At Field Maneuvers 2023, Optimo (Espacio) played the final set in the Sputnik tent as part of the Watching Trees takeover. "We expected everyone to be on their final reserves of energy," they said. "But it was instantly apparent that there was electric energy in the tent. It ended up being one of the most joyous, life-affirming gigs of [the year]."

@optimo-music @fieldmaneuvers

Find out more about Field Maneuvers 2024: https://ra.co/news/80472

RA Live - Optimo (Espacio) - Field Maneuvers, UK

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

With character and a refreshing light-heartedness, DJ City has built a strong following on European dancefloors over the last few years. Drawing from both old school Chicago, Italo, and contemporary producers, he playfully navigates the elements that make up a well-constructed dance floor. After a string of releases on labels such as Public Possession, he now also runs BAD DAD, his own party in Berlin, within which he cultivates, experiments, and plays around with the fundamentals of what it is to be a DJ. For the 51st edition of PHANTASYMIX, he's on hand to present a contemporary but classic vista of the timeless four-to-the-floor sound:

"There’s a lot happening in house music at the moment so I wanted to focus on recent releases for this mix. At the same time, you’ll hear a lot of grooves and moods that you'll instantly recognize and be familiar with. I love how House music always is referencing and pointing back in history. It constructs narratives and relationships that span time and space, something that feels extra important to me right now." DJ City

PHANTASYMIX 51: DJ City

Radio On Vacation With Planet B

Rhythm Section Radio was founded in 2009 and moved to NTS in 2012, and has since pulled out the stops breaking new music, promoting independent labels and paying homage to the greatest music from the past, through a perhaps unhealthy obsession with record digging. 
Find the full tracklist and related episodes on NTS: https://www.nts.live/shows/rhythmsection/episodes/rhythmsection-28th-may-2025

Rhythm Section Radio - Bradley Zero b2b Erol Alkan Live at Peckham Audio 280525

Shit Robot - Warm Up for LCD Soundsystem @ Brixton Academy - Friday 20 June 2025

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Mau P - I Like it Edit  (Soar & XTK) FREE DOWNLOAD

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

nightwalkers on dancefloors all over_ (2)

Robson (UK), Ricci (US) - Just Listen [WHB273]

🛒 Download & Stream ➔ lnk.to/WHB273

Tracklist:
1. Robson (UK) - Pump This
2. Ricci (US) - Just Listen
3. Robson (UK) - Get It Started
4. Ricci (US) - Bassline Bumper

Robson (UK), Ricci (US) - Just Listen [WHB273]

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Rhythm Section Radio - Bradley Zero b2b Erol Alkan Live at Peckham Audio 280525

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