New sets

Richard Akingbehin at Organik Festival 2023

@alexanderberg at The Grove on Friday night.

Campout Mix Series: Dorisburg

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

Haruka x Craig Gonzalez opened the Dance Room at I.T. presents The Bunker, May 26, 2025, Day 3 of Return to the Source, at Tangent, Detroit.

Craig Gonzalez – @craig-gonzalez:

It's one thing to hop on the decks with someone during peak time at a party in a packed room like the first time Haruka and I played together in NYC but it's another to open a party during the last leg of RTTS weekend. So we started talking about the set a couple of months beforehand, but nothing really prepares you until you're in the middle of RTTS weekend itself. We were texting and chatting about the setup and direction throughout the weekend and eventually landed on keeping things a little funky and fun.  Playing with someone with a similar approach to DJing and also range really made the set feel so effortless for me and I feel that cohesion and the fun we had translated quite well to those that were in attendance.


Haruka – @haruka_ptc:

2023, Good Room (Brooklyn)
We were both booked to play a Bunker party that night and with an hour left before our room was about to shut down, I asked Craig to jump on for an unplanned B2B.  Craig had already set the room up with a deep, super-diverse selection and then vibe in our room was so good, I will never forgot it. So when IT asked us to do it again we got hyped.

RTTS, Detroit
Our slot opened the last day of the three-day marathon, and other parties were running in the daytime too, so it felt like one long 72-hour session. Craig also played Movement. It was my first time in Detroit, so I wandered around, popped into a bunch of events, but spent every night back at Tangent Gallery with Craig—talking, listening to other artists, and getting a real feel for the room. That helped us lock in the vibe and refine the ideas we’d been tossing around for months.

The set
Two words kept coming up: funky and fun (maybe sexy too). I played only a few recent tracks but most were older finds with some electro slipped in naturally. In hindsight the whole thing was a back-and-forth between electro and deep, psychedelic techno, with extra flavours layered on top.




IT Podcast

IT.podcast.s14e06: Haruka x Craig Gonzalez

Read what Zundoko Disco had to say on Mixmag Asia:
https://mixmag.asia/feature/mixmag-asia-radio-rural-festival-2025-jane-fitz-mareena-innerworld-zundoko-disco

Mixmag Asia Radio 165: Zundoko Disco at Rural Festival

RA.079 is an hour of dub techno and house from NY-based producer Brendon Moeller.

RA.079 Brendon Moeller

The Canadian producer offers up his live set from Labyrinth festival 2010.

RA.240 Mathew Jonson

RA.257 O/V/R

RA.274 George FitzGerald

RA.351 Truss / MPIA3

Acid and electro from the docks of Hamburg.

RA.373 Helena Hauff

The godfather of Dutch techno faces off with his alter-ego.

RA.428 Steve Rachmad vs STERAC

RA.464 Paula Temple

RA.398 AnD

Download: https://www.xlr8r.com/get-familiar/get-familiar-sleep-d-albrecht-labrooy

@sleepd
@albrecht-labrooy

[via XLR8R]

Download

Download: Sleep D & Albrecht La'Brooy's Get Familiar Mix, August, 2018

Eric @Cloutier on the inspiration for this mix: "It's impossible to fully describe the importance of Theorem (@theorem-thx) in my life. Upon first hearing the “Nano” album I was immediately sold on his sound. Moving artfully between psychedelic, dub and chill varietals of techno, the picture he painted on this full length on Plus8 blew my mind…and honestly still does. Fast forward to the “Mantra One” EP, and I knew this wasn’t a fluke but a revolution of a genre. Almost like clockwork, singles on a sub label of M_nus started dropping; I was indoctrinated in to Theorem's sound 100% at this point. Beautiful, patient, delicate, unique, and timeless - Theorem’s records, both solo and with a handful of equally amazing friends, such as Stewart Walker, Sutekh, and Swayzak, are at once undefinable and unquestionably from one defining point in electronic music history. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay friends with Theorem for well over a decade, and he’s blessed me with a trove of unreleased transmissions I’ve never felt comfortable putting to a recording until now. Without this music  I honestly don’t know where my techno life would have taken me, but I am forever indebted to Theorem for what he unintentionally did to a random connoisseur back home in Detroit. 

01. Theorem - Emerge [MINUS TH 3]
02. Theorem - Evolve [SWZLP2]
03. Theorem - Graviti [PLUS8057]
04. Theorem + Sutekh - Mitochondria [MINUS THX 5]
05. Theorem - Fallout [MINUS TH 4] 
06. Theorem - Clone [PLUS8070]
07. Theorem - Igneous [MINUS TH 2]
08. Theorem + Stewart Walker - Recoil [MINUS THX 3]
09. Theorem + Stewart Walker - Too Distant Images [MINUS THX 3]
10. Theorem + Swayzak - Break In at Apt 205 [MINUS THX 1]
11. Theorem + Swayzak - Devil of Rotations [!K7193EP]
12. Theorem - Shift [MINUS TH 1]
13. Theorem - Embed [MINUS TH 3]
14. Theorem + Swayzak - 020100 (Swayzak Mix) [SWZ11]
15. Theorem + Swayzak - Day From Hell [MINUS THX 2]	
16. Theorem + Sutekh - Canis [MINUS THX 5]
17. Theorem + Stewart Walker - Intervals [MINUS THX 4]
18. Theorem - Formulate [MINUSMIXMAX1]
19. Theorem - Dilate [PLUS8057]
20. Theorem - Gelidity [UNRELEASED]

RA.257 O/V/R

Resident Advisor

Recent comments

ss

Benzo

Related tracks