RA Podcast

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-end frequencies, it's a thrilling ride across contemporary club music that cements her status as an in-demand DJ. @djmellg Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/889

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 bewildering effect. This RA Podcast is a two-hour recording of a live set from public records in New York. It features all the raw, powerful house music you'd expect—made with two iPads and a MIDI controller—but it's also loaded with gorgeous, ghostly melodies and an opening section that touches on trance, trip-hop and '90s electronica. This is a rare live recording that captures a genius at work. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/888

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 any kind of dance music fan, techno head or not. @shinedoe Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/887

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 more at https://ra.co/podcast/886

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 below. Two hot tips: watch out for his label, Polari Records, and his upcoming Queerly Beloved podcast series, where he talks to queer artists about their relationships with music. @cormac Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/885

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—BPMs and genres be damned. It's a mix that veers from melancholy to emotive to ecstatic, sometimes even silly, and it's a real pleasure, capturing one of techno's more creative and restless voices. @etappkyle Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/884

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 Ray. There's plenty of music from the groundbreaking East African scene centered around Nyege Nyege Tapes, plus DJ Haram, Equinkoxx, Tayhana and more, and even two exclusive, upcoming Fever Ray remixes from Avalon Emerson and Nifra. It's a rare look into the musical tastes of a true visionary. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/883 Photo: Flemming Bo Jenson

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 atmospheric qualities that make Otik tick. @otikmusic Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/882

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 tracks from like-minded artists like Austin Ato, Nocow and Black Girl/White Girl. Sleek, vintage and futuristic all at once. @xelisabeex Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/881