RA Podcast

House music started in Chicago, but what gets lost in history lessons is how it evolved and mutated in New York. None of that would have happened without Todd Terry. Bringing together hip-hop and house with his distinctive drum sounds, Terry not only created a whole subgenre (hip-house—check out Jungle Brothers' 1988 classic "I'll House You") but helped redefine the sound as a whole, bringing it to the mainstream with a string of classic remixes that stretched well into the '90s. Through his catalogue of records as Hard House, Orange Lemon, Bombshell, Masters At Work (before Louie Vega and Kenny Dope would take that name) and many others, Terry built a discography unlike any other in dance music. Even if you only have a vague idea of who he is, you've definitely heard a record of his, probably ten. (That legendary remix of Everything But The Girl's "Missing?" That's him too.) His sound is loose, punchy and often deliriously catchy, rooted in the ethos of the classic hip-hop he started out playing. Terry's R

This RA Podcast is a celebration of all things Moodymann, and by extension, Detroit. The long-time DJ and producer Dez Andrés calls Moodymann his "big brother," and here pays tribute to the true expanse of Kenny Dixon Jr's music, from core house cuts to rambling funk jams to remixes of artists like Dua Lipa and Solomun, which really hammers home how important Moodymann is on dance music from across the world and across genres. Andrés himself is also a legend. Active in Detroit since the '90s, he's a dance music Renaissance man, known for incredible hip-hop beats, disco and house, including massive hits like "New 4 U," one of the last decade's biggest dance music hits and RA's favourite track of 2012. His archive of records and mixes are essential listening for any house music or hip-hop fan, and he represents that distinct blend of influences and genres that defines Detroit—the same thing you can hear in this all-Moodymann mix. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/893

As a producer, Lamin Fofana makes ambient music that makes you think. His painterly compositions may be beatless, but they're full of movement, expanding and contracting from modulations and shifting frequencies to create a sense of infinite vastness. This immensity of sound creates a cerebral mood, allowing the Sierra Leone-born talent to explore sociocultural issues close to his heart, like the geographies of the African diaspora and what he calls Western rationality in music. He translates this heavy subject matter into textural sound using narrative structure, field recordings and archival material. The final product could be an album or an audio-based installation. Rooted in themes of identity and belonging, his exhibitions seek to disorient the senses and have been shown around Europe, including the Biennial in Venice and Liverpool. On his RA Podcast, the New York-based artist presents an all-original mix of loopy techno that mirrors the dynamism of his ambient productions. Laced with acid and pulsing

A spark of light erupting from a naked, crouched body adorns the cover of Sodomy, the new EP from Jorkes on their label Freeride Millenium. The image, serious yet playful, seems to represent an outburst of ideas and emotions from a person's inner core, literally. It's the perfect metaphor for Jorkes, whose palette of rugged house music, slick disco, '80s synth-pop and booming acid always feels unapologetically earnest. Their sonic identity, built around their queerness and self-described empathetic nature, is both cheeky and deeply thoughtful, washing listeners over with feelings of love and human connection (and lots of catchy vocal hooks). Anyone who's attended their resident nights at Stuttgart club Romantica or listened to their shows on Munich's Radio 80000 can attest to Jorkes' sense of unbridled enthusiasm, sweetness and passion for their queer community. All of that is tangible on their RA mix, a lively and poignant journey through exuberant house and emotive nu disco with plenty of classics like Cl

Of all the one-word techno project names out there, Truncate has to be among the most descriptive. The name started as a name for David Flores's most pared-back tracks, different from the stuff he was making as Audio Injection at the time. As happens with people who are really good at techno—or just understand the genre fundamentally—Truncate's DJ tools took off quickly, because people in the scene could recognize the craftsmanship. You don't need more than a few elements to make something pop. Rather quickly, Truncate became Flores's main squeeze, bringing him to a new level of international attention and acclaim. Flores is part of a vibrant LA techno community that's probably never been more vibrant or diverse. He helped build the scene alongside producers like Drumcell, and now the city is home to several great techno parties every weekend. You'll see his name on the flyer of quite a few of them, though probably less now that he's an international star. His RA Podcast represents the ethos of not just the

This is a re-recording of a set @compuma played at an April demonstration against the redevelopment of a Tokyo park that Ryuichi Sakamoto spoke passionately about before his death. "We gathered in front of the trees scheduled to be cut down in Jingu Gaien to align with Sakamoto's attitude and will," organizers said. Read more on RA: https://ra.co/news/79189 Tracklist: Ryuichi Sakamoto - 20210310 Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knives Ryuichi Sakamoto & The Kakutougi Session - Neuronian Network Ryuichi Sakamoto - Tibetan Dance（Version) Yellow Magic Orchestra - Neue Tanz Yellow Magic Orchestra - Behind The Mask (Remix） Ryuichi Sakamoto - Ballet Mecanique Ryuichi Sakamoto - Self Portrait Ryuichi Sakamoto - andata（Electric Youth Remix) Ryuichi Sakamoto - Riot In Lagos David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Bamboo Houses Yellow Magic Orchestra - Perspective Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thatness And Thereness Ryuichi Sakamoto - 20220304 Mark Stewart - Forbidden Colour

In 2020, Mell G dropped out of law studies to pursue music full-time and hasn't looked back since. For good reason too—she's far too busy for any potential regret. Over the past three years, the Hamburg-based artist launched JUICY GANG RECORDS, switched up her DJing style from ghettotech to electro, began touring and started producing. Her year-and-a-half old label is now a go-to source for brazen, bouncy club bangers and her refocused, electro-heavy sound has led to bookings alongside DJ Stingray, Pearson Sound and other heavy-hitters. The rising star is certainly having a moment, yet it hasn't been all smooth sailing. These sudden career ascents can be tricky to navigate emotionally and her upcoming debut album ISSUES expresses some of the mental health struggles she's faced along the way. Her RA Podcast is similarly personal. Moving from retro synthwave to acid-laced techno to UK bass before ending on funky electro, it embodies the core sounds that are near and dear to her. Loaded with lots of gritty low

You never know what you're going to get if you see the name Hieroglyphic Being on a record or a flyer, but there's a good chance it'll be some of the best, most jacking house you've ever heard. Jamal Moss embodies the the spirit—and the past, present and future—of Chicago's house music scene, but he also carries the torch for Afrofuturism, free jazz and avant-garde music. He follows in the footsteps of important figures like Sun Ra and Ron Hardy, his work blending these traditions with a healthy dose of post-punk, too. For over two decades, Moss's Mathematics Recordings label has been one of the premiere sources of raw, analogue house music, helping put producers like John Heckle on the map. He has a sprawling solo discography, encompassing projects like I.B.M., Members Only and The Sun God. He also put out one of our favourite albums last year with Thank U 4 The Tracks U Lost, released on Modern Love under his given name. Live, Moss usually jams on a few pieces of gear, to fantastic and sometimes bewilder

At the age of 16, Shinedoe was already comfortable in the club. The Dutch artist started dancing at parties as a part-time job while studying before finding her way behind the decks. She landed her first big DJ booking at Amsterdam club Paradiso at the tender age of 19 and her first single, "Dilemma," from 2004, quickly became an Ibiza favourite. All of this is to say that she knows how to move a room. Influenced by Detroit techno pioneers like Robert Hood, Shinedoe's mixes and productions are full of jacking kicks and big-room basslines. Funky, slamming rhythms are her forte and even when she focuses on minimalist tech house or darker sounds, there's always some zest sprinkled in, in the form of electro and breaks. For her RA Podcast, the Intacto Records and Music That Moves founder offers a variety of powerful techno cuts. There's DJ Godfather's turntablist take, her own acid-tinged mindbenders and a hard, no-nonsense banger from Glasgow duo Slam to conclude. It's the kind of punchy mix that can pull in a

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Daria Kolosova was one of the brightest stars of Kyiv's incredible techno scene, when the city was among the best places for the genre anywhere in the world (and remains so, even under duress). Now living in Berlin, Kolosova's style and sound feel both timeless and progressive. She's been DJing since she was a teenager—after falling in love with dance music via her dad's collection—and has built up a style that has taken her to the world's most renowned techno clubs and festivals. In spite of her popularity, Kolosova does things differently to many of her peers. She's spoken about her respect for and recognition of techno's origins, and her DJing style pays homage to the genre's history. Her sets span eras and continents, with a '90s bent that encompasses not just hard, rolling techno but breakbeats, electro, IDM and prog. Her RA Podcast is a brilliant collection of old and new, from Goa trance to Julia Govor, expertly mixed with a storyteller's hand. @dar_key Read m

You might describe Cormac as a late bloomer. Or he might describe himself that way. Though he's been in the dance music game for a long time—a regular at Trash and Nag Nag Nag, and a resident and booker at the old Sunday WetYourSelf! parties at fabric—it's only more recently that he's come into a sound that he can call his own, something that connects more clearly with who he is. (These days, you're more likely to find him closing Panorama Bar.) That sound is rooted in the queer history so important to him. You could call his RA Podcast hi-NRG, to be general. It's that vibrant, pounding, melodic and synthetic sound that came out of the post-disco early '80s, combining the flair of disco with the strut of Italo. There's new and old here, because Cormac is a champion of evolving iterations of the genre. Over this two and a half hours, you'll hear Patrick Cowley and Madonna, but also a whole lot of other, less obvious stuff too. We could go on, but Cormac explains himself pretty eloquently in the interview belo

Since emerging (to most the world) on Ben Klock's Klockworks label, Ukrainian producer Etapp Kyle immediately caught attention of Berlin's techno cognoscenti, with a sound that seemed perfectly fit for the Berghain school: taut, slyly melodic and just the right amount of funky. Over the past ten years, he's refined his sound to a science, but also opened it up: his records on Ostgut Ton, particularly 2020's Nolove EP, showcase a mastery of sound and space. This is techno you can sit in, and let it wash over you. As a DJ, Kyle is generally associated with a functional, if atmospheric style of techno (and, more recently, electro), but on his RA Podcast he invites us into something of a different space. In a way, this mix represents the spirits of his productions, with a wide-open soundscape touching on everything from '90s techno and trance, including some goodies from Canada and Denmark, along with core electronic acts like Future Sound Of London, Autechre and today's modern electronica poster-boy, Skee Mask—

Co-mixed with @Aasthma. There are few people who have had as much of an impact on contemporary electronic music as Karin Dreijer, whether with their brother Olof in The Knife or with their solo project, Fever Ray. From massive indie-pop hits to paradigm-shifting dance records, Dreijer's work takes a psychedelic, plasticine approach to synth pop, with their trademark pitch-shifted vocals and psuedo-tropical beats. As Fever Ray, they've tapped into the global club music underground, working with producers like Nídia, Paula Temple, Deena Abdelwahed, Vessel and, on new album Radical Romantics—one of our favourite albums of the year so far at RA, hands down—even Nine Inch Nails. Other important collaborators in Dreijer's world are Peder Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik, the Swedish techno producers who have been working with Fever Ray since the first album back in 2009. They co-mixed this RA Podcast. The mix is a survey of Dreijer's favourite dance music, some of which informs their one-of-a-kind sound world as Fever

Before starting his own label Solar Body, Otik released music on labels like INTERGRADED, Keysound, 3024 and Shall Not Fade, doing his rounds on the imprints that make up a constellation of the UK's most exciting club music. (To keep it simple, we can call it broken techno, but that's not the whole story.) He hails from Bristol, and takes in that city's unique and enduring blend of techno, dub and drum & bass history, but what sets Otik apart is the sense of atmosphere and space in his music. Perhaps RA's Taylor Bratches put it best: "Otik's precise club music floats on a lush, celestial plane." You can hear it in his upcoming EP Xoul Trap, where even a straightforward house beat on "Unorthodox" rides an updraft of choral vocals and eerie synths, as if carried by the wind. Otik says his RA Podcast is meant to be a little more straightforward than usual for him, sticking purely to club music, but it's still full of twists, turns, throwbacks (hello, "Router" by Pangaea) and, of course, the melodic and atmosph

Hard work can pay off. Just ask Elisa Bee. The Sardinian producer and DJ has been working diligently since 2007, exploring and then refining a style of techno that has that rare, hard-to-put-your-finger-on quality: a soulful reverence, paying homage to the old days and the originators without just copying them. She struck it (relatively) big with an EP on Unknown To The Unknown in 2019 and has since become a fixture on labels like Hardgroove, Symbiosis and Balkan Vinyl, imprints that specialize in a kind of meat-and-potatoes techno that underlines both the fundamentals and subtle innovation. She's also a resident at Milan's Tempio Del Futuro Perduto, which she talks about at length in the interview below. Now, in 2023, Elisa Bee is part of a vanguard of younger techno producers who carry the flag for the '90s without resorting to pastiche or the bigger-is-better aesthetic of much of the rest of the contemporary European techno landscape. Her RA Podcast is as buttery smooth as it is propulsive, flying through

Bill Kouligas is the mind behind one of modern electronic music's greatest and most innovative labels, PAN. His remarkable ear for music meant that he released some of the earliest records from luminaries like Yves Tumor, Helena Hauff and Eartheater, helping to jumpstart several remarkable careers. And each PAN release is lovingly and lavishly packaged like an art object in itself, an approach you can read more about in this month's feature-length cover story. The Berlin artist's RA Podcast is an audio companion to that cover story, and it underlines not only Kouligas's range as a label A&R but also as a DJ. Reflecting the label's evolution from straight-up noise to musique concréte to leftfield dance music and then avant-pop, the mix cycles through stages of strange, staggered beats, almost celestial ambient music, passages of overwhelming noise and sound that sublimate into floating clouds before solidifying back into club music, and a couple engaging spoken word passages and endless manipulations of the h

Once upon a time, V.I.V.E.K Sharda was unhappy with the sound at UK nightclubs and parties—sound that he felt couldn't capture the deepest, truest vibrations of the music he wanted to play and hear—so he just made his own sound system. (Naturally, he called it System.) That should give you an idea of how seriously Sharda takes his wubs and his sub-bass, and if you have even a passing interest in UK sound system culture or dub's crossover with dance music—including, yes, dubstep—then you've probably heard of V.I.V.E.K, or at least heard one of his chest-rattling records. Along with producers like Om Unit and Kryptic Minds—both of whom feature in the mix below—Sharda has never been one for following trends or concerned about scenes. Instead, he's fully devoted to the pulse of dub and the luxury of bassweight. He's put out slow but steady stream of ultra-heavy releases on his own labels System Music and VIVEK, and now he's on a mission to change perceptions of what 140 BPM music can sound like. That's what you'

There are DJs, then there are DJs who capture—and live—a moment in dance music's evolution. Born in Los Angeles, but based in New York for the better half of a decade, Akua has established herself as the latter, an important voice in the North American techno scene. Akua's DJing practice is fueled by her research in the '90s techno music archive, with a special interest in the history and roots of techno within America. Akua's sets are raw extensions of the foundations laid by the pioneers of '90s U.S. techno. Most prominently, the work and influence of DJs like Jeff Mills, Claude Young and Jay Denham can all be heard across her mixes, as well as the spirit of Underground Resistance. Her interest in fast-paced techno comes from these traditions as well as own individualist streak—while there's no shortage of DJs who play high-BPM techno, you won't hear anyone else play it quite like she does. Her old-school meets new-school sound has catapulted her from the New York underground into the European techno cir

As he'll happily tell you, Eddie Fowlkes has been DJing for 42 years. That's a long time for anyone, but especially for someone who never really stopped. From his early records on Juan Atkins' Metroplex record label through to newer releases on his own labels City Boy and Detroit Wax, he's been doing his thing and staying true to himself and his timeless combination of Detroit dance music genres. He doesn't always get his dues alongside his fellow Detroit techno pioneers in the Belleville Three, probably because his sound was always more hybrid, a blend of techno and house that he would come to call techno soul, including on his landmark 1993 album with Moritz von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann, The Birth Of Technosoul. But Fowlkes is still a force of nature, and a master at mixing too, having four decades to hone his craft. You'll hear that skill on his RA Podcast, which comes in the wake of two more prominent releases, for Rekids and Classic Music Company/Defected, that might help (re)introduce him to a wider

Mauricio Rebolledo is one of those veteran artists who has stood the test of time. He can play Burning Man, go back-to-back with DJ Tennis and mentor young producers with unwavering finesse, staying true to his signature sound of sparse, psychedelic chuggers. Where many of his peers have embraced a more commercial sound, the Mexican artist likes to keep it weird, opting for touches of Krautrock and hazy atmospherics in both his sets and on his albums. He tends to be associated with tribal drums and screwy trance, but in reality, the Hippie Dance cofounder and long-time Kompakt affiliate is a man of many influences—as heard on his RA Podcast. Whimsical interludes of French dance pop and retro synth-wave are interspersed with shoegazey electronics ("Dive" by Pale Blue) as well as plenty of his own productions, which blur the lines between minimal house and techno. This is a hypnotic, brooding journey that starts and ends with versions of Justus Köhncke's "Elan," which adds to the mix's loopy feel. (There's a