RA Podcast

Last month, with Goldie's guest curatorship of Resident Advisor, we focused on the history of one of the most important music genres and scenes to come out of the UK: drum & bass. With this RA Podcast from Kasra, we switch over to the style's cutting edge. He's probably best known for his long-running Critical Music label, whose name is instructive. You'll find some of the most essential, crucial drum & bass of the last two decades through its 20-plus year-old back catalogue. As a DJ and producer, Kasra embodies everything great about Critical and its approach: drum & bass with flair and personality, forward-thinking while staying true to the roots of the sound. The kind of music he plays is wide-ranging, but it usually leans towards the tight and minimalist. The basslines stop and start like stuck engines, drums hit with the mechanical precision of a Swiss-made watch, the MCs move with a tactical flow. Kasra's RA Podcast is a blend of new and old cuts from the likes of Skeptical, Halogenix, Break and the bo

909 is a special number for us at RA—the name of one of the most hallowed drum machines in all of music, and one of the foundations of techno music—and we're more than happy to offer it up to a DJ who has been a long-time favourite of our team: Glasgow's Bake. In fact, we commissioned this mix roughly ten years ago, but you can't rush perfection. When Bake emerged as one of the heads heads behind the label All Caps—a relatively short-lived but influential imprint that released massive tracks like Flørist's "Marine Drive" and Kowton's "TFB"—he also quickly became one of the most impressive DJs in the post-dubstep access, appearing frequently at Hessle Audio events and sharpening his skills behind the decks at the country's best parties. Now he runs his own, Spirit, at Sub Club. He has a wide-ranging style that touches on all kinds of leftfield techno and broken drum patterns. His nearly two-hour RA Podcast finds him at the end of a sort-of comeback year, and it touches on tracks from Shackleton, Laksa, Batu

With their Wisdom Teeth label, British artists Facta and K-LONE are at the vanguard of a sound that mixes New Age-inspired ambient music with loopy tech house and the staggered swing of Bristol techno. Now split between the West Country hotspot and Brighton, the duo have perfected a balance of carefully considered long-players and wicked club EPs, making Wisdom Teeth one of the most essential labels anywhere in the UK right now. As DJs, their sound leans more towards the clubbier end of Wisdom Teeth—and don't sleep on K-LONE's lovely other labels, Sweet 'n' Tasty (for garage) and Wych (dubstep-ish)—but they've got a slightly softer, slow-and-steady approach than many of their peers from their spiritual home of Bristol. It's clubby, but it's more hypnotic and loopy than loud and banging. The duo jump through a fair amount of sounds—and you'll still get some bass wobbles—touching on tracks from Genius Of Time, Martinez Brothers, Jan Driver, Polygonia and more, bridging not only genres but local scenes and cont

Before moving to San Francisco, Iranian-Canadian artist AIDA got her start in one of the world's more unlikely, yet nourishing, rave scenes tucked away in the southwest corner of Canada: Vancouver. There, amongst the basement raves, forest parties and yeast-perfumed gigs on top of bakeries, she found a home amidst a small but strong scene of record-digging minimal lovers, finding power in their pure passion for music. This is where she started, though over time her sound has developed along with a lot of the minimal scene, touching on electro, breaks and progressive house. The latter is the focus of her RA Podcast, which comes amidst a year-long sabbatical from her dayjob to focus on music. It seems like the extra time is paying off: she's playing out more than ever, around the world, and playing more kinds of music, too. This mix revolves entirely around her love for the original wave of progressive house, gathered from records chosen over a period of weeks and then put together with a firm but idiosyncrati

Back in the day, drums were used as signals for festivities and war because their sounds travelled the furthest. Azu Tiwaline has long understood that. A master in the dark arts of percussion, she makes deep and profound percussive music that seems to communicate forgotten rituals from centuries past. Her sound is dense, as if pulled from the depths of the Sahara desert in Tunisia, yet still feels spacious thanks to polyrhythmic contortions and sparse, elegant melodies. Her productions largely fall into the confines of percussive techno, but unlike the genre's springier variants, her dubby textures and psychedelic rhythms command seriousness and move with immensity. Her Livity Sound debut, the Magnetic Service EP from 2020, connected Amazigh music with dub and techno and is a masterclass in restraint and hypnosis. Her latest release, The Fifth Dream, continues to showcase her skills in balancing light and dark tones using field recordings from her home in Tunisia's El Djerid desert, minimal ambient techno an

For our 905th RA Podcast, we're proud to welcome Goldie, one of the most famous, talented and important electronic music artists of all time. Starting out as a graffiti artist, he eventually made music under the name Rufige Kru, helping push the then-nascent genre of jungle forward with tracks like "Krisp Biscuit (Power)" and "Terminator." The latter was released under the name Metalheads, which would later become the name of his label (with a z instead of an s). Metalheadz—which he cofounded with DJ Storm and the late Kemistry—celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and remains the defining outlet of drum & bass, the genre that grew out of jungle that Goldie helped invent with records like 1995's massive crossover album Timeless (alongside countless other classics). He's a producer, DJ, actor and all-around celebrity, a huge personality in UK electronic music. Goldie is also RA's guest curator this month, and his tenure starts with this mix. We'll have more to come starting this week—check our editor's le

When Smoke Machine started doing parties in Taipei, and then created a revered online mix series, it was clear that it was the work of someone with impeccable taste. That would be Diskonnected, once a resident at the beloved Taiwan club Korner who now posts up at Pawnshop and 宀 in Hong Kong. He's also behind Organik, a festival that takes place on the coast of Taiwan and has become one of the world's top techno gatherings in just over a decade. True to his alias, the elusive artist likes to switch off from the world. He rarely makes his presence known online, sparingly accepting press and mix requests. He's not one to seek attention—in fact, he actively avoids it—but there's a spotlight on him regardless. Everything Diskonnected does is executed with patience and class, but don't mistake that for restraint. His style of weightless techno shimmers with the spirit of nature, moving with aerodynamic force. On his RA Podcast, we hear a six-hour all-night set recorded at 宀 earlier this year, keeping an open-ende

For the past few years, RA cover star Jlin has been churning out complex percussion compositions that sit at the intersection of IDM, trap, mutant techno and sound art. Her tracks are tactile and structurally complex, stacked drums interlocking with glistening melodies and heaving basslines on groundbreaking albums like Dark Origami. Her rhythms gracefully crosscut over one another like towering blocks in an architecture sketch for a truly cerebral experience. Growing up in Gary, Indiana, the former steel factory worker wears many hats. She produces mind-bending club music—usually for Mike Paradinas's label Planet Mu—scores modern dance performances and arranges for instrumental ensembles. Her process of collaboration is deeply symbiotic, as shown on her new EP, Perspective The acoustic version of the record, written for and performed with Chicago's Third Coast Percussion, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize this year, an unprecedented honour for a dance music artist. Jlin's style is sometimes described as a

Di Linh name-checks Ben UFO and DJ Masda as two of her favourite DJs in the interview below, which underlines the lovely duality of her style: her sets are adventurous but buttery smooth. One of Vietnam's most buzzed-about DJs—and a resident at the all-important Hanoi club Savage, as well as Equation festival—she was a punter before she was a DJ. She fell in love with the music at Savage and eventually playing her first-ever gig there, as if it were all kismet. Her sets are remarkably diverse but also remarkably consistent, with a refreshing, mid-tempo pace marked by well-placed bursts of energy. And so her RA Podcast is impeccably mixed, with the pacing and patience you'd expect from someone who has been DJing for decades. Bookends from Dust-e-1 sandwich an hour of house and techno from the likes of Kerrie, Schacke and Mac Declos. Linh finds a common thread that's all about tactile textures, catchy melodies and beautifully mixed-down drums, a sound you'll hear across the current wave of increasingly revere

New York party Merge is often described as a queer techno extravaganza. Over the past two years, it's built a loyal community from the ground up while integrating everything from high-energy trance to disorienting acid into its rave repertoire. Resident Clarisa Kimskii has played a defining role in the collective's growth, largely thanks to the ultra-kinetic and rhythmic pace of her DJ sets. Time and time again, the Washington DC native has demonstrated her ability to lock in dancers through captivating and hypnotic selections across various sub-styles of techno. There are tribal, witchy cuts. Jacking, Detroit-style funk. Psychedelic, DJ Nobu-style grooves and austere sounds that nod to Sandwell District. It's the kind of range that explains why Kimskii has been booked worldwide many years over, and more and more as of late. Her deep understanding of techno's myriad flavours come from two decades of industry experience as well as esoteric productions on labels like Mysteries Of The Deep and L.A.G. (her own s

Ashland Mines, AKA Total Freedom, AKA Big Gay Idiot DJ, AKA Bobby Beethoven, is one of the best and most influential DJs of the 21st century. Starting out at pioneering parties like Mustache Mondays and Wildness (which he cofounded with Wu Tsang)—and a regular at GHE20G0TH1K—Mines helped to define the style that would become known, however cringe-inducingly, as experimental club or deconstructed club, directly inspiring fellow visionaries like Arca. Like some of the best DJs before him, Mines uses the CDJs as an instrument, but that doesn't mean just fancy tricks and looping. Instead, he artfully throws together clashing sounds—effects, samples, monologues, pop and R&B acapellas, and beats that run the gamut from dancehall to kuduro to breaks and techno. He's not afraid of the grotesquerie of human life and movement (just check out the monologue at the beginning of this mix), and he likes to push buttons. Once he put on a party where dancing wasn't allowed. Some of his sets are intentionally anxiety-inducin

Talk to any veteran artist and they'll tell you consistency is the secret to longevity. Staying relevant in a competitive industry requires unwavering dedication to the craft—a lesson that nobody knows better than the godmother of house music, Stacey Hotwaxx Hale. The gear head, educator, music nerd and Detroit legend is considered the Motor City's first woman DJ to play underground house music. Her inquisitive mind, passion for audio equipment and community spirit has led to a decades-spanning career that has inspired countless women and expanded Detroit's rich musical heritage.  As a teenager, she learned to record on reel-to-reel tapes before learning the ropes from club king Ken Collier in the late '70s. Mastering the art of what she called "sneak-a-mixx"—seamlessly mixing vinyl records continuously—she beat over 600 artists to win the 1985 Motor City Mix competition. DJing remained a given in her life, even when she pursued a full-time engineering degree. She's often described in interviews how she woul

People in Los Angeles usually remember the moment they first saw Colored Craig DJ. He cuts a memorable figure: throwing down records on the turntables and dancing like he's in the crowd, not behind the decks. He's one of those rare selectors who's almost as fun to watch as he is to listen. But the rest of the world should be listening. Over the past few years, Colored Craig has become one of the LA area's most in-demand DJs, not just because of his considerable skills, but because of his old-school, loved-up ethos. He plays classic house records with a verve and style that you can't really teach or learn. You just have to have it. A choreographer by trade, everything about Craig has to do with movement, the joy of it, the energy you both gain and lose through dancing. His RA Podcast, recorded in his living room (a sort of nightclub in itself) gets across the infectious, uplifting energy of his sets, blazing through tracks from Kerri Chandler, Masters At Work and Chez Damier, and even including a disco house

Broken beat, or bruk, is intrinsically collaborative. Its London originators often recorded together, taking inspiration from jazz, hip-hop, deep house, drum & bass and Afrobeat. Because the genre was born of fusion, it brought together heads from all corners of the music spectrum—sound system purists to junglists to Latin Nuyorican aficionados—who each resonated with bruk's complex rhythms in their own ways. Ian Grant, AKA IG Culture, is an early pioneer of bruk, and his story underlines the style's synergetic nature. Starting out as an MC, he struck fame in the early '90s as one half of Dodge City Productions but quickly grew disillusioned with the major label business. After immersing himself in early George Duke records, Fela Kuti, Fuji music, The Headhunters and the like, he started experimenting in the studio. The jazz inspiration, plus his roots in reggae and background in hip-hop and acid jazz, led to his now-seminal, late '90s productions as New Sector Movements—widely considered as the starting poi

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound. https://soundcloud.com/atikka-music https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio https://www.pr-t-n.org/ https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound. https://soundcloud.com/cockwhoreandmacho https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio https://www.pr-t-n.org/ https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound. https://soundcloud.com/lyravalenza https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio https://www.pr-t-n.org/ https://soundcloud.com/oencph

RA CC Copenhagen brought together online radio station Drift Radio for a livestream and local community builder and record store Proton Records for a pop-up record sale at cultural hub Øen in celebration of the interconnectedness of their community and the distinctiveness of the Copenhagen sound. https://soundcloud.com/teateatea123 https://soundcloud.com/drift-radio https://www.pr-t-n.org/ https://soundcloud.com/oencph

Kerrie started a label called Dark Machine Funk, a name which hints toward the kind of music she plays. And while the Irish artist might be a capital-T techno DJ, her idea of "dark" is a little different than the black-clad legions of her generation. You won't find whiplash-inducing BPMs or racy pop edits in her sets. Her idea of techno is more classicist, without veering towards the stuffy or the retro. Her DJIng and her productions bridge the divide between Euro and American styles. Hints of breakbeat or other broken patterns bring in ideas from the UK techno that she loves so much, such as the pivotal label Blueprint, where she's become a regular as of late. With her, the devil's in the details (listen to those deliciously twisted hi-hats in recent track "Transient Belief"), and that comes down to mixing records, too. Her RA Podcast is a fast but measured run-through of 90 minutes of techno by artists like Exium and Tensal and from labels such as Token and Soma. Though none of her own tunes make the tra

Like most multi-genre music fans, London-based Ruby Savage approaches DJing through a wide-angle lens. Whether she's touring, playing her post-punk disco party, In Flames, or hosting her monthly show on NTS, the Amsterdam native opts for warm, bouncy tunes that traverse dub, jazz and '80s proto-house. As she once Mixmag, she isn't beat-matching but "heartbeat-matching." For her, a dance is a means to feeling the full spectrum of emotions in a healthy way. Years spent behind-the-scenes at influential institutions have added to her understanding of energy and flow. She's worked the counter at Honest Jon's Records, managed Theo Parrish's Sounds Signature label (plus created the Wildheart Recordings sister label) and Gilles Peterson's Brownswood imprint, in addition to helping the Worldwide FM don launch Arc Records. When she's not DJing, Savage is spearheading community initiatives like Don't Be A Creep, an educational platform about club safety, as well as Artist Recovery Club for creative growth among music-m