking kind of house music, full of seismic disco basslines and quirky vocal samples. It's as celebratory as it is mysterious.

Once, Dr Banana was a not so well-kept secret for the heads—the kids in Berlin and London who were starting to realize the similarities between UK garage, minimal and tech house. Now, he's for everyone, and starting to earn the wider recognition he deserves.

@dr-banana

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/916

RA podcast

RA.916 Dr Banana

Berlin label and collective Live From Earth crew does things its own way. And it works. Over the past ten years, the team has become a major force in the city, mixing a killer ear for techno and house with a sense of humour and pop sensibility that has proven irresistible to audiences and scenes around the world. That's why we chose Live From Earth for our latest cover story: its DIY attitude, humble origins and tenacious spirit are everything we love about underground dance music.

Accompanying the cover story, this RA Podcast features a recording of a live back-to-back between two of the label's chief artists, DJ Gigola and MCR-T (the latter of whom has produced some of Live From Earth's biggest hits, including horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules"). The hour-plus recording makes for a handy microcosm of the label's sound, rushing through contemporary and vintage techno with plenty of raunchy vocal samples and hip-hop a capellas. It's blazing but never too hard, catchy but never predictable. Above all, it's fun—the group's guiding principle.

@mcr-t @djgigola @livefromearth

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/928

RA.928 MCR-T & DJ Gigola

Narciss stepped up to open the Pitch Black stage on the second day of Pitch Music & Arts 2024. Listening back, you'd never guess it was only 7 PM.

@itsnarciss
@pitchfestival

RA Live - Narciss - Pitch Music & Arts 2024, Australia

RA Live - Clara Cuvé - Pitch Music & Arts 2024, Australia

By anyone's standards, KI/KI has had a meteoric rise. She started DJing at queer party SPIELRAUM in Amsterdam in 2018, and by now she's one of Europe's most-talked about DJs. She blends modern strands of techno with trance and acid in a way that feels all her own, veering away from the sugar highs of other DJs or the clobbering kick drums of so much fast dance music. Her style is aerodynamic and sleek, not bludgeoning.

In addition to her DJ career, KI/KI runs the label slash, which has put out music from the likes of Alpha Tracks, Peachlyfe and Newa, artists who share her canny blend of trance and techno aesthetics and sneaky pop sensibilities. Acid is another big love, as shown by her 5HRS OF ACID concept. The decades-old sound has become a key part of her style and appeal, as you'll hear on her RA Podcast. It's a barreling 90 minutes through techno and trance with trap and dubstep accents, breathless but perfectly paced.

@ki_slash_ki

Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/933

RA.933 KI/KI

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 string of unsubtle yet undeniably impactful hit records in the late 2010s, Carlo B. & Giovanni C. became fast favourites of a generation who prefer their 303 cranked to 11. Their rampant velocity arrived at the right moment, proving parallel compatibility with acid lifers and younger audiences making the leap from EDM to hard dance. Flash forward to 2024 and they're flanked by flamethrowers while mashing down colossal crowds at festivals like Awakenings. 

Here, they purposefully strip it back and emphasise the core elements of the 9x9 formula—high drama, jackhammering kicks and the kind of tweaked-out acid air sirens that would make the likes of Hardfloor and Miss Djax scrunch their noses in approval. In other words, non-stop wrecking balls trained squarely at the foundations of a hangar near you.

@999999999music

Read more at ra.co/podcast/953

RA.953 999999999

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 through multiple shades of techno, few are in their league right now.

RA.960 was laid down at Watergate this March during a signature Funk Assault marathon. The pair ramp up incrementally, and even before they hit top velocity, you can hear them ripping through records with tenacity and verve. You don't need elbows in your face to tell the place is rocking.

We're informed that ID'ing the set would probably take longer than playing it (fair enough), so no tracklist for this one. Instead, fill in the blanks at your leisure. As well as 150+ BPM stompers and groove wormholes, there's everything from tribal to ballroom, electro to bassbin rattlers, and plenty of classics. 

As an encapsulation of a night out's full arc, RA.960 does the business—and best of all, you won't even need a trip to the bar for water. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

@primalinstinctrecords @funkassault_og @chlaer @alarico_katana

Read more at ra.co/podcast/960

RA.960 Funk Assault

Kaleidoscopic psychedelia from one of Australia's finest.

While it might feel early to call bets on DJs of the decade, Kia Sydney, best known as Kia, is undoubtedly one of them. The Animalia founder began in Naarm's (Melbourne) underground scene in the mid-2010s, crediting a trip to the influential deep techno Japanese festival, Labyrinth, as the inspiration behind her sound.

Deep techno might not cut it as a descriptor for Sydney's sound, though. Hypnotic ribbons of steely techno mix with atmospherics and nimble grooves, drawing from IDM, dub and tech house, sharing as much with DJ Nobu and Donato Dozzy (try to find the track that overlaps with Dozzy's own RA Podcast) as well as modern practitioners like Priori and Beatrice M.

This distinctly Australian scuttling psychedelia has made Kia one of the most sought-after underground DJs globally. Her brainchild, Animalia, showcases a plurality of sounds and scenes, serving as living proof of the fruitful shift of the 2020s: less serious, perhaps, but with a sense of open-minded worldliness that offers a far more promising vision of what dance music can be and achieve.

Sydney's rare talent lies in forging connections, bringing people, sounds and ideas together with a distinct playfulness. Her RA Podcast showcases this alchemy in abundance, weaving classics like Monolake and Enya with peers such as OK EG, Cousin and Command D.

As she told us in her 2023 Breaking Through profile, "people tell me I have quite a distinctive sound but I can't tell so much because I hear so many different versions of it." RA.973 serves as confirmation that Kia's style is, to say the least, the mark of a generational talent.
 
@kia-sydney @animalia-label  @cirruslabel

Read more at ra.co/podcast/973

RA.973 Kia

Regis and Function's first mix in over 10 years is a unique paean to Silent Servant, heavy on unreleased material.

When it came time for RA to compile our Albums of the 2010s, one record with a tauntingly limited availability of 500 copies was never in doubt: Sandwell District's era-defining 'Feed-Forward'. Encompassing Karl O'Connor (Regis), Peter Sutton (Female), David Sumner (Function) and Juan Mendez (Silent Servant), Sandwell District had the underground in a vice grip for over a decade.

The collective imploded in 2013, with Sumner and O'Connor's relationship appearing beyond repair. And yet, an unlikely second phase is here, featuring imminent comeback LP 'End Beginnings' and their return to the RA Podcast after 16 years. In 2023, the trio of Function, Regis and Silent Servant had been performing and laying down new material before the latter's shock death last January. It's in the shadow of loss that this unique mix was forged.

Founded in 2002 as a spiritual sister to seminal Downwards, Sandwell truly began to hit its straps in the late '00s, as shadow-stalking cuts sliced through clubland orthodoxy like a switchblade. In parallel, the label's artwork—a noir recombination of Burroughs cut-ups, DIY zines and arthouse amour that Silent Servant made his own—helped fortify a movement which placed an aesthetic premium on grit, grain and sadism.

By the early 2010s, this fixation on the dark arts had utterly permeated the mood inside techno's masonic temples. Labels like Blackest Ever Black, Stroboscopic Artefacts, Avian and Modern Love were in their pomp, razorwire legends like Severed Heads and Chris & Cosey benefited from second winds, and it was briefly a jailable offence to not have a press photo in black and white. 'Feed-Forward' was the exceptional coronating statement.

RA.978 features a stack of unheard recordings from each of the trio, as well as close allies Stefanie Parnow and Tropic of Cancer, while also gathering many of Silent Servant's all-time favourite songs, including Psychic TV, Grace Jones and Galaxie 500. It's a strikingly vulnerable listen, one without many parallels on the Podcast. We're glad to run it. – Gabriel Szatan

Read more and find the tracklist here: ra.co/podcast/978
Read our new feature with Sandwell District here: https://ra.co/features/4426

RA.978 Sandwell District

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

Big feelings for big rooms with the Club Heart Broken founder.

Club Heart Broken is perhaps a misnomer. The party and label, founded in Cologne by MALUGI, may take its name from one of life's tougher emotions, but the vibe is all about unfettered, unadulterated joy. 

It's a state of mind its founder fully embodies—he's called himself the "happiest man in dance music." (We tried fact-checking this, but watching him perform seems proof enough.)

Club Heart Broken's motto is simple: a party should be fun. A "party for lovers, loners and losers," the crew also made up of ferrari rot, SURF 2 GLORY and fellow maximalist Marlon Hoffstadt, represent the sound of young Berlin in the 2020s, notorious as they are beloved. 

Since relocating from Cologne, the party has snapped the German's capital infamously serious techno stereotype with its anything-goes, unpretentious music policy. It's made him and Hoffstadt especially in-demand worldwide—queues used to extend out of the door of Watergate and across Oberbaumbrücke.

Musically, MALUGI is the most eclectic in the crew. His metaphorical record bag carries a lot of label material, from zingy Eurodance to upbeat pumpers, but also plenty of steppy, tuff UK bass music. Releases from Main Phase and Interplanetary Criminal, the likes of dubplate label ec2a, and even the odd Big Ang record pepper his sets, much of which you'll hear here.

MALUGI's RA Podcast is a window into the more house-y side of his sound. From bubbling garage to chunky chords, RA.981 is a testament to MALUGI's belief: the best parties should leave you grinning, not crying.

@malugienergy

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/981.

RA.981 MALUGI

Selection by @livwutang blends by Beatrice M. 

PANGAEA - YOU & I
VON D - SHOW ME FT. PHEPHE
APPLEBLIM & PEV - CIRCLING
PLASTICIAN - DREADING (EL-B REMIX)
EGOLESS - EMPIRE OF DIRT
SICARIA SOUND - CAVED IN
SHACKLETON - I WANT TO EAT YOU
SEARCH & DESTROY - CANDY FLOSS
J:KENZO - CONQUEROR (HENY G REMIX)
SCIENTIST VS ASBO - DOG MONEY (LOEFAH & SGT POKES)
DUBAMINE FT. NAZAMBA - COOL & RELAX
ULRICH TROYER - LOST IN ADDIS
FIEND - JAH HEAR ME (J. SPARROW REMIX)
FOAMPLATE - HUNGRY GHOST
GIL SCOTT-HERRON & JAMIE XX - NY IS KILLING ME
GEIOM - UNNECESSARY STRESS FT. MARITA
GLUME & PHOSSA - JITTER
KYLE HALL - GIRL U SO STRONG
MIZZ BEATS - SANCTUARY
GEOIM & APPLEBLIM - FLAME TREE
KODE9 - 2 FAR GONE
WALSH & KROMESTAR - PANIK ROOM
SAULE - AFFLICTION
THE GOD IN HACKNEY - THE WORLD IN AIR QUOTES (ETCH AMALGAMIX)
MARTYN - LOVE & MACHINES FT. SPACEAPE
TIMEBLIND - BACKWARDATION
BANDULU - CONTINGENCY
CARRÉ - AIR SIGN
VACCINE - WISHFUL THINKING VIP
RSD - LOVING IT
QUEST - EDEN

Everything reminds me of dubstep pt. III - curated by livwutang

Another Barker masterclass.

Sam Barker asks more from techno. The artist known simply as Barker is one of electronic music's most consistently conscientious and curious producers, challenging listeners to question the norms we accept about our shared culture—whether it's the music that fills the room, the process behind it, or the purpose of the space itself.

British-born yet based in Berlin since 2007, Barker forged a connection to many of the city's leading institutions, including Ostgut Ton, and over the course of a long and fruitful relationship, he carved out one of the more singular paths on the club and label's roster.

Not one for orthodoxy, Barker challenged four-to-the-floor techno framework in favor of melodic experimentation. By decentering or completely stripping away the typical trappings of kick drums and claps, his productions are both light and immersive, buoyant in low-end presence and shimmering in weightless space.

Six years after Utility, his sophomore album Stochastic Drift arrives this month. Shaped by pandemic-driven reinvention, it burrows deeper into harmonic twists and freeform drift. "At some point I became conscious of the process," he wrote of his latest album. "The only thing you can do is embrace the uncertainty and see every change as a potential positive.”

Consider his RA Podcast another sequel. Like his much-beloved 2019 mix for FACT, it's a collage of live recordings and a fitting expression of the artist's own internal spring. RA.982 radiates wide-eyed optimism: percussion cloaked in foggy, swirling pads and trance-like chords, neatly synched in synthetic glimmers. 

All in all, it's an hour of music crafted for contemplation, collective euphoria, or heads-down epiphany—or for that matter, any moment, really, its emotive depth seemingly endless.

@voltek

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/982

RA.982 Barker

Tripped-out excursions through percussive club music with the Nowadays resident.

Ayesha Chugh, AKA Ayesha, makes club music that activates the body. The Brooklyn-based artist has spent the last few years carving out a distinct lane in modern club music. Her fusion of dubstep, techno and essential '90s rave elements into dynamite club tools that test and support dancers in equal measure. This time though, for her RA Podcast, Chugh purposefully tilts in a "more colorful wonky direction."

Since first turning heads with releases on labels like Fever AM and Kindergarten Records, she’s continued to refine a sound that feels both playful and punishing, marked by writhing basslines, rumbling drums and an innate ability to make bodies move. Her productions capture a kind of kinetic precision—tracks that are slippery yet forceful, balancing psychedelic textures with dubstep-like physicality and club-focused power. As Andrew Ryce wrote of her debut, Rhythm is Memory, her skill is "full of textures that wrap around the otherwise thudding, sub-heavy kick drums." After a serious accident in 2024 stopped her in her tracks, this year marks a full return to global touring with a new vantage point on life and the sound she seeks to push.

RA.983, clocking in at nearly two and a half hours, finds Chugh flexing that club muscle once again. Offering a tour through global club music both old and new, it's based around a set at her home base Nowadays this February. It's a patient but relentless ride: from deep, tunneling psytrance, progressive techno and slippery electro before really turning on the gas at the half mark, moving into slanted UK techno territory.

As she explains in the Q&A, it's a carefully curated selection of tracks that probes "what we perceive as tasteful." It's a mix that speaks to her deep knowledge of dance music’s lineage—and her intuitive ability to push it forward.

@aye5ha
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/983

RA.983 Ayesha

A mix beamed in from the future by singeli's young star.

If singeli has a new era, DJ Travella is its leading light. At just 23 years old, the Tanzanian producer is pushing the genre into fast, frenetic and unmistakably futuristic territory. And while there aren't too many entries in the RA Podcast's 20-year history where you can say, "this has no parallel whatsoever," RA.984 shatters that assumption in style.

Singeli emerged from Dar es Salaam's underground in the early '00s, forged from limited resources and unlimited creativity. Producers looped and sped up taarab instrumentals using basic software like Virtual DJ, creating a sound that was chaotic, witty and lightning fast. With support from local studios like Sisso and Pamoja, singeli took root as the breakneck pulse of Tanzanian youth culture.

Travella—real name Hamadi Hassani—came up outside that infrastructure. He began producing music aged ten, self-taught and internet-savvy. By 2022, he was touring Europe with Kampala-based collective Nyege Nyege and gaining global attention for a distinct style he's dubbed "cyber-singeli." 

Like gabber, hardcore and jungle before it, singeli is unapologetically go hard or go home. It's unique and utterly infectious. After all, what could possibly connect pop provocateur Arca to the late president of Tanzania? Not much—except singeli. 

Travella's RA Podcast is a white-knuckle ride through this blistering sonic universe. It's wild and joyful yet controlled—a window into one of the most exciting young minds in global club music.

@user-643479850

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/984.

RA.984 DJ Travella

Relentless rhythms and Latin dance history, courtesy of the TraTraTrax innovator.

Percussion is, at the root, a conversation. It's about different instruments meeting each other, and interacting to form something bigger than the sum of its parts. 

Few engage in this dialogue as boldly as Pablo De Vargas, AKA Uruguayan experimentalist Lechuga Zafiro, who draws from tradition, to make sounds like candombe and clave feel, well, completely new.

De Vargas' music reaches outward, building bridges between Montevideo and Bogotá, Tijuana, Berlin and beyond. He's a key figure in the hybridisation of Latin American club music, with releases on labels like NAAFI and an album on TraTraTrax.

His RA Podcast plays like a manifesto in motion. RA.985 opens with a recording of Jorginho Gularte, a Uruguayan composer, playing a jazz rhythm, from there, it expands: cuban guaguancó, Venezuelan drums, batida, tribal, techno—it's all here, stitched together with precision and intention.

De Vargas is also, crucially, reckoning with these roots. His 2018 EP Testigo confronted the colonial violence embedded in the history of the Río de la Plata. His sets are similarly alive with memory—asking, without nostalgia: what does it mean to inherit rhythm? Who gets to carry it forward?

He's also just a killer DJ, one of those rare artists who uses CDJs like an instrument. His sets are full of hot cues, delay FX and left turns. It's technical, but never cold. It’s, in a word, funky.

@lechugazafiro
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/985

RA.985 Lechuga Zafiro

Deep house with heaps of soul to guide spring into summer.

"House music to me is about emotion… it's about how it moves you," says Suze Phaff, better known as Suze Ijó. Emerging from a thriving Dutch scene, Ijó belongs to a generation of DJs reshaping dance culture from the ground up, restoring soul and musicality to the centre of house music. It's a conversation happening not just in her home town of Rotterdam, but globally, among kindred spirits like MUSCLECARS and Dee Diggs in New York, Errol and Alex Rita of Touching Bass in London, and OMOLOKO in Belo Horizonte.

You could call Ijó a deep house DJ, but it's much deeper than that. Her sets embody house music in its most musical sense, rich in nimble percussion, woodwinds, calypso drums, gospel vocals, and romantic string sections. They channel the jazz-inflected heartbeat of the East Coast, the breeze of Balearic shores, and the light-footed rhythms of the Caribbean.

As Ijó explains in her Q&A, her RA Podcast "hopefully feels like a loving embrace." Opening with Key Trunks Ensemble's "Calypso of House (Paradise Mix)," she sets a buoyant, life-affirming tone that carries through the next 90 minutes. As the mix unfolds, her affinity for timelessness is clear, with selections that hark back to the golden age of house, from Lonesome Echo Production's "Sweet Dream (Shrine Sweet Mix)" to the euphoric swell of Blaze's "Klubtrance."

Listening to RA.986, it's no surprise that The Loft—David Mancuso's legendary, much-missed New York party—serves as a key influence for Ijó. "He wasn't confined to just one genre but would just play 'good music' in the right context," she explains. "He allowed the music to breathe."

If ambient music is defined by its ability to breathe in and reflect its surroundings, then Ijó's RA Podcast is ambient in the truest, most human sense: a deep, enveloping soundscape that feels like sunrise, like community, like home—wherever you may choose to listen.

@suze_ijo

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/986

RA.986 Suze Ijó

"I'm in a place of brutal honesty." The electronic pop auteur talks about her new album, the pressures of performing and falling in love with techno.

One of today's most exciting stars is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, better known as FKA twigs. Genre-wise, she's difficult to pin down; some critics call her music ethereal, alien R&B refracted through the lens of dance music. She's now touring her third album, Eusexua which she's described as "that surge of nothingness right before a surge of creativity, or the moment before an orgasm." It's a response to falling in love with techno a couple of years ago, and the songs all hover somewhere around the rave.

In this RA Exchange recorded live at AVA London 2025, twigs talks to Nadine Noor, founder of queer arts platform PXSSY PALACE, about the process of putting the LP together, as well as the sometimes painful pressures involved in performing and adopting a public persona. Today, twigs says she's in a place of brutal honesty, and on the edge of 40, "hitting the perfect arc of behind hot and not an idiot anymore." She also discusses starting her dancing practice from an incredibly young age, taking her first steps on what she anticipates will be a long partnership with modular synthesis and the challenge of making original art in an era dominated by trends. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

EX.762 FKA twigs

"It was so difficult to become someone." The house hero talks about Chicago's competitive scene, developing a sound and letting go of his ego. 

Theo Parrish is one of dance music's most influential DJs and producers. Raised in Chicago, he's become synonymous with slow-burning, immersive grooves and sets that mix classics with obscurities. He began DJing in 1986 aged 13, eventually earning a degree in sculpture and moving to Detroit, where he hit his stride as an artist and became a member of the collective Three Chairs alongside Moodymann, Rick Wilhite and Marcellus Pittman. He also started the label Sound Signature, which uses the language of soul, jazz, disco, Chicago house and Detroit techno.

A few months ago, Resident Advisor teamed up with London institution fabric to host Parrish for an eight-hour set—his first time playing the club. While he was in town, he also spoke with CDR's Tony Nwachukwu. In the Exchange, Parrish talks about the intensely competitive scene he grew up in. He DJ'd for 13 years before he was ever paid or had his name billed on a lineup. It took years of passion and hard work to break out of his local scene and build the career he's become known for. 

"At five years, you're dealing with the technical part [of DJing], at ten it's finding your sound and at 15 it's dealing with the ego of it all," he says. "It's not until much later that you actually start to play for and with people."

Parrish also reflects on the ongoing dearth of diversity in the dance music industry and posits whether some of the most popular music in the US—such as trap—reinforces counterproductive racial stereotypes. He asks: did house music ultimately survive because it left where it originally came from? Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

EX.763 Theo Parrish

Kinetic club energy generated by one of the sharpest talents in drum & bass and beyond.

Much of the best electronic music rests along the axes of versatility and curiosity: being able to a pull a broad array of influences into your orbit and alchemise it into something distinctive and fresh. That's gyrofield to a tee.

Kiana Li began making waves in drum & bass as a teenager, years before setting foot in a club or experiencing the sound on a proper rig. That's a key factor which helps explain how the deeply-considered, Hong Kong-born producer arrived at a style that eludes easy description. Li, one of the foremost trans women working in drum & bass today, marshals complex rhythms like a sluice and has a knack for detailed bass programming that floods the stereo field without ever dominating it.

2024's spellbinding These Heavens was the apotheosis of an already quietly prolific catalogue; we named it the seventh best record of last year, but in truth, it could have actually nudged up a bit higher.

Li's RA Podcast is a blur of rapid motion, featuring stalwarts (Dillinja, Skee Mask, Calibre, upsammy, Marcus Intalex), contemporary limelights (Nestax, Ehua, Aquarian, Maude Vôs), 17 of their own productions and a grip of truly uncommon selections, like Burnt Friedman & João Pais Filipe's "18-140." It's an ambitious mix from one of the most exciting talents at the vanguard of outer-zonal club music right now.

@gyrofieldmusic

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/987

RA.987 gyrofield

"Everyone tells me I'm terrifying." The powerhouse agent talks about being a woman in a male-dominated world and growing the careers of artists like David Guetta, Marlon Hoffstadt and more.

What does it take to become a powerhouse agent in the male-dominated electronic music industry? No one can answer this question better than Maria May, a name that might be familiar to anyone who's had a brush with big-ticket dance music over the past 30 years. 

May is a longtime agent at CAA, or Creative Artists Agency, one of the largest booking agencies in the world. She was first hired a little over a decade ago to expand its representation of electronic music, back when the company saw that DJs were primed to become the new rockstars. She now looks after major acts like David Guetta, Paul Kalkbrenner, Marlon Hoffstadt and Sara Landry. 

But she isn't just a fierce businesswoman. She's also a tireless advocate for equity and inclusion in club culture. In this conversation recorded live at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, she talks about the obstacles she's faced over the course of her career as she's actively rebuilt the rooms in which major decisions are made. She was first inspired by her involvement in Britain's illegal rave scene, she recalls, which turned her onto the power of activism and showed her how on-the-ground organising can lead to real-life policy change. She also addresses the negative narrative taking hold of the music industry and the opportunities at hand to make positive, collective change. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula


EX.764 Maria May (CAA)

Gay Felony (@gayfelony) is the creative project of Melody Scallion, mainstay of the LA dance scene for nearly a decade as DJ, video artist, sound system architect and promoter. A staple of the above-and-under-ground, she delivers ecstatic and exceptionally skillful extended vinyl DJ sets exploring genres from soulful deep & beautiful progressive house to brutal hard house & melodic techno. She has been a monthly resident on dublab for over three years and has performed in warehouses, wine bars and derelict sheds across North America with artists including Octo Octa & Eris Drew, Bored Lord, Introspekt, Claude Young, Justin Long. Through her fast & loose, uncompromising DJ sets she attempts to bring about an essential queering of the universe, pulling society into the Trans Future by any means necessary.

GYSTMIX-030 - GAY FELONY

A clinic in minimal from the elusive Acting Press boss. 

Why do certain sounds cultivate a cult following? Simply put, it's often because they resist easy consumption. PLO Man and his imprint Acting Press lean into this. 

Searching for the Berlin-based DJ and producer, you won’t find much online presence, interviews or conventional PR. What you will find, if you look hard enough, is a catalogue of records and mixes with a kind of tape hiss charm (a spiritual successor to Basic Channel and Chain Reaction, but scuzzier and lighter on its feet).

Founded in 2015, Acting Press once seemed to belong to the short-lived "outsider house" trend, but is now synonymous with a certain strain of modern minimal, one that is analogue, spacious and pointedly opaque. PLO Man's output is equally sparse by design: this week, he joins the RA Podcast with a characteristically elusive style, accompanying the near two-hour mix is a one-answer Q&A that gives almost nothing away.

Stripped-back, ever-so-slightly sleazy and coated in dust, PLO Man's RA Podcast continues that lineage in style. Opening with the featherlight microhouse of Margaret Dygas, RA.988 unfolds into a carefully curated spectrum of minimal, dub and deep techno. Among familiar names—look out for the blinding Rhythm & Sound and Moodymann blend—are deep cuts and left turns alongside the odd outlier, like lovers' rock pioneer Gregory Isaacs.

Like the best of his forebears, PLO Man wants RA.988 to take time for you to settle in. But once you do, you won’t want to leave. 

@p_el_oh

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/988

RA.988 PLO Man

Three hours of high drama, recorded live at Nowadays in New York.

We know what you're thinking: why did it take so long to get Binh on the RA Podcast? There's no easy answer, especially given that he's been a favourite of ours for over a decade now. So to make up for lost time, the revered digger lands on the series with a tantalising three-hour mix, recorded live at Nowadays in New York earlier this year.

Crammed with rare and unreleased gems spanning house, techno, and electro, RA.989 is heavy on drama, catching the Düsseldorf native in unbridled performance mode.

This is Binh in 2025. But rewind across the past two decades and you'll find a DJ who excels in pretty much any situation, whether warming up for Zip or Margaret Dygas, going back-to-back with masters like Nicolas Lutz or rolling out solo sets that stretch across ten or even 12 hours.

He's acted out all these scenarios most often at Berlin institution Club der Visionaere, the cosy canalside club that became a kind-of spiritual home. (He'd sometimes spend every night of the week there, before parenting duties got the better of him.)

To play for half a day you need a lot of records, and the backbone of Binh's craft has long been a freakish passion for vinyl. Along with Lutz, Vera, and others in CDV's orbit, he approaches the pursuit of wax, new and old, with next-level dedication and a fondness for blind buys. 

That's true of RA.989, although among the un-Shazamables are many tracks that are either out or coming out on Binh's popular Time Passages label. The mix finds him on a house-y tip, luxuriating in roomy basslines, driving 303s and twinkly melodies—with just the right amount of evil. Lock in and savour a one-of-a-kind DJ, completely in the zone.

@binh

Find the interview at ra.co/podcast/989

RA.989 Binh

"My mission is to explore the boundaries of psychedelic music." The revered techno artist talks about expanding consciousness, breaking the rules and his new album on Tresor. 

There has always been a strain of dance music that has leant psychedelic, from the leftfield psychoacoustics of pioneers like La Monte Young to the proggy techno taking over today's dance floors. One artist who embodies the spirit of psychedelia is Anthony Child, AKA Surgeon, a revered DJ and producer who has historically been placed in the world of industrial techno, but whose output over the years has consistently flirted with altered states of consciousness and a strong opposition to the mainstream.

Child is originally from Birmingham, where he and Karl O'Connor, AKA Regis, helped birth a style of powerful, loop-driven techno. Together, they're British Murder Boys and have released music on O'Connor's seminal label Downwards. But they've also ploughed successful solo careers, with Child putting out several releases on Tresor and performing live improvised electronics as Surgeon and as part of ambient listening duo The Transcendence Orchestra.

In this interview, Child talks about his most recent release on Tresor, the album Shell~Wave, and its innovative use of techniques associated with Jamaican dub. He also discusses the through line of psychedelia in his work and what it means to surrender oneself to sometimes uncomfortable processes—both creatively and in life—and come out the other side. There are strong links to spirituality and Buddhism in Child's work, many of which are designed to prompt listeners to question and reconsider the boundaries they've set around the reality they live in. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

EX.766 Surgeon

One hour of resolutely DIY club workouts, from one of the West Coast's most exciting producers. 

If you've been in the club recently, chances are you've heard the work of Julian Edwards, AKA bastiengoat. Maybe it was the standout 2022 track "Tell Me If You Like It," which blends jungle breaks with a slinky sample from Cassie's R&B anthem "Me & U" to create a 130 banger perfect for modern dance floors. The Oakland-based producer has become a go-to name for party cuts that bounce,  favoured by the likes of Bianca Oblivion and fellow Bay Area artist—and frequent back-to-back partner—Bored Lord.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Edwards is deeply connected to Oakland's underground rave scene. Reflecting on his early experiences, he explained how the region's unique blend of crowds—from "raw hardcore sound to hyphy house parties"—and legacy of DIY warehouse raves has always shaped his music. 

While gentrification in the region has limited opportunities to throw parties in those spaces, Edwards, as part of the label and collective NO BIAS, is carrying that torch for a new generation, pushing jungle, UK garage and all manner of US club variety while maintaining a strong DIY ethos. As dance music grows increasingly global and commercial, Edwards and co offer a refreshing antidote. 

A prolific producer, Edwards is hard to pin down musically. He can apply his distinctive touch to virtually any genre. Take "Slander," where he blends hardcore and electro with Jersey club. Or "at em" a collision of 2-step, bassline and furious breaks. At the core of his work is a transatlantic bass connection, much like fellow West Coast star Introspekt. Both have a serious knack for fusing intricate rhythms with the kind of deep, murky bass weight synonymous with so much UK dance music. 

For RA.990, Edwards jumps between genres with flex and ease—one moment it's grime-like basslines evoking "Pulse X," then aqueous, melancholic club, before twisting into fast and furious breaks. Rough, ready, and rowdy, it’s music that’s equal parts technical showcase and peak-time firework display.

@bastiengoat
Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/990

RA.990 bastiengoat

Club futurism and a stack of new material from one of São Paulo's boldest shapeshifters.

BADSISTA doesn't do stasis. In fact, he prefers to be in a constant state of motion. It was immediately obvious when the São Paulo artist broke out with his 2016 self-titled EP, in which a bass-heavy melange of baile funk, dembow and trap demonstrated an ability to satiate almost any dance floor.

But BADSISTA continued to evolve through the different moods and textures of the club: from experimental compositions with Brazilian trans icon Linn Da Quebrada to ballroom bass and heads-down funk shellers for TraTraTrax.

This RA Podcast finds BADSISTA in a fluid place once more. The mood starts out slow and moody—one of a slew of unreleased BADSISTA tracks—before seamlessly morphing into the soul-stirring synthwork of Al Lover Meets Cairo Liberation Front. Then he gets playful: tasteful, techy house morphs into smutty baile funk. (And as for the guests, look out for Sully's "XT" and a spicy Batu rework.)

BADSISTA's style is connected by a uniquely Latin sense of rhythm and groove. Here, dramatic synths build up to even more dramatic funk crescendos. Perreo rattles appear in and out of the mix, as if acting as a reminder for people to move. But really, above all, this mix radiates with aliveness.

When you whittle it down to the bare essentials, all that matters is the joy and connectivity you feel within yourself and the world around you. BADSISTA is an excellent facilitator, and you'll hear as much on RA.991.

@badsista

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/986

RA.991 BADSISTA

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

Oceanic at Garage, Horst Arts & Music 2025

If you’ve spent any time on Seoul’s dance floors lately, chances are you’ve come across the name ffan. And if you haven’t? Well, you’ve got some catching up to do.

ffan has carved out a reputation for his intricate and high-energy sets, navigating seamlessly through genres with a flair that is perfectly controlled. Whether he’s behind the decks or deep in the studio, ffan brings a wild, magnetic energy.

His sharp focus has led him to become a key figure in Seoul’s bubbling underground scene. As the founder of club Nyapi Seoul and Studio Namsan, ffan’s voice shimmers through all projects he touches.

There’s no better time to get acquainted with what ffan is bringing to the booth.

Read more here: https://www.theransomnote.com/music/mixes/ffan-the-wednesday-alternative-mix/

ffan: The Wednesday Alternative Mix

An artist with minimal online presence, Commodo is one of an increasingly rare few who make waves through the strength of their music alone. He builds bass-focused beats with soul and substance that never perpetuate a formula. Together with Gantz he just released a monster record on our ITX series. Enjoy!

ITPS117 COMMODO

"I'm ready to bring back gatekeeping." The New Yorker staff writer discusses how to protect the underground, experimenting with drugs and her new book, Health and Safety.

Can drugs help us find meaning in music and nightlife? This is a question that today's Exchange guest, New Yorker staff writer Emily Witt, asks in earnest in her new book Health and Safety: A Breakdown. Just released in hardcover in the UK and Europe, the memoir traces Witt's life in her early-to-mid 30s. A journalist living and working in Brooklyn, she began experimenting with psychedelics and club drugs after years of living what she describes as a conservative, straight-and-narrow, middle-class life. She became enamoured with the borough's underground raves, frequenting events like the festival Sustain-Release, the party Unter and sets at Bushwick haunt Bossa Nova Civic Club, all while falling in love with an aspiring DJ and producer she calls Andrew.

As the book progresses, Witt documents the growing MAGA movement in America, gun rights rallies and mass shootings. As the country falls apart, she watches her romantic relationship fall apart, too. Drugs and Brooklyn nightlife, she writes, became both an escape and a way to rearrange a world that she starts to feel no longer makes sense. 

Witt shares critical opinions about the underground scene's capacity to be a utopia and place of belonging in an increasingly hostile world, arguing that there should be more gatekeeping in place to protect a scene that's threatened by capitalism and the mainstream. She also interrogates what she calls "woke identity politics" in Brooklyn, the lack of change that came from the Black Lives Matter movement, empty calls for political protest that dominated the early days of the pandemic and why, despite everything, she's chosen to stay in Brooklyn for good. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula


EX.769 Emily Witt

A new studio set from one of the foundational icons of drum & bass.

Few names in drum & bass carry as much history as Peshay. Paul Pesce came up in the crucible of early rave and left fingerprints on labels like Mo' Wax, Good Looking and, most obviously, Metalheadz. By the time drum & bass was surging in the mid-'90s, he was bolted as one of the scene's most distinctive voices. 

Where others were pushing clinical austerity or waves of dark pressure, Pesce's ear drew him to featherlight, jazzy chords instead. The atmospheric drum & bass movement—or intelligent, as it's sometimes known today—cohered in his hands with timeless staples like "The Piano Tune" and "Miles From Home."

To a contemporary generation, he may now be best known for Studio Set, which caught alight as a prime slice of algorithm fodder on YouTube in the late 2010s, racking up millions of plays. Alongside Bailey’s Intelligent Drum & Bass, the mix has taken on a second life as a seminal document of a genre in flux. All of which made its removal from the internet, based around a spurious copyright strike, a hot concern.

Although a little tad reserved than some of the scene's most dominant names, Pesce has remained a loyal custodian and historian of the sound. While Studio Set was down, we offered him a crack at making something fresh, and though it's thankfully back up, the Kafkian nightmare galvanised his commitment to preserve recorded history.

Known as a DJ for his dynamic way with a groove, extended blends have long been Pesce's signature. You’ll hear plenty of those on his RA Podcast, as golden-age rollers and contemporary vocal cuts push in and out for up to four minutes, painting a portrait of the genre’s vitality from someone who helped define its terms. True to form, RA.993 carries the touch of a jazz conductor and the assured cool of a veteran who's been deep in the culture for over 30 years.

@peshay-official

Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/993

RA.993 Peshay

Listen back to Sweely live, all vocal-heavy, bubbly tech house from Resident Advisor's stage at Mode Festival 2024.

@sweelymusic

RA Live - Sweely (Live) - Mode Festival 2024, Australia

Ode Label founder Claire O'Brien embarked on an adventurous journey from sultry minimal techno to an epic climax of razor-sharp UK rap remixes at Mode Festival 2024.

@claireobrrien

RA Live - Claire O'Brien - Mode Festival 2024, Australia

Alien zaps, chopped electro and playful techno from the Fever AM boss's live set at Mode Festival 2024.

@rhyw

RA Live - Rhyw (Live) - Mode Festival 2024, Australia

Waves of pulsing, layered techno from the revered Mala Junta resident.

If the electronic music industry is caught in the crosshairs of a battle over what makes for true techno, then D.Dan is one of the underground's great modern emissaries.

A figurehead from the new guard of DJs to arise in the '20s, the Berlin-based artist and Mala Junta resident is an ambassador for a sound that is strongly anchored in the classic roots of techno. His productions, like his mixes, are revved-up takes on the hypnotic wormholes that defined dance floors last decade, but with a fresh (and high BPM) millennial twist. 

Originally from Seattle, D.Dan became enamoured with the spectral stylings of psych rock and shoegaze in adolescence. It's not difficult to see how the cosmic tapestry of bands like Cocteau Twins became a blueprint for the entrancing music he's gone on to make as an adult. His releases on Mutant Future and summerpup are latticeworks of loops and layered percussion, custom-tooled for lost hours on the dance floor and drawn-out mixes behind the decks. 

This approach directly extends into his DJ practice, where he pairs song selections from contemporaries that mirror his own reduced, controlled approach to techno. RA.994 is a Grade A display of contemporary four-to-the-floor from flagbearers like Roll Dann and Marcal.

And like D.Dan's standalone records, his RA Podcast finds room for sweetness—the intermittent peal of an open clap, the steady ripening of a chord—while ultimately emphasising the beauty of function and form over flair.

@ddan-sounds

Find the full interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/994

RA.994 D.Dan

"There's a lack of continuity for FLINTA* individuals." The Chilean artist talks about trans rights and the launch of her new sex party, ABOV.

What would genuine visibility, safety and solidarity look like for the trans community? This week's interview with Chilean artist Dominga Huidobro (AKA Föllakzoid) explores this topic in depth. Huidobro began her transition eight years ago. By then, Föllakzoid had already put out a number of releases on Sacred Bones. She's since gone on to totally reinvent the psych rock genre, working with hypnotic loops and percussion, and even crossing over into the world of techno with collaborations and remixes from Atom TM and DJ Nobu.

Huidobro opens up about how transitioning changed her artistic identity, and even fed directly into her standout album, V. But it also began to pose problems in her personal life. She was attacked at a queer party in Berlin last September, an incident that reflected an ongoing lack of safety and care for the trans community. Touring as a solo artist, she is still rarely provided safe, pre-arranged transportation to and from venues, and the constant trauma of crossing borders and being left to fend for herself in threatening situations led her to pause her live shows for the rest of this year.

In the meantime, Huidobro has started a FLINTA* party, ABOV, with her partner Ariana Paoletti (AKA Volvox). The two end the conversation with a meditation on what the FLINTA* mission means in 2025. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

EX.771 Dominga (Föllakzoid)

DJ TOBZY's half of a double-sided mix by two Nyege Nyege all-stars.

Nyege Nyege is synonymous with radical sonic innovation. Since 2015, the boundary-pushing Ugandan festival and its associated label have become a vital hub for adventurous, experimental sounds emerging from East Africa and beyond. Its alumni roster includes some of the past decade's most thrilling and forward-thinking artists—DJ Travella, Nihiloxica, Juliana Huxtable, MC Yallah, and even New York's mayoral frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani. In the process, the collective has reimagined what club music can be.

The enigmatic DJ TOBZY is one of the freshest voices in this ever-expanding ecosystem. At the tender age of 23 years, he's at the forefront of the effervescent cruise scene in his adopted hometown of Lagos. Breakneck, unpolished and fiercely DIY, it's a sound journalist Giulio Pecci described as "a delirious blur of vocals and drums, influenced by other African dance music styles but moving only to its own strange, internal logic." TOBZY's mix captures the frenetic energy of a scene evolving in real time—bold, street-born and completely unfiltered.

His contribution to RA.995 sits alongside that of Kampala-based Kampire, a core Nyege Nyege member since the label's inception, and she takes the B-side. 

Together, the two-sided mix forms the launch of a new series marking the countdown to RA.1000—offering a bracing snapshot of a collective that has redefined electronic music over the last decade.

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/995

RA.995 DJ TOBZY

Kampire's half of a double-sided mix by two Nyege Nyege all-stars.
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Nyege Nyege is synonymous with radical sonic innovation. Since 2015, the boundary-pushing Ugandan festival and its associated label have become a vital hub for adventurous, experimental sounds emerging from East Africa and beyond. Its alumni roster includes some of the past decade's most thrilling and forward-thinking artists—DJ Travella, Nihiloxica, Juliana Huxtable, MC Yallah, and even New York's mayoral frontrunner, Zohran Mamdani. In the process, the collective has reimagined what club music can be.

On the B side mix is Kampire. The Kampala-based DJ has been a core member of the collective since the label's inception. Her mixes often feel like a lesson in musicology, weaving together narratives, tempos and genres while losing nothing in dance floor vitality. These talents are reflected in her contribution to RA.995. A typically kaleidoscopic blend of tough percussive workouts, infectious edits and raw, unreleased gems, the hour-long mix spans batida, singeli, bruxaria and countless more urgent sounds from the global underground.

The other half of this special release comes from the enigmatic DJ TOBZY, which you can find on the A-side. 

Presented together, as the first edition of a new format marking the countdown to RA.1000, this two-sided mix offers a bracing snapshot of a label that has redefined electronic music over the last decade.

Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/996

RA.995 Kampire

“These spaces are sacred." The Brooklyn trio reflect on 12 years of throwing parties that celebrate New York's queer community of colour.

New York nightlife has a truly unique ecosystem. And for the last 12 years, the art collective Papi Juice has been right at the center of it, hosting parties, workshops, artist residencies, performances and exhibitions that affirm and celebrate the lives of queer and trans people of colour.

In this RA Exchange recorded during Pride Weekend in Brooklyn, reviews editor Kiana Mickles sits down with the Papi Juice trio—Mohammed, Adam and Oscar—to talk about intersectionality and how they've maintained their principles and political integrity by continuing to put their community first. The DJs and multimedia artists have been active in leading fundraisers for Black trans organisations and archiving queer nightlife in Brooklyn. They recently received an award from the City Council of New York for their contributions to culture and have partnered with institutions like The Brooklyn Museum, MoMA PS1, El Museo del Barrio, Creative Time, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.

In this interview, Mohammed, Adam and Oscar reflect on meeting for the first time, navigating New York's cabaret laws, creating a distinct visual identity, learning to work through internal conflict and differences in taste, and working towards a shared vision across many years. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula


EX.772 Papi Juice

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

RA's #1 DJ steps away from the dance floor.

Dixon, Steffi, Nicolas Jaar, Ben UFO and Omar-S mark our 500th podcast.

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=500

@dixon


RA.500 Dixon

Exceptional house and techno from the Panorama Bar resident.

Steffi, Dixon, Nicolas Jaar, Ben UFO and Omar-S mark our 500th podcast.

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=500

RA.500 Steffi

A strange and lovely bricolage.

Nicolas Jaar, Dixon, Steffi, Ben UFO and Omar-S mark our 500th podcast.

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=500

RA Podcast: @nicolas-jaar

RA.500 Nicolas Jaar

A leader of the scene looks to the future.

Ben UFO, Dixon, Steffi, Nicolas Jaar and Omar-S mark our 500th podcast.

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=500

@benufo

RA.500 Ben UFO

The Swedish artist delivers a "pulsating bouquet of vibrations."

Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=501

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