Living, breathing, banging techno from an artist defining the highly-textured new frontier of the sound in 2024.

Lindsey Wang, AKA Polygonia, has an amorphous style you could call organic—or, better yet, harmonious. She interweaves unfamiliar elements with a mercurial touch. Wang can make something completely otherworldly sound totally, well, natural. It's made her a fixture everywhere from Munich's BLITZ to major festivals like Sustain-Release and Draaimolen.

Unsurprisingly, Wang is not one to be pinned down. Be it the sound design-anchored side project Lyder, her own label QEONE, or co-producing an album's worth of experimental percussion alongside jazz drummer Simon Popp, it's fair to say her personal output matches the feverish energy of her mixes. There's multidisciplinary, and then there's Wang: Poly-disciplinary, you might say.

Wang's entry into the RA Podcast series is no different, another stellar emphasis of her artistry. RA.955 is a voyage into wild variations of texture, rhythm and feeling, guided along by the principle of endless metamorphosis. Supple driving grooves meet crinkled surfaces, scuttling hi-hats meet chattering sonics, and good luck keeping hold of a consistent drum pattern for long. Behold a living organism raised by the club and the great outdoors in equal measure.

@polygonia

Read more at ra.co/podcast/955

RA Podcast

RA.955 Polygonia

"The forest is such a special place because it is simultaneously rowdy and psychedelic. The timing of my afternoon set, leading from day to night, meant I wanted to play a set that moved from deep and dreamy to joyful and riotous, the momentum and energy building and blooming like a flower. I think it very much turned out as I intended, and it was totally so so special to play as I did in front of this incredibly giving and open-minded audience. Thank you Draaimolen for the incredible opportunity." - Ciel

Ciel at Draaimolen Festival 2024

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

A veritable staple of the Japanese scene and founder of the Protection label, Haruka joins our series with two hours of delightful, liquiform groove recorded live from Kyoto. Expansive yet dialed in with tireless precision, Haruka’s set transitions between eyes-down introspection and buoyant, infectious energy with ease. To witness this level of craft enveloped by such a warm and vibrant aura is an absolute pleasure, and it’s easy to imagine oneself suspended weightless in Haruka’s element. Thank you Haruka!

@haruka_ptc

Artwork by Camille Ferdinandus.

Sure Thing Mix 144: Haruka

Erik Luebs makes his debut at The Lot Radio with a genre-blurring set that reflects his unique sonic world. 

https://www.instagram.com/erikluebs
https://www.soundcloud.com/erikluebs



Erik Luebs (live) @ The Lot Radio 08-02-2025

Reaching our 100th edition feels special, and we couldn’t be more honored to celebrate it with Anthony Child. Many know him as Surgeon or as part of the British Murder Boys alongside Regis whose work has left a lasting mark on techno. Yet there’s another side to his work - one that steps away from the club and into more spacious terrain. You can hear it in his electronic recordings from the Maui project in 2015, in his collaborations with Daniel Bean as The Transcendence Orchestra, or through OLD Technology, the label they run together as a playground for questioning reality.

For Unrush, Anthony offers a mix that only he could create. A journey that wanders through krautrock, psychedelic twists, ambient spaces and moments of lighthearted play. It has the same curious energy that makes his monthly Noods mixes so inspiring, and yet it feels made to be taken in slowly, with time and openness.

We’re grateful to share this milestone with someone who has shaped so much of the music we love, and who reminds us that listening can be both grounding and transporting. Press play and enjoy it - on a walk, with friends, or in your own quiet time...

Thanks a lot to https://soundcloud.com/dynamic-tension

ANTHONY CHILD on the web:
Bandcamp: https://old-technology.bandcamp.com/
Noods Radio: https://noodsradio.com/residents/nog-zone-w-anthony-child
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tony_surgeon/

UNRUSH on the web:
Bandcamp: www.unrush.bandcamp.com/
Hardwax: www.hardwax.com/label/unrush/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/_unrush

Cover artwork by Irakli Kiziria

Tracklist:

Cindy Lee - Baby Blue
Chris Weisman & Greg Davis - The Nine Times
Mac-Talla Nan Creag - Five Sisters
Sean Booth - Twitch AMA (excerpt)
Bob Lind - Fennario
Panda Bear - Take Pills
Neil - Cosmic Jam
The Transcendence Orchestra - The golden jaws of the celestial vice
Bernard Parmegiani - de natura sonorum: premiere serie: accidents / harmoniques
Anna von Hausswolff - The Truth, The Glow, The Fall
David Sylvian & Stephan Mathieu - Saffron Laudanum
Chris Watson - Crucero La Joya
Open University - Parents talking to teenagers cassette (excerpt)
Dionne Warwick - Don't make me over
Imaginary Softwoods - Diagram Of The Universe
Jo Johnson - Alterations 1: Unbroken
Jim O’Rourke - A Man's Mind Will Play Tricks on Him
Zyggurat - Crepuscule / Druids Heath
Rotary Connection - I am the Black Gold of the Sun

100 - Unrushed by Anthony Child

After an extended pause for much needed rest and slow reflection, the Patterns of Perception crew is excited to return to our mix series with fresh energy and a stellar new mix from Jasmin, aka softi (@jazz_brown). 

Soulful, breezy and groove-laden, softi's Patterns of Perception 122 shimmers with her kaleidoscopic, minimal sound. Weightless sparks float and flicker in dim light. Time dilates; seasons drift. 

---

A few thoughts from Jasmin:

Hey Jasmin, how’s it going? What's been happening for you lately?
I’m well, I’m currently living between Lisbon and London this summer which has been a dream! Great food, beach sessions and writing music. It’s been a wild 3 months and I’m just getting myself ready for the seasons changing!

What can you tell us about your mix?
For this mix I wanted to mould my love of groovy minimal and psychedelic tones for the moody season ahead, which is usually my signature sound! I have been producing a lot of this recently and some of my unreleased bits are exclusively inside 💜

⁠Is there a track or tracks that are extra special for you?
I’d probably say my own productions are the special to me as it reminds me of how much I have developed as a producer and artist. I love connecting with the tracks and being able to create my own atmospheric world for listeners to get lost in. But one track that I always come back to is "bluep" by Underground City Loop (a producer from Aus). I have been playing this track for years and it has every sonic element you'd want from a track - low end sub groove with dark melodic synths.

---

Links:
@jazz_brown
instagram.com/__softiii/

@cozi-716789961
instagram.com/cozi______/

Patterns of Perception 122 - softi

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.




RA.265 Convextion

Resident Advisor