Happy Holidays!

The Choir Of St John's College, Oxford - What Cheer? Good Cheer!
Sugar Minott - Christmas Time
Katie Lee - Shrinker Man
Francesco Santucci / Paolo Renosto - Titta
Ike Quebec - Lloro tu despedida
June Knight - I Did
Trio Mediæval - Coventry Carol
Fernando Sor - 24 Short Progressive Pieces Opus 44 - No. 03, Andantino
Jan Johansson - Visa från Utanmyra
Eddie Hooper - As Innocent as You
Kahleen Ferrer - Mahler: Oft Denk' Ich, Sie Sind Nur Ausgegangen
Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare - Canzone dei sette mariti
Duke Pearson - Big Bertha
Brook Benton - You're All I Want For Christmas
Lester Young - I'm Confessin' (That I Love You)
Banda de Pau e Corda - Morena fulô
Pinduca - Mistura de Carimbó Com Ciranda
Peruchín - Melodia Oriental
Tricia Marks - Christmas Calypso
Ryco - Rencontre

Undomondo Happy Holidays 2024

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

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

166

This mix revolves around Finnish Black Motor's "Illalla Valkea Kyyhky" piece. New jazz & Free Jazz with angular, almost black & white expression of neo-noir, epic, cosmic, spiritual jazz.. From 2015's new star Kamasi Washington to Giovanni Guidi, Steve Lehman's amazing rendition of Pure Imagination to Ornette and Borah Bergman. You will either think this is the meaning of life, or shut it down in the first 15 mins. Cheers to all who manage to finish it on the slightly different tone of Innercity Ensemble!

Keijo - Once again around
The John Lurie National Orchestra - I Came to visit here for a while
Giovanni Guidi Trio - Game of Silence
Steve Lehman Trio - Pure Imagination
Black Motor - Illalla Valkea Kyyhky
Ornette Coleman - Lonely Woman
Borah Bergman Trio - Parallax
Cortex - Gray Matter
Kamasi Washington - Isabelle
Jonas Kullhammar, Espen Aalberg & Torbjörn Zetterberg - Moksha
Joe McPhee & Chris Corsano - For Giuseppi Logan
Trespass Trio - Walking the Dead
Huntsville - Serious Like a Pope
Innercity Ensemble - Black 6

Undomondo Radio 166

Nūr (Debut EP) out now: https://duasaleh.lnk.to/nur
Buy/Download: https://duasaleh.bandcamp.com

prod. by @psymun / mixed by @mikefreymusic

- Lyrics -
Couple bands on my wrist
Call that new rich
Blew up too quick
Had you feeling kinda sick
Had to hit them with a twist
Had them tripping on glitch
Yes I'm that bitch
You know that shit

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them quite a fright

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them half a fright

Double double toil and fumble
Then you tumbled tumbled
Popped your bubble bubble
Then you mumbled mumbled
I'm befuddled fuddled
Then you guzzled guzzled
down your troubles troubles

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them half a fright

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them half a fright

Double double toil and fumble fumble
Then you tumbled tumbled
Popped your bubble bubble
Then you mumbled mumbled
I'm befuddled fuddled
Then you guzzled guzzled
down your troubles troubles
Oh them vultures out at night

A wall that's tattered pretty thin
A brawl was splattered on my timbs
I bawled then through them in a bin
I need it
A wall that's tattered pretty thin
A brawl was splattered on my timbs
I balled then through them in a bin
I need it

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them half a fright

Them vultures out at night
They seen a pretty sight
They screeching for my plight
I gave them half a fright

Double double toil and fumble fumble
Then you tumbled tumbled
Popped your bubble bubble
Then you mumbled mumbled
I'm befuddled fuddled
Then you guzzled guzzled
down your troubles troubles

Oh them vultures out at night

The Right To Open Arms

The Patchwork