RA Exchange

The smartbar affiliate talks to the Fool's Gold Records founder about climbing the ranks, DJ discourse and how to exist in commercial and underground scenes simultaneously. This week's RA Exchange takes us to Chicago, where two big names—The Blessed Madonna and A-Trak—have a chat ahead of their back-to-back set at underground institution smartbar last month. These are two DJs who have been around the block. The Blessed Madonna (FKA The Black Madonna) is originally from Kentucky, but made her name in Chicago. She started out as an intern at smartbar and working at the local label Dust Trax, later becoming lead A&R and an established DJ in her own right. A-Trak is a Canadian artist who cut his teeth as head honcho of Fool's Gold Records. He's known for having developed the careers of artists like Kid Cudi and Danny Brown, and he also formed Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden, a project synonymous with the bloghouse era. The two have a long history with Chicago, and they engage in a discussion about how they think the city looks from the outside. As one of the most segregated cities in the US, they say, what the rest of the world sees as one cohesive and unified hub for house music is instead divided by genre and area code. They also debate the complexities of existing in commercial and underground music worlds simultaneously, our collective over-fetishisation of the past, the stupidity of DJ discourse and Europe's tendency to impose its view of America—and American dance music—on the Midwest. Listen to the episode in full.

"Our collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts." Kai Campos and Dominic Maker discuss their new album on Warp and what it felt like to work together again after years apart. British outfit Mount Kimbie first made their mark with their 2010 release Crooks and Lovers, inspired by contemporaries like James Blake and King Krule. The group's two primary members, Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, met at London South Bank University, where they simultaneously became enamoured with the '00s dubstep scene and the intersection it paved between commercial stardom and the underground, illuminating an alternative path for artists, producers and selectors on a global scale. Together, they became synonymous with hazy electronics and lo-fi indie pop throughout the mid-'10s. Over the last few years, Maker and Campos have pursued different paths: Maker moved to Los Angeles, where he's produced for hip-hop giants like Travis Scott and Jay-Z, while Campos explored the world of DJing and electronic music, releasing a number of mixes geared towards the club. But they reunited for the first time in years on their newest album, The Sunset Violent, which came out on Warp Records in April. In this RA Exchange, the duo talk about the recording process and what it felt like to work together again after spending so much time on independent projects. They also unpack the power of making art for art's sake and how their respective experiences in art and in life have taught them to be better creative partners. Listen to the episode in full.

House music pioneer Vince Lawrence and law professor Dr. Olufunmilayo Arewa unpack how record companies have undermined Black musicians—and what we can do to enact change. This past week, Resident Advisor screened and distributed a new, award-winning documentary called Taking Back the Groove. It tells the story of Bronx-born disco legend Richie Weeks, whose song "Rock Your World" with Weeks & Co. climbed to #1 on the dance charts in the 1980s. Like many Black artists throughout American recording history, his talent was strip-mined to enrich corporate record labels. In the movie, Weeks and Still Music label owner Jerome Derradji narrate the story of how they clawed back the rights to Weeks' tracks, as well as the ongoing battle he's had to wage to restore his legacy and ownership over his creative work. This story is, sadly, perennial, especially for artists of colour and otherwise marginalised musicians who continue to be sidelined by major players in the music industry. In this RA Exchange, Vince Lawrence—a Chicago-based house music producer and original founder of Trax Records—speaks with Washington DC-based guest Dr. Funmi Arewa, a graduate of Harvard Law School and UC Berkeley, and a current professor at George Mason University, where she teaches business law in the creative industries. The two engage in a fascinating discussion about the history of the recording industry and the exploitation of marginalised artists that runs through its fabric. How do we make it easier for artists to claim things that are rightfully theirs? What if we could create incentives to create fairness at the core of how record labels function? Listen to their thoughts on these questions in the full episode.

"I fell in love with the piano again." The DJ and composer discusses the vulnerability of the creative process, returning to acoustic instruments and touring her latest album. Laurel Halo has been circling around the club music world for a number of years, but she's only recently entered the echelons of jazz and contemporary classical. Originally from Michigan, she went to music school in Ann Arbor before moving to Berlin, and now Los Angeles, where she composed her album, Atlas—a release that's been met with widespread critical acclaim. She also played alongside Moritz von Oswald in his jazz outfit the Moritz von Oswald Trio, and released a number of eclectic, UK-tinged dance floor records on underground giants like Hyperdub and Livity Sound. In this RA Exchange, Laurel Halo discusses the new direction of her music and what it's been like to tour it live with cellist Leila Bordreuil. She also talks about her creative inspiration (namely, the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and books by surrealist writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Italo Calvino), the practice of aesthetic minimalism more generally and the methods she uses to create subtle variations in pieces that are slow to evolve. Listen to the episode in full.

"They were wild and crazy years." The Spanish techno icon discusses his early years in Madrid, running record labels and staying true to his sound for more than 30 years. Spanish DJ and producer Oscar Mulero is a legend of underground techno. Since starting to play parties and make music more than 30 years ago, he's earned a reputation as an anti-conformist tastemaker who's adamantly stuck to his guns. While his trajectory began with Madrid's goth and punk clubs in the '90s, he eventually found techno in the early '00s and started two labels, PoleGroup and Warm Up, as homes for the hypnotic, spaced-out sound that's become his signature. In this RA Exchange, Mulero reflects on the early days of the Spanish techno scene and how it's evolved, as well as his own roots and influences. Today, the artist is as active as he's ever been, he discusses how he's maintained longevity as an artist in the face of changing trend, as well as his best practices for making music at home and on the road. Listen to the episode in full.

"I'm a noodler." The vaunted experimental producer and DJ discusses his playful approach to engaging with philosophy and making art live at Atonal's OPENLESS in Berlin. British artist Lee Gamble has long been captivating listeners with high concept dance music. A loyal affiliate of Kode9's Hyperdub label, Gamble—whose work sits somewhere at the intersection of philosophy, computer music and sound art—has been building weird and wonderful musical worlds that have shot him to experimental stardom since the early 2010s. In this RA Exchange recorded live from Hard Wax (at the one-off weekender Atonal OPENLESS), Gamble meditates on his penchant for eschewing conventions, beginning with growing up in the countercultural, working class hub of Birmingham. Gamble reflects on the first time he experienced what's called "future shock", a reference to a book by the same name written by sci-fi author Alvin Toffler. It set him on the pursuit of finding and making music that had a similarly bizarre quality. Gamble isn't just a producer but an avid admirer and connoisseur of critical theory, and he also discusses the thinkers who have informed his production (and even his approach to DJing), as well as his recent interest in the ethics and applications of AI and deep fakes, which he explores in a touching full-length, Models. Listen to the episode in full.

"I always find inspiration from my city." The DJ and producer talks about her love of Naples, moving from the underground to the mainstream and her new audiovisual show. If you've ever gone to big room techno hubs like Time Warp, DC-10, Awakenings or Rotterdam Rave, then Anfisa Letyago's name should be familiar to you. But Letyago actually comes from underground roots; before she played to thousands of people from the beaches of Ibiza, she was releasing on legacy labels like Hotflush, Kompakt, Nervous Records and Rekids, and collaborating with old guard artists like DJ Pierre. In this RA Exchange, the Naples-based DJ and producer talks about the strategy she employed to make it to the top. Having become enamoured with Carl Cox during her first days of raving in Naples as a university student, she flew to one of his gigs and stood outside his hotel with her tracks on a USB. She was delighted when he took them and played them in his set that night. Shortly thereafter, Cox booked Letyago to play his curated stage at Ultra Music Festival and has since acted as a close mentor, teacher and friend. Today, Letyago is preparing a live audiovisual show, Partenope, which straddles the boundary of techno and vocal-led pop. She also started her own label, NSDA—an homage to a volcanic island near Naples—and is preparing her first full-length album to be released on a sub-label of Sony Music. She also reveals some facts that fans may not know about her despite the intimate moments from her life she shares online. Listen to the episode in full.

The annual Caribbean street parade Notting Hill Carnival has taken place in London since 1966 to celebrate the influx of immigrants brought to the UK during Windrush. Carnival is a celebration of the rich and multifaceted artistic heritage that came with them, especially in the form of Afro-Caribbean music, dance and sound system culture. The South London-born poet, producer and NTS Radio host James Massiah is one of a generation of musicians who has been influenced by the city's Afro-Caribbean cultural legacy. In this interview, he talks to Errol Anderson of the South London-based curatorial platform Touching Bass about his connection to London's sound systems and his own artistic evolution. His output centres around hedonism and what he calls "joyful living"—a reaction to the church community he grew up in. Many of the lyrics on his most recent EPs, like True Romance, paint a picture of drugs, partying, sex, addiction and heartbreak (he's even gone on to name his recurring poetry night Adult Entertainment). Music, he reflects, has provided a powerful and cathartic means to express himself and open up. In his youth, Massiah wasn't just shaped by his church, he says, but by the Afro-Caribbean genres circulating through his neighborhood: '80s funk, raga, garage, grime and a form of Jamaican dancehall called Yardie. Later, as he was exposed to popular rock and house music, he took the sensibilities he heard in pop acts like Fleetwood Mac and applied them to a Caribbean musical framework. His sound palette is an uncanny amalgamation of Stevie Nicks' ethereal voice with the stylings of soca—a sub-genre that fuses calypso, reggae and Caribbean zouk. Listen to the episode in full.

"Dancing has always been visceral to me." The DJ and producer talks about bringing movement into her music practice and the role mythology and meditation plays in art and life. The Italian-French DJ, producer and dancer Giulia Fournier-Mercadante—AKA GiGi FM—has had a varied, multidisciplinary career. Originally a dancer, Fournier-Mercadante received a scholarship for the New York City Ballet and the contemporary dance outfit Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as a teenager. Finding the dancing world difficult to navigate, especially in its approach to body image, she graduated and moved to London to focus on music. It was there that she discovered techno and its capacity to heal. She started hosting a regular show on NTS, getting booked locally and then touring around the world. Today, Fournier-Mercadante has integrated dance into her productions, which use motion sensors to transform physical movement into MIDI. Her use of her body as her basic instrument has led to a unique, kinetic sound palette that defines all of her tracks. In this Exchange, she unpacks how she's worked with this technique and rediscovered her love of dancing, as well as how spirituality, dream states and astrology inform her life and work. Listen to the episode in full.

"Soundscapes reveal a lot about how people think and behave." The field recordist and musician talks about listening culture, repatriating African sounds and his new album with The Bug. Today's conversation moves away from the dance floor, focusing instead on the soft, ambient soundscapes of the Berlin-based musician Joseph Kamaru—AKA KMRU—whose work has been featured at festivals like CTM, Mutek, Atonal, Horst Music and Arts, Dekmantel, and Unsound; concert halls like The Barbican; and major galleries and site-specific installations around the world. Kamaru moved to Europe from Nairobi, where he first became interested in music production, and field recordings specifically. As a graduate student in the sonic arts, he learned that the majority of the discourse around sound art practices is specific to Western Eurocentric or occidental ways of thinking. He's since embarked on a mission to use field recording as a means of repatriating African identities that are often left out of institutional archives and grapple with the legacy of colonialism. In this RA Exchange, Kamaru reflects on the sociopolitical angle of his work, and his observation that listening, by its very nature, is never neutral. He also talks about how civilisation and technology has changed our collective listening habits; how sound sources beyond the human hearing range make their way into his work with the use of electromagnetic microphones; and his new album, Disconnect, made with the musician Kevin Richard Martin (AKA The Bug). Listen to the episode in full.

"We used to roll up socks in our shoes to give us an extra inch." The childhood friends talk about coming of age in Belfast and their label and event series, CHROMA. Bicep—the Irish duo Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar—have been winning over the hearts of fans with trance-inflected, melancholic dance music since 2009. In this interview with RA editor Gabriel Szatan, the childhood friends talk about how they got where they are, unpacking their creative process and the abiding musical influence of their hometown, Belfast, a city where emotional trance reigned supreme. They also discuss their ongoing multidisciplinary project, CHROMA—a record label, event series and evolving live audiovisual show. Ferguson and McBriar say that the idea for CHROMA came from a sense that their DJ sets were becoming too "sugary," so they buckled down with a renewed focus on creating dynamic new productions made specifically for the dance floor and their sets. The result is a string of hard-hitting EPs which you can find online now. Listen to the episode in full.

"I started in the clubs, and that's where my heart is." The British singer-songwriter and RA's newest cover star talks about her new album, BRAT, live from AVA London. This week's Exchange is with Resident Advisor's latest cover star: Charli xcx. The British singer-songwriter has garnered a reputation as one of the most unpredictable and boundary-pushing pop artists of her generation, collaborating with contemporaries like A. G. Cook, Yaeji and the late SOPHIE. And she's now on the heels of her most recent album, BRAT, which came out in June and has already been lauded as one of the best albums of the year. In this conversation recorded live at AVA London with journalist Chal Ravens, Charli xcx dives into the making of the album. She calls it a club record—that, she says, is "where her heart is." After posting songs on MySpace around 2008, she was asked to DJ at warehouse parties when she was still in her teens. She felt alive in that space, she remembers, doing crazy, embarrassing things. Now in a different chapter of her life and career, she contemplates her desire to make challenging music that still appeals to a broad audience. It's a pendulum that swings radically in both ways, and she finds herself reinventing herself within the pop space and navigating that tension again and again. Listen to the episode in full.

"It's a dream to share a passion with your best friend." The German duo talk about life on the road and writing their first album in six years. Together, Felix Wagner and Aaron Röbig make up the dynamic duo FJAAK. As one of Germany's best-known nightlife exports, they've earned a reputation for being techno's "boy band," gracing the stages of festivals and clubs all over the world for the last ten-plus years. Wagner and Röbig met in Spandau, an area just outside of Berlin, when they were both still in school. Equally interested in music (especially hip-hop), they started working on beats together alongside two other friends. The four-person group turned into FJAAK, and when they all moved to the city centre together after finishing their studies, they started living collectively and touring the project, achieving traction quickly. FJAAK is now just a duo—the group dwindled from four people to three, and then, in 2019, to just Röbig and Wagner. They claim they're closer to soulmates than friends; they know everything about each other and seem so in tune as to be almost telepathic. "The super power we've evolved over the years is to live a harmonic life together," Wagner said. In this RA Exchange, Röbig and Wagner talk about navigating through life with someone by their side, their thoughts on equality and meritocracy in the music industry, how they work together in the studio, their record label and their new album, FJAAK THE SYSTEM, which came out in May. Listen to the episode in full. This episode was recorded and filmed at Pirate Studios.

"I'm finally enjoying what I built." The DJ and producer talks about 30 years in the music industry and what it means to live a creative life. Caroline Hervé, AKA Kittin (FKA Miss Kittin), is a household name, primarily known for her contributions to the world of electroclash. As part of the duo Miss Kittin & The Hacker, Hervé wrote music that inspired a generation of artists drawn to electroclash's punky aesthetics, no-nonsense synth production and humorous, ironic lyrics and vocal delivery. In this Exchange, she unpacks how the electroclash scene became a home for artists seeking to push back against the rigidity of techno, ushering in a vanguard of performers like Peaches who created a safe space for queerness and unconventional femininity in the early 00s. Now 50 years old, Hervé is still very much active on the touring circuit. Behind the decks she's as likely to play synth wave and electro as she is to play peak-time techno, and in the studio, her creativity knows no bounds. Much of her latest chapter has been defined by learning to age gracefully in the music industry, especially given the undue expectations and double standards placed on women. "I've made a decision never to touch my face," she says. "My boobs are getting bigger. I'm gaining weight. I'm reaching menopause soon. But these are things we need to talk about." Listen to the episode in full.

"My place of rebirth was New York." The DJ and producer discusses Brooklyn's queer ballroom scene and advocating for Munich's queer community at BLITZ Club. BASHKKA is a name you might recognise from festival lineups. In fact, it seems to be everywhere these days. The Munich-based artist has seemingly blown up in the past 24 months, but her ascent is well-deserved. The Munich-based DJ has been a resident at BLITZ Club for two years since returning from a decade-long stint in New York, where she quickly found family with Brooklyn's trans community. While she's now living back in Germany, the experience ignited a lifelong commitment to her advocacy for the cultural, political and de-colonial advancement of electronic music. She is an activist for Southwest Asian and North African artists across the scene, especially those from queer femme backgrounds or who have been otherwise marginalised from the mainstream dance music narrative. In this interview with the Exchange's senior producer Chloe Lula, BASHKKA talks about her roots and how the dichotomy of growing up to a Turkish family in Bavaria—and then living within the trans community in New York—has shaped her creativity and her outlook on family and life. She also talks about her debut EP, Maktub, on Nene H's label Umay, where she explores a mixture of ballroom, ghetto tech, house and the legacy of her years in New York. According to the artist, it's a "hot stew of seduction"—and it's only a prelude of what's to come. Listen to the episode in full.

"We were searching for our own voice." The Chicago artist talks about pioneering the sound of acid house and the spirit of experimentation in early dance music. The Chicago-based Nathaniel Pierre Jones—AKA DJ Pierre—may be best known for forming the "squelch" we now call acid. When he and his friends Spanky and Herb J picked up a TB-303 in a pawn shop, they captured the sound of the knobs being turned as a pattern started to run. While this wasn't how the instrument was intended to be used, they were enthralled by the result, reproducing it and releasing it as an EP called Acid Tracks under the name Phuture in 1987. The result was the birth of the acid house era and a new, international musical craze. In this RA Exchange recorded live at International Music Summit in Ibiza, Jones retraces the acid craze and the nature of experimentation and risk-taking more generally. In his view, there's a marked absence of this mindset in contemporary dance music as many producers have become accustomed to using sample packs, presets and generally operating within workflows that stymie originality. At the end of the interview, he raises important questions around if and how the music being released today enhances our lives, as well as what a truly transcendent and mutually supportive industry could look like. Listen to the episode in full.

The photographer and musician discusses his love of nightlife, the origins of his music practice and his new album. This week's Exchange—falling on the first week of Pride Month—features the acclaimed artist Wolfgang Tillmans, a figure who has become known for documenting Berlin's queer nightlife culture. But Tillmans isn't just active behind the camera. He's also an outspoken activist for the international LGBTQIA+ community and the wave of conservatism rearing its head against gender and reproductive rights around the world. His evocative photos invite viewers to look at society straight in the face, question the status quo and harness the power of collective resistance to normative, capitalist ways of living. An ardent fan of electronic music, he also captures artists and DJs at the heart of underground club culture. When he started taking photos in the '90s, it was at the acid house parties blossoming around Germany and the UK. Now entering the height of his career at 55, Tillmans has been profiled multiple times in major magazines like the New Yorker and given career-spanning solo retrospectives at the MoMa in New York, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, The Centre Pompidou in Paris and countless galleries across the world, including David Zwirner, which represents him. While it's widely acknowledged that Tillmans enjoys participating in club culture, what might be less well known is that he actually makes music himself. In recent years, he's begun putting out albums on his own label, fragile, creating new wave-tinged electronica that nods to early synth pop. Tillmans released his debut album, Moon in Earthlight, in 2021 and he's now celebrating the release of his second album, Build From Here, where he explicitly sings about human rights and violations against the LGBTQIA+ community. Overall, its message is one of hope and excited apprehension about the future and the arts' place within it. Listen to the episode in full.

"Being a part of this scene is already a political act." The longtime DJ discusses politics in dance music and Ex-Yugoslavia's dynamic anti-establishment creative culture. Tijana Todorovic (AKA Tijana T) proudly hails from the Ex-Yugoslavian capital Belgrade. The Serbian city, alongside the territories now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia, were once under singular socialist rule that Tijana describes as a "utopian time" that fostered intense creativity and counter-cultural art and music. A liberal communist republic that didn't operate under the influence of the USSR, as many Eastern European countries did at that time, Yugoslavia gave birth to a dynamic, anti-establishment performance culture rooted in new wave, feminism and everything non-mainstream. In her RA Exchange with senior producer Chloe Lula, Tijana reflects on how growing up in this environment irrevocably shaped her values and taste in music, as well as how the civil war—and Yugoslavia's subsequent fall—defined the period of intense fear and poverty that followed. In Serbia, techno and nightclubs became an energetic force for young people seeking solace, community and sociopolitical change. Tijana went on to work as a TV and radio journalist that fought vehemently against the war, and to break out as an artist beyond the Ex-Yugoslavian territory. She talks about her unlikely trajectory, her view on the intrinsic connection between politics in dance music, underdeveloped music markets, sobriety and more. Listen to the episode in full.

"What is it about my music that's touching other people?" One of the forefathers of techno reflects on his legacy, the state of techno music and the city of Detroit live from IMS. Most people in nightlife are familiar with the name Juan Atkins. One of the originators of techno, he grew up in Belleville, a middle-class suburb of Detroit, and would become one of the Belleville Three alongside Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. This first wave of Detroit techno artists was inspired by the late night emissions of radio DJ The Electrifying Mojo—a late-night presenter who famously mixed different synth music, like Krautrock and the German outfit Kraftwerk—and the writing of futurists like Alvin Toffler, who imagined a different, utopic vision of urban life and technology. In this keynote interview recorded live at International Music Summit in Ibiza, Atkins reflects on his roots and the musical movement that's grown from his first experiments with techno in the '80s. Returning to his adolescence, he unpacks the origins of his electro collaboration Cybotron, his solo project Model 500 (coming to Houghton this year) and his label, Metroplex, which became a blueprint for a hoard of techno imprints that would emerge in its wake. Now 61, Atkins also reflects on the broader impact music has had on his life—he has given lectures on the intersection of physics, music and spirituality—as well as the remaining stones left unturned as he enters the (very much still active) sunset in his career. Listen to the episode in full.

Recorded live at Brussels festival Listen, the veteran talks about leading the birth of acid techno and the sound of proto-techno in Belgium. At the turn of the '90s, Belgium was under the twin influences of early techno and '80s new beat. It was artists like CJ Bolland who helped usher these two sounds together, bridging the low-slung sludge of bands like A Split Second and Lords of Acid with the futuristic chug of Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills and Detroit's first guard. Bolland grew up in Antwerp and was exposed to underground music from his parents, who owned a club. Eventually beginning to produce himself, he helped create the early acid rave sound that would take over Europe. He signed to then-powerhouse label R&S Records with his career-defining single, "Horsepower," in 1991, and from there embarked on a prolific touring career. In this Exchange, he talks to RA's senior producer Chloe Lula live from Listen Festival in Brussels, diving deep into Belgium's unique musical landscape and his thoughts on how it's evolved in response to its position between major techno hubs like The Netherlands and France. A massive gear head, Bolland also shares his favourite tools and reflects on how the state of music-making has changed in the years since he first started his career. Listen to the episode in full.

"There's a double edged sword to success." The North American booking agency shares insights on the state of the music scene and how they grew their enterprise from the ground up. Andrew Kelsey and Mariesa Stevens started Liaison Artists—the North American booking agency that represents acts like BICEP, Maceo Plex, Dixon, Honey Dijon and many more—20 years ago. At that time, the nightlife landscape was different than the one we inhabit today; there were fewer artists, more localised scenes and a nascent but passionate group of artists leading the development of techno. In this interview with RA music editor Andrew Ryce, Kelsey and Stevens talk about the agency's humble origins in San Francisco and the challenges they overcame to get their enterprise off the ground, developing it into the power house it is today. They also spend time discussing the temperature of the contemporary climate: a swing towards new sounds and an influx of new, young talent competing for a finite number of club and festival slots. In their view, the environment, while competitive, is fertile ground for a new, exciting era of clubbing and electronic music—and a newfound challenge to stay true to their sound in a scene that's changing rapidly. Listen to the episode in full.

Moby got his big break in the '90s when he released the hit "Go" followed by the hugely successful studio album Play, which has been included in countless movie and TV soundtracks. But beyond the limelight, the US artist has also gone through immense struggle. Raised in a working-class family in a wealthy part of Connecticut, he often felt displaced as a child, eventually moving to a disused factory space to make music before finally relocating to New York and trying his hand at being a DJ. In this interview, Moby reflects on the early days of his time in New York. Rejected from all the record labels he sent his demos to, he felt like an outsider, choosing to frequent clubs like The Loft and Paradise Garage before finally becoming a resident DJ at the now-defunct club Mars. He also talks about living with panic disorder, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and how he's turned his life towards activism and animal rights. Listen to the episode in full.

"There are more safe spaces for women to be themselves." The UK star discusses the diversity of the jungle scene and her new album, Silence Is Loud. UK DJ and producer Nia Archives is among a coterie of new artists who are infusing drum & bass and jungle with heartfelt lyrics, lush chords and crowds that are more diverse and inclusive than ever before. Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, she grew up around a rich sound system culture, developing an early interest in documentary video and choral music from her church. She left home young, setting out to London on her own to pursue a dream of making it in music and self-releasing a string of debut EPs. In the last two years, the 24-year-old has garnered a huge following. Her fans have fallen in love with her heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics taken straight from the pages of her diary—she calls herself an "emotional junglist"—as well as her fun, inclusive approach to a historically male-dominated scene. In this interview with Chloe Lula, she talks about her party series and her debut album, Silence Is Loud, produced alongside renowned songwriter and producer Ethan P. Flynn. Listen to the episode in full.

"We always put minorities to the front." The Mala Junta cofounder and affiliate talk about prioritising femme queer ravers, the value of local party crews and not taking themselves too seriously. Friends and colleagues Hyperaktivist and Yazzus share one important value: putting marginalised folks to the front. The Venezuelan and Ghana-via-London artists, respectively, met in Berlin not long after Yazzus went to the Berlin-based Mala Junta party, a collective co-founded by Hyperaktivist, DJ Tool and door selector Nyaam Hassany. Yazzus was asked to be a party resident and has collaborated with the crew extensively, playing their shows and helping curate lineups ever since. In this RA Exchange with Berlin DJ and journalist Juba, the two talk about their shared passion for better representation on party lineups and what authentic diversity means in a climate that often privileges checking boxes and meeting quotas. They also talk about their solo endeavours, their trajectories into dance music and their shared passion for nurturing the growth of homegrown parties and scenes. Amid Berlin's rising prices (and competition), they reflect that the ideals of collaboration and connection remain stronger than ever before. Listen to the conversation in full.

"I discovered how to build sound systems at our dairy farm." The DJ talks about growing up in rural Australia, starting her own label and more in this Playing Favourites live from Pitch Music & Arts. On this week's Exchange, we reintroduce our flagship live format, Playing Favourites, where artists discuss the songs that shaped their taste in music. Today's episode features CC:DISCO! at Pitch Festival in Australia. As the artist's name suggests, her style fuses disco with French touch, synth-driven electro and funk; she's collaborated with artists like Jennifer Loveless and released her first EP with Erol Alkan on his label Phantasy Sound, and last year she launched her own imprint, Miami Daddy. In this interview, CC:DISCO! plays songs that were formative in her career development and reflects on growing up outside of big cities. Born and raised on a dairy farm in rural Victoria, FM radio became her cultural lifeline and her first introduction to dance music. The artist also talks about working with indigenous promoters from beyond Sydney (Eora) and Melbourne (Naarm), the music that defines Australia today and the protest songs that have helped serve as the backdrop for the First Nations fight for representation and sociopolitical change. Listen to the episode in full.

"It's a pure form of love." The hardcore artist talks about collecting ephemera from rave zines, working in high fashion and his undying love for the gabber community. Alberto Guerrini, better known as Gabber Eleganza, has made a name for himself as a hardcore and gabber DJ, as well as a fervid documenter of the culture that surrounds it. Growing up in Italy, he started going to raves at a club called Number One Hardcore before eventually traveling to the Netherlands with his parents' blessing and starting to DJ himself. Guerrini's love of hardcore spilled over into a Tumblr blog he started in 2011, a project that aggregated the rave zines, photos and stories he collected from his time spent in the gabber community. The goal of the project, he says in this interview, was to build up anthropological dialogues on the "sonic landscape and aesthetic of the hardcore continuum." The online compendium contains amazing pieces of hardcore ephemera: clippings of Soviet era rave zines, letters ex-ravers sent to the hardcore community from jail and Guerrini's own appendices providing context around the global subculture. Much of this archival work made its way into a book that Guerrini published with artists Ewen Spencer Mark Leckey called Hardcore Soul, a photography collection that traces the similarities and relationships between hardcore and the UK's Northern Soul movement. He discusses this and more—including his own label, Never Sleep, and his work with the fashion industry and art worlds—in this conversation with Chloe Lula. Listen to the episode in full.

"The Beatles blew my mind." The LA artist talks about her new album—Something in the Room She Moves—writing music while pregnant and how she works in the studio. The LA-based composer and musician Julia Holter has garnered a reputation for releases that toe the hazy edge of shoegaze and dream pop, always skirting the contours of the electronic music world. On today's RA Exchange, she takes a deep dive into her sixth studio album, Something in the Room She Moves, with music editor Andrew Ryce. Holter talks about writing all but one of the songs while she was pregnant ("Evening Mood" even captures a sample of her child's ultrasound, recorded from her phone), which lends the album a warmth and tenderness unparalleled in any of her past releases. But it's also a somber record; her nephew died while she was recording it, an event that forced her to process the complexity and gravity of two conflicting, converging experiences while composing. For the technically inclined, Holter also discusses how she works in the studio and manages post-production. As the artist tells Ryce, she likes to play with resonant frequencies and processing that puts each of the sounds she records into the same sonic world on a record, using effects and composition tricks to give everything what she calls a "sensuous vibe." Something in the Room She Moves is out now on Domino Records. Listen to the episode in full.

"Humans think they're top of the hierarchy." The Live From Earth member talks about growing up in Sunshine Farms, the perils of competition in the music industry and how TikTok changed her career. You might know horsegiirL from her horse mask, her viral singles on TikTok or her hugely popular online videos. The DJ and producer—who famously never breaks character—has launched into popularity over the past two years, bringing her frenetic and contemporary style of hardstyle-meets-Europop mash-ups to dance floors around the world. Her fans, or "farmies," go crazy for her music, donning cowboy hats and pitchforks at all of her shows. In this episode of the RA Exchange, horsegiirL sits down with senior producer Chloe Lula to talk about her upbringing in Sunshine Farms and the key differences between the animal kingdom and the human world. They also discuss her involvement with the Berlin-based label Live From Earth Klub, an irreverent art and DJ collective featured as part of our latest cover story. (Two of the crew's other key artists, DJ Gigola and MCR-T, also mixed this week's RA Podcast.) Listen to the horsegiirL episode in full.

"You could feel the ground shifting beneath you." The long time BBC Radio host talks about her party, All Queens, her love for SHERELLE and music as a force for good. Resident Advisor continues its celebration of Women's History Month (and International Women's Day) with a special conversation with Mary Anne Hobbs. The long time BBC Radio presenter has been a diehard documenter of music culture and a radio fanatic ever since she was a young girl. As she recounts in this episode, the transistor she kept in secret while growing up became her getaway to another universe, a beacon of hope that she listened to every night under the covers at home. In 1996, she became a host at BBC Radio 1. It was a time when there were few women involved in the music industry in general, and few people at all championing leftfield electronic music. Hobbs famously started the Breezeblock show and championed dubstep and grime, pushing new artists whose work she admired and helping usher them into the limelight. Today Hobbs' iconic voice is still hosting the radio every day—this time at Radio 6. She's leading an exciting project called All Queens, a platform that started as a radio show for women's music that has quickly turned into a touring club night at fabric run by and starring women, from the sound engineers to the bouncers and headliners of the night. Hobbs discusses the platform and is joined by close friend SHERELLE, who dissects some of the nuances in representation the scene fails to overlook when it discusses gender in nightlife. The pair recently performed sets together at the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival. Listen to the episode in full. This episode was recorded at Recorded at Pirate Studios – Recording, Rehearsal, DJ, Podcast and Dance studios spread across New York, London, Berlin, Los Angeles and beyond. For more information, visit pirate.com.

"Every opportunity to learn something new is what's going to grow your craft as an artist." The Toronto star talks discipline and gaining self-confidence as a producer. Cindy Li, AKA Ciel, always seems to be one step ahead. The label head, DJ, producer and activist has a hard-won career that dance music producers dream of—when she's not playing underground institutions across the globe, maintaining radio residencies, planning her own parties or collaborating with her favourite artists, she's thinking about what's next. "I'm the type of person that I'll stay up trying to finish everything rather than going to bed knowing that I didn't finish everything on my list," she tells RA's Nyshka Chandran in this week's episode. The Toronto resident is a conservatory-trained pianist who uses the discipline she learnt from a lifetime of lessons to balance DJing and production. "For me, it is challenging to juggle both because they use very different parts of my brain," she describes. A deep digger whose love for atmospheric textures and '90s grooves influences her fresh take on UKG, tech-house and jungle, Li has been putting out music since 2017. She has various EPs and singles under her name, plus several joint releases with the likes of Dan Only, D.Tiffany and Priori but says she didn't always have the confidence for a solo full-length. "I never thought I could write an album," she admits. But after playing live for the first time at MUTEK Montréal in 2021, that changed, leading to the 2023 release of Homesick, her debut album. "Don't ever let fear influence your decision-making," she says, describing how that show pushed her to overcome lingering doubts in the studio. For more on Li's process, listen to the episode in full.

"I often myself being responsible for a film's music, but also fighting for its absence." The composer discusses movie scoring, his love of opera and his new album, Scope Neglect, on Mute Records. The multidisciplinary Australian artist Ben Frost might best be known for his score work: he's soundtracked Netflix shows like Dark and its spinoff 1899, as well as a number of major motion pictures and video games. While his formal studies were in visual art, he started experimenting with music-making from an early age, homing in on a unique sound that is truly a melange of his influences in punk, black metal, classical and modern minimalism. His unique approach to composition has led him to some extreme places to capture field recordings, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Amazon rainforest and the empty hulls of fishing boats docked on the banks of Icelandic port towns. Artists like Steve Albini, Björk, Brian Eno and the band SWANS have tapped Frost to work with them, and he's performed extensively as a solo performer and as part of an A/V outfit at the world's biggest festivals and art world circuits. In this episode of the RA Exchange, he sits down with senior producer Chloe Lula to discuss his latest venture, a full-length album, Scope Neglect, on Mute. It pulls heavily from his proclivity for guitar music and metal, but still nods to the cinematic minimalism that has become one of his work's primary tropes. Frost dissects some of the recording techniques he used to make the record—he borrowed from the methods used by Mark Hollis of the band Talk Talk—as well as his studio practice, his love of opera and his approach to writing scores. Listen to the episode in full.

"The road is incredible but has a lot of pitfalls." The fabric resident discusses striking the balance between DJing and production, the challenges of a life on tour and choosing to stick out. Daniel Avery wasn't expecting to make it big. Born in the seaside town of Bournemouth, his early musical diet consisted of shoegaze, post-punk, electroclash and indie rock; he was a die hard fan in attendance at every local live show. But when he moved to London, he was introduced to dance music and became immersed in nightlife, meeting artists like Erol Alkan and Andrew Weatherall who were using the sounds of guitar bands with techno and electronic music for the dance floor. Soon Daniel was working out of a studio next to Weatherall's—who became his longtime mentor—and started warming up the dance floor at fabric on a regular basis. His debut album, Drone Logic, was released to critical acclaim in 2013, and has been followed by six more full-lengths and a number of EPs and singles since. In this episode of the RA Exchange, Avery reflects on the shock of being catapulted into the limelight after Drone Logic's unexpected success, and the ongoing struggle he's contended with as he's taken on a full-time touring schedule as a DJ. He also touches on his eclectic range of influences and how he's integrated them in his forthcoming album and newly revitalised fabric party series, Divided Love, which launches on March 2. Listen to the episode in full.

Our landmark 700th episode in partnership with Detroit’s Blueprint presents the first in a new three-part series exploring the untold history of Detroit techno from the perspective of the women who built it. The history of Detroit techno is often recounted in waves. First there was the Belleville Three—Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May—closely followed by a second cohort of artists who further developed the sound in the '90s. Names like Carl Craig, Octave One, Robert Hood, Jeff Mills and Mike Banks are among those that have been codified in the official annals of techno history. But there's another, lesser known story that is seldom told about the women who grew the scene right alongside them. Equally esteemed artists like DJ Minx (the founder of Women On Wax Recordings), K-Hand, DJ Cent, Stacey Hotwaxx Hale and more ran labels, collectives and DJ nights that aren't bestowed with the same credit as those from their male counterparts, and have consequently been lost in the chronicles of time. For the 700th episode of the RA Exchange, we counter correct this gender inequity with the first episode of a three-part series hosted and produced by the all-female Detroit collective and party series Blueprint. Alanna Greenlee, Janisa Nelson and Crystal Mioner embark on interviews that illuminate an alternative history of Detroit techno that unfurled alongside these better-documented techno waves, tracing the birth of a woman-led community that put mutual support at its heart and fought to earn respect from their male peers and the scene at large. Listen to the episode in full. Credits: Produced by Blueprint Hosts: Alanna Greenlee, Janisa Nelson, Crystal Mioner Guests: DJ Minx and DJ Cent Writer/Researcher: Crystal Mioner Technical Production: Janisa Nelson Consultant: John Collins Consultant: Conor Anderson

The Berghain resident talks about re-queering the goth scene, exploring a lighter side of his sound and preparing for marathon closing sets. Hayden Payne, AKA Phase Fatale, grew up fully immersed in the world of music; his dad is a recording engineer and musician, as are many members of his family. After joining post-punk outfits like Dream Affair and consuming a diet of new wave and synth from parties like Wierd in New York, Payne eventually relocated to Berlin, where he saw possibilities emerge around ways of fusing guitar music with sounds for the dance floor. It was only shortly after relocating that he landed a residency at Berghain and began releasing his own productions as a techno artist, becoming known for darker-edged sets and productions that fuse industrial, EBM and techno. In this episode of the RA Exchange, he talks to senior producer Chloe Lula about all of this and more, like "re-queering" the goth scene; exploring a lighter side of his sound with his Italo duo, Soft Crash; his label, BITE Records; and sustaining strong ties to dance floors in Kyiv and Tbilisi, two cities that he reflects as being refreshingly socially and politically motivated for queer artists living in the margins. His new EP as Soft Crash, NRG, is out now. Listen to the episode in full.

"Art and music are the same, they're just different dialects." The Chicago house music legend talks about co-curating the photo exhibit Walk The Night and nightlife's '90s heyday. Ron Trent grew up in Chicago, where he dreamed of being a musician from a young age. He would end up becoming one of the architects of the Chicago house sound and working alongside contemporaries like Chez Damier, and across the pond, Basic Channel. His label, Prescription Records, became a renowned purveyor of the deep house sound. He spread his vision from the American Midwest to New York, Europe and beyond. In this talk recorded live at Miami Art Week, Trent talks to Resident Advisor music critic Kiana Mickles about the songs and dance floors that shaped him in this early part of his musical trajectory. In addition to playing some of his favourite jazz, funk and disco songs, he reflects on clubs like Studio 54, Paradise Garage and The Warehouse, which he claims matured him as an artist and irrevocably shaped the trajectory of club culture. Trent was instrumental in co-curating an exhibit called Walk The Night (which premiered at this multidisciplinary event), a photographic homage to these spaces and other historic clubs around the world. To hear more about the legacy of Trent's favourite clubs and the music that shaped him, listen to the episode in full.

In this live talk with Tama Sumo, Lakuti and musclecars, the New York legend sets the record straight. DJ, producer and remixer Yvonne Turner was one of the only women instrumental in shaping New York's early house scene, yet her story has gone largely undocumented. Born in Harlem in 1953, she started DJing regularly by the late '70s, playing weekly parties in Flatbush and getting her musical education at The Loft. There, she says, she learned how "good music" should sound. It inspired her to start going to the studio and sharing her musical revelations with other people. As a woman producer, she was often relegated to the small print on records, bumped to associate or co-producer status or marked as a mixer instead of a remixer. Many of the male vocalists she worked with got credit for the music. But Turner penned some acclaimed house tracks, such as "Set Fire To Me," "Music Is The Answer" and the official remix of Whitney Houston's "I'm Your Baby Tonight." While Turner took a back seat for a few years, deciding to teach in elementary schools and wind down her touring, she recently got back in the studio and wants to set the record straight about the history of house and her place—and many other women's—within it. This conversation was moderated by Tama Sumo, Lakuti and the DJ duo musclecars live at Public Records in New York. Listen to the conversation in full.

In this re-run from 2020, the late DJ and radio host reflects on memories from BBC Radio 1, disrupting the patriarchy and the keys to success in broadcasting. Annie Nightingale, who died last week at the age of 83, was the first women radio presenter on BBC Radio 1-and the longest serving broadcaster in the station's history. She became known for championing new, underground music and led the movement for women to become DJs and broadcasters, becoming a necessarily disruptive force across radio and live music. Fans of Nightingale's knew her as the Queen of Breaks, given her strong affinity for the sound. But she also introduced listeners to prog rock, punk, indie and dance music, and was unfeignedly passionate about them all. While she had no technical know-how when she started at the BBC, that didn't stop her. Despite her parents' request to "have something to fall back on," she dove head first into broadcasting, establishing herself quickly and even braving listeners' expectations by booking acts who weren't considered trendy or mainstream at the time. In this archival conversation with Martha Pazienti Caidan—who worked closely with Nightingale at BBC Radio 1—she discusses her memories and encounters in the music industry: being sworn at by Johnny Rotten; touring with Underworld; discovering her love for drill and grime; and the keys to success for aspiring broadcasters. Listen to the episode in full.

Get familiar with Southeast Asia's myriad forms of maximalist dance music. Around Asia-Pacific, more producers and DJs are experimenting with popular music. From Vinahouse in Vietnam to dangdut in Indonesia, these interpretations of happy hardcore, house and gabber have traditionally been played out in taxi cabs, cybercafes and other public spaces but they're now increasingly being heard on the club circuit amid demand for culturally authentic sounds. Embraced by the likes of Manila Community Radio, Gabber Modus Operandi and others, these hybrid styles of high-BPM rave are part of a global movement championing local dance music—just look at the meteoric rise of South African and Afro-Portuguese genres like amapiano and batida. Since 2018, London collective Eastern Margins has been playing out music from North and Southeast Asia at parties in an effort to educate audiences on the region's diverse landscape of fast-paced club tunes. Speaking to Resident Advisor's Nyshka Chandran, cofounder David Zhou, AKA LUMI, dives into the cultural context behind Southeast Asian genres like budots and manyao, explaining their connection with contemporary rave music and the self-sustaining ecosystem behind their popularity at home. Listen to the conversation in full.

"I didn't see myself in French electronic music." The Parisian artist talks about representation, Southern rap and Notting Hill Carnival's enduring influence on her music live from C2C Festival. Crystelle Oyiri, the artist otherwise known as Crystallmess, has had a circuitous route through dance music. In this Exchange recorded live at C2C Festival with Whitney Wei, the Ivoirian-Guadeloupean artist discusses how she never saw herself represented in French techno, where artists like Daft Punk reigned supreme. "When you don't see yourself, you can't tell yourself that [music] is what you want to do," she reflects. Instead, she fell in love with Southern rap and artists like DJ Screw, who ignited her passion for music before she began experimenting with beats for the dance floor. Today, Oyiri is a full-time electronic music artist. A resident of NTS radio, she's also released on labels like PAN and created original productions for films and fashion brands, including Ottolinger. Her unique production style combines melodic techno, afro-trance, abrasive dancehall and what she calls "synthetic music"—genre-fluid mixes that switch effortlessly between pummeling techno cuts, high-speed electro and melodic trance. Listen to the conversation in full.

"When I first heard electro, I had an epiphany." The Georgian artist and Herrensauna resident talks about the genre she loves most, preparing for sets and remaining authentic to her sound. SALOME, now one of the scene's foremost purveyors of electro, has shot up in popularity over the last two years. Hailing from Tbilisi, she now lives in Berlin and is a resident of Herrensauna, where she's become a champion of the fast-paced dance music that the group tours worldwide. She's also graced the lineups of festivals like Pitch, Wire, and Dekmantel - where this talk was recorded live - and has released searing electro on labels like Lobster Theremin, Mechatronica, International Chrome, Darknet and more. In this interview moderated by Souhayla Ou-Oumar, SALOME talks about first falling in love with electronic music after a visit to Kyiv. She says she heard every local artist playing electro and breakbeats instead of techno, and she hasn't turned back since. The artist plays multiple gigs each weekend, and she talks about the process behind her preparation. She spends hours each week digging for music in multiple genres, creating what she calls "sound maps" for each of the territories she DJs in. This can be tricky, SALOME says, especially when she appears in places like Italy and Spain that expect to hear techno. But no matter where she's booked, she says she makes it a goal to remain true to her sound. Listen to the episode in full.

This panel live from Wire Festival examines the insidious costs and possible solutions for a problem that continues to mire touring DJs. Artists applying for a US artist visa face multiple obstacles: application fees of up to 6,000 USD, long wait times and lack of insurance or accountability should their visas be denied. What's more, the process must be completed every few years, ushering in a new cycle of potential roadblocks. In this panel recorded live at Wire Festival in New York, moderator Tyler Myers—Wire Festival's co-director—talks to Téa Abashidze, the booker and co-founder of Basement; David Amar, the co-founder of the International Artist Assistance Agency Fanfare; and Joe Sigmund, a partner and senior agent at the booking agency Surefire. Together they discuss how the process's prohibitive costs impact the electronic music ecosystem and homogenizes lineups. They also explore ways forward, including the power of musicians unions and nonprofit organizations to help engineer a more equitable and sustainable path for our scene. How do other countries, like Canada, deal with artist visas? And what happens when the US government raises visa application fees further, as was proposed in a recent push for tightening legislative change? Resident Advisor and Basement will be looking at this issue in more detail in 2024. In the meantime, listen to the episode in full.

"When I got started, there wasn't much diversity at all." The young DJ discusses Australia's QTBIPOC community, debuting at Dekmantel and more live from Pitch Festival. Australian talent Charlotte Frimpong, the DJ better known as C.FRIM, has become one of the country's most in-demand DJs over the last year. The Ghanian-Filipina artist kickstarted her career with a Boiler Room set at Sugar Mountain in December 2022, and since then, she's toured around Europe (and debuted at Dekmantel), becoming known for digging deep into her musical ancestry and weaving amapiano and Afro-electronic sounds creatively through her sets. In this interview recorded live at Pitch Music and Arts Festival, Frimpong talks to journalist Tanya Akinola about "air DJing" in her bedroom before being able to afford gear, and how her career has skyrocketed at such a rapid rate. Even though she hasn't been a name on the stage for a long time, she's managed to carve out a unique space for the QTBIPOC community with the party she co-runs, Dutty, which she says is for people who can relate to the afro-diaspora or who just want to open their minds to it. Listen to her thoughts on the series, starting to produce and more in the full episode.

"Always notice whatever is happening in the background." The acclaimed producer and composer discusses the art of meaningful listening and his latest LP, Silencio. Moritz von Oswald's legacy as one of the trailblazers of contemporary techno precedes him. The artist's initial claim to fame was his involvement in the duo Basic Channel with Mark Ernestus, a project that formed the dub techno canon in the '90s and is still a primary reference point for many, if not most, modern producers. He was also at the helm of the famous cutting and pressing plant Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin, which has become a home for countless artists over the years. But on this occasion, Oswald sat down to discuss a more recent project: his LP Silencio on Tresor Records, which came out in November. He talked with RA's senior producer, Chloe Lula, about his lifelong love of jazz, tapestry, French film, Southern Italian opera and music from Central Asia. He also reflects on his production process—an endless exploration of drama and dynamics. Oswald is fascinated with reducing sound to its most basic elements and broadening the capacity of what the ear can perceive. Most importantly, he's a critical listener, and in the final moments of the episode, he imparts wisdom on how he's learned to keep a conscious ear open to the world around him. Check out the episode in full.

"All I want to do is express what I love." The beloved Berghain resident talks about learning from failure, putting in the time and how good sound systems have changed his life. Born and bred in Minneapolis, Zak Khutoretsky, AKA DVS1, has been throwing and playing raves for decades. Now 47, he's at the top of his game. As one of Berghain's most popular residents and a producer known for his deep and versatile sound, he's amassed thousands of followers around the world, releasing on Klockworks, Transmat and Ostgut Ton, in addition to his own label, HUSH. Not just an artist, Khutoretsky has garnered a reputation for speaking critically about the challenges facing the electronic music community, notably through his essay about the battle between art and entertainment, and more recently through the inauguration of his revenue sharing platform ASlice. The organisation was designed in 2020 as an antidote to the pay disparity between DJ earnings and producer earnings, and its basic conceit is that DJs submit playlists of their tracks and share small percentages of their gig fees to be redistributed among the artists whose tracks they've played. In this RA Exchange live from ADE, Khutoretsky talks with journalist Christine Kakaire about the platform and the impetus behind it, as well as his underlying tendency to be a "fixer," from the problems in his house to the issues he sees plaguing his community. Listen to the episode in full.

"There's a joy I'm trying to depict in my artwork." The American DJ and producer discusses her latest painting exhibition, the power of poetry and exploring queer fantasy in visual art. Today, Berlin-via-New York multidisciplinary artist Juliana Huxtable might be best known for her DJing and dance floor productions. She's the co-founder of the party Shock Value and a regular at Berghain, Herrensauna, Basement and more clubs and festivals around the world. But she's equally prolific in the worlds of poetry and visual art, and in her first appearance on the RA Exchange, she talks to senior producer Chloe Lula about her multimedia painting exhibition, -USSYPHILIA, which is on display through the beginning of January. A champion of queer and trans theory, Huxtable uses collage, painting and poetry to explore themes around identity anarchy and sexuality throughout the exhibition. While the collection is serious and somewhat academic, it's also playful, diving deep into fantasy, psychedelia and allusions to soft porn. These days, Huxtable enjoys dabbling in other kinds of art as well. In her interview, she talks about her longtime love of performance art, which she says is ghettoized in the art world context, usually relegated to awkward programming add-ons in gallery exhibitions. Her band Tongue In The Mind is shaking off the performance art stigma and bringing it into the club with their forthcoming EP on PAN, Pretty Canary, out in late 2023. To hear about how she keeps on top of parallel creative practices, her thoughts on writing, experiences with psychedelics and more, listen to the episode in full.

"DJs don't hit their stride until their 40s." The DJ and creative multihyphenate discusses maturing as an artist, having a family and navigating the worlds of contemporary art and cuisine. Resident Advisor has followed Detroit native Seth Troxler's DJ career since the beginning. And on his first appearance on the RA Exchange, he is in his domestic bliss phase, living with his wife and kids in his new home of Zürich and partying at least a little less—and only on the weekends. Since taking the house and techno scene by storm in the late '00s, when he was still in his teens, Troxler has become one of the most famous DJs in the world, known almost as much for his jokester personality and party antics as his craft. But the public image belies the skill behind his work: he's one of the most popular artists in the world simply because he's also one of the best, able to string music together almost preternaturally, as if he was born to do it. You never know what kind of records he's going to play—sometimes he doesn't, either—but you can count on it being a journey worth taking. These days, Troxler isn't putting himself through the wringer like he used to, but he has his moments. Before this interview with RA music critic Andrew Ryce, he played New York, then Miami, then New York again, then Toronto, all in the span of one weekend. He opened up about his more responsible lifestyle, his family life and his love of food, as well as his passion for pairing art and technology and his hopes for a lasting legacy.

At Kraków's Unsound festival, the London-based ambassador of footwork and jungle opens up about recent musings about legacy and the art of letting go. Since her first Boiler Room set went viral (so viral, she claims, it broke her phone), SHERELLE's career has ascended with a rapidness that even she struggles to fully comprehend. Almost instantly, she went from working a day job at Mixmag to DJing major festivals around the world, where she spread the word of 160 BPM music. Today, the London artist has an NTS residency with long-time friend and partner Naina, has two EPs under her belt and is at the helm of two labels–Hoover Sound and Beautiful, as well as the show SHERELLE presents on BBC 6 Music from 11PM on Saturday nights. This year, she even planned to take her reputation as a producer to the next level with a debut album that was scheduled for release in 2023. But this summer, every musician's worst nightmare happened to SHERELLE. After a mugging in Europe, she lost every bit of her music—her DJ repertoire, her unreleased tracks and perhaps most devastatingly, her entire debut album. Discussing this at Kraków's Unsound festival, however, SHERELLE is chipper and refreshingly wise. In this intimate and hilarious conversation with RA's in-house critic, Kiana Mickles, she describes the incident as a launchpad for recent musings about the art of letting go, the importance of archiving and how she's approaching her debut album differently the second time around.

"I don't complain, I create." The house DJ talks about her new multi-platform project, Honeyverse, and using music as a way to celebrate the Black queer community. Honey Dijon is a queer house music icon whose reputation precedes her. Originally hailing from Chicago, she grew up experiencing the city's nightlife, eventually beginning to DJ and produce alongside contemporaries like Derrick Carter, Mark Farina and other artists who shaped the Chicago house music canon. Throughout her career, she's been an active spokesperson for trans rights and a champion for the BIPOC community, and last month she put on her greatest platform for queer Black culture to date: Honeyverse. The multi-platform Honey Dijon experience took place at London's Southbank Centre, bringing club nights, live sets, orchestras and intimate conversations together in a takeover that drew its inspiration from her roots in Chicago's Black queer community. In this RA Exchange live from Southbank Centre, Honey Dijon talks to Josh Caffé about her connection to house music, an art form made from rejection and thus marginalised in the annals of music history. Her work, she says, is about giving visibility to the voices that were lost in its development and creating a more expansive platform for queer artists from the Black and Latinx diaspora. "This is a celebration of love, joy and acceptance," she says of Honeyverse. Listen to the episode in full, and watch video snippets of their conversation on Resident Advisor's Instagram and YouTube.

Dr Michelle and Mahnoor—a psychologist and a DJ, respectively—discuss ADHD and how neurodivergent individuals can find safety on the dance floor. In an age of technological surfeit and the attention economy, people are affected with ADHD diagnoses on an increasing frequency. Thinking differently can be both an obstacle and a superpower. While some ways of working and digesting information may be more challenging, others, like creativity, come with more ease. Today's episode of the RA Exchange, the final instalment of our collaboration with the UK mental health charity Black Minds Matter, explores the topic of ADHD and how it connects with dance music. The industry can attract and often be a safe space for people affected by ADHD diagnoses, says host Vanessa Maria, a London-based broadcaster whose work champions music and mental health. In two interviews, she unpacks what happens on a physiological level when one lives with neurodivergence, music's ability to alleviate many of the symptoms that accompany ADHD and how more inclusive dance music spaces could allow people to better navigate neurodivergence. Vanessa Maria's guests are Dr Michelle—a music psychologist, DJ and radio host—and Mahnoor, a DJ who lives with ADHD and creates projects for movement, music and meditation for South Asian minorities. She brings the perspective of someone navigating neurodivergence beyond BMM and the Black community. Listen to the episode in full for their insights. This edition of the RA Exchange was recorded in collaboration with The Qube, London's first members' studio for music and content creators. If you're a music producer, songwriter, artist, photographer or podcaster and would like to apply for a membership, head over to theqube.com.

"Dancing is never just dancing." The Tbilisi-based DJ talks about nightlife politics, the Left Bank collective and Eastern European club culture live from ICKPA Festival. Tbilisi has been experiencing a club music renaissance over the last few years, with clubs like Bassiani and Khidi opening their doors to top tier DJs from around the world and simultaneously heralding an era of world class nightlife. While techno has reigned supreme at these venues, they left a gap that the relatively new space, Left Bank, has aimed to fill. Opening in 2021, it's provided a platform for what it calls "wildly diverse electronic sounds" beyond four-to-the-floor, and it's kicking off its new record label with a thirteen-track V/A, "Stop What You're Doing," this week. Ash Scholem has been a member of the Left Bank collective and social space since its inception, and in this episode of the RA Exchange recorded live at ICKPA Festival—an event co-run by contingents from the Georgian and Ukrainian dance music communities—he speaks with the Exchange's senior producer, Chloe Lula, about his involvement with the venue. He also brings his background in political science and sociology to bear, shedding light on how Eastern European socioeconomics affect nightlife; the ways in which revolutionary ideals have become ingrained into Georgian nightlife culture and how people party; the fight for queer rights and drug policy reform in Tbilisi and broader thoughts on the role dance music plays in politics and legislative change during times of crisis. Listen to the episode in full, and grab a copy of "Stop What You're Doing" on Friday, October 20th.

"I always want to challenge myself as a musician." The DJ, producer and T4T LUV NRG cofounder talks about her new live set and overcoming hearing loss live from MUTEK. Eris Drew is something of a mentor to many, including people she's never met. Her words on psychedelics, the ritual of dancing and other topics have become near-gospel for many fans, and it's always a treat to hear her speak on practically any topic. While many of her discussions veer towards the esoteric or spiritual, when it came time for our live RA Exchange at MUTEK, she wanted to get down to brass tacks about making and playing music. Ahead of the first North American performance of her stunning live show, Drew sat down with RA's music editor, Andrew Ryce. She spoke at length about her live show and DJing—including her old-school style of mixing she calls "riding the pitch"—and the trials and tribulations of proofing stages and booths for turntable use, hearing protection and more. She spoke with all the authority and feeling she usually does, with a deep, technical knowledge that makes this talk almost as much a tutorial as it was a conversation. Listen to the episode in full.

"You're the master of your own vision." In this collaboration with Rhythm Section, Ninja Tune's head of physical retail gives a masterclass on the inner workings of a record label. Alex Ives has been at Ninja Tune for ten years as the head of physical retail. He also runs Big Dada, a sub-label run exclusively by minorities and people of colour. In this masterclass recorded live in London, Ives unpacks the various departments and teams that make up the Ninja Tune enterprise, from manufacturing, sync and publishing, to product management and A&R. He also suggests a few routes for young people to get a foot in the door of the label world. It's often not a matter of trying to score a hard-earned internship at a major, he reflects. Often, it's easier to launch a career by starting a label yourself and adding it to your CV. "Going DIY can build a massive amount of love and interest that can lead you to a major label," he tells host Emily Jones. "Sometimes that's the best way." Working as the head of physical distribution doesn't come without its challenges in a world facing climate change, and Ives fields questions about pressing vinyl as a carbon-negative company, re-thinking record packaging, working to change consumer habits around ordering and returning records, and navigating a booming streaming economy. To hear more of his insights, listen to the episode in full. This conversation was recorded live in London, and you can watch video shorts from the talk on YouTube. Watch the Masterclass video playlist via the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anqltFRkqVM Rhythm Section’s Future Proof project is supported by Arts Council England and PRS Foundation.

"We've never known what we're doing." Brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence talk about fame, inadvertently ending up on the pop charts and their new album, Alchemy. Many listeners of this podcast likely associate Disclosure—AKA brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence—with the hits that shot them into the spotlight as teenagers. These had a good deal of crossover success, and the Lawrence brothers went on to have an extremely active touring career and secure multiple Grammy Award nominations. But there’s much more in their brothers' creative arsenal than meets the eye, as demonstrated in their newest dance music LP, Alchemy, which came out quietly this summer. The duo released their fourth studio album under the pretence that they wanted to move away from some of the big tunes that defined the first part of their career. They did no marketing or PR, choosing to self-release and share the word via announcements on their social media pages. Alchemy is full of beautiful melodic interludes, field recordings and oblique references to the personal experiences that shaped the making of the songs—it was composed during a moment of intense heartbreak and upheaval for Howard, a narrative that weaves its way through the album. "These songs are about feeling lost and looking for love," they explain. The brothers go deep with Chloe Lula about this period of Howard's life, talking about writing music based on intuition and how they lean on each other for creative and personal support. They also share the strategy behind their rise to success, including how they've navigated record label contracts, visually finessed their performances to appear more like live bands, exchanged EPs for page follows and started a Discord server to connect directly with their fans. Listen to more of their insights in the full episode.

"There are books about techno and rave, but let's fill in the blanks." The scholar and activist talks about her book Raving, bringing club culture into academia and more. McKenzie Wark, professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the New School, is a scholar and raver who has written extensively about the world of dance music and its surrounding subculture. Most recently, Wark penned Raving, a first-person account of her experiences in the Brooklyn queer and trans rave scene. Wark's writing is a unique blend of memoir and literary criticism, and Raving takes readers straight into the heart of undisclosed locations around New York nightlife. Raving to techno is an art and a technique at which queer and trans bodies might be particularly adept, she writes—but it's also for anyone who lets the beat seduce them. In her conversation with the Brooklyn-based DJ Alyce Currier, AKA Lychee, Wark talks about how the book came to be. She explains how entire chapters of the book wrote themselves out in her head, and how she carefully chose 26 characters—all of which have a letter as a name—to represent the friends and acquaintances of hers from the world of queer nightlife. Her own relationship with raving started when she was still living in Australia. At the time, she says, she hadn't yet transitioned and was experiencing an ambient sense of gender dysphoria that only dancing and nightlife could placate. She didn't actually transition until she was in her late 50s, in 2017. "After I went on hormones, I couldn't write," she says. "But the pressure [to write Raving] was enabling, and I found my voice in this book." Wark and Currier also talk about what it means to bring club culture into academia, working with fellow rave scholar madison moore and how parties can serve the communities they're designed to cater to instead of exacerbating existing social structures that already exist. Listen to the episode in full.

"I'm curious about everything—this is my power." The Ukrainian DJ and label boss sits down to discuss her approach to curating, self-development, parenthood and more. Nastia calls herself a "true DJ." The Ukrainian artist first laid hands on a pair of decks in 2005 after moving from her small hometown and attending the University of Donetsk. Beginning as a radio host at Kiss FM, where she curated a show called Nechto—now the name of her label—she started actively touring, pursuing a career dedicated to DJing and nothing else. Nastia is proud of having reached great heights as a DJ with no productions under her belt. In this conversation recorded live at Nuits Sonores festival in Lyon, she tells moderator Christine Kakaire about her decision to turn her attention towards the studio at the apex of her career. She also discusses her idiosyncratic style of putting a set together, using each stage appearance as an opportunity to educate the audience about music and create a narrative expressive of her internal world. "I'll never be just a drum & bass DJ, or just a techno DJ," she says. "I'm curious about everything—this is my power." Among Nastia's reflections on music are her considerations of the war in Ukraine, parenthood as a touring DJ, self-development and more. Listen to the episode in full.

"Vocals go hand in hand with the grime I know." Ahead of his appearance at London's Waterworks Festival, the UK artist discusses the significance of MCs, working with Skrillex and more. Marc Veira, AKA Flowdan, sees MCs as the "hub of all the vibes." Growing up in East London's rich dancehall and reggae scene, he developed a singular view of music that blossomed into a career as a well-known MC and cofounder of the grime collective Roll Deep. Alongside a string of successful EPs and collaborations come on labels like Hyperdub and Tru Thoughts, he recently earned widespread plaudits for his collaboration with Skrillex and Fred Again…. on their anthem, "Rumble," which came out last year. In this RA Exchange with DJ and radio host Tash LC, Veira discusses how he got to this point, starting from his time at home and his mother's passion for sound system culture. "The MC being the hub of all the vibes—I heard that in sound system culture," he says. He believes there still isn't enough credit afforded to vocalists in live performances more generally. "The grime I know, the garage I know, the drum & bass I know—vocals go hand in hand with all of that. And at festivals, massive artists headlining shows have no mention of their vocalists. That's not what the music is." Veira also unpacks his love for working with other people, his mentorship of up-and-coming producers and using Flowdan as the character behind which he hides his natural shyness on stage. To hear more about his creative process and trajectory, listen to the episode in full.

"I've been lucky to work with some of my favourite artists of all time." The Grammy Award-winning producer discusses working with Jay-Z, throwing dubstep parties and his new album. Many people know James Blake as the singer behind the breakout cover of Feist's "Limit To Your Love," which was a hit in the underground and global pop music charts, or the Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked with artists like Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Vince Staples and Bon Iver, among many others. Before all of this, Blake was making records for R&S and Hemlock—two UK mainstays in the dubstep and garage scenes. As a 20-year-old, he was also throwing bass nights on his Goldsmiths University campus called The Bass Society, inviting the likes of Skream & Benga to empty auditoriums. Back then, “we never made any money," he describes in this week's RA Exchange. "But we had so much fun. The feeling of promoting a night and getting Distance to come and play your night, even if there were only 20 people there, just felt like such a massive achievement." His passion for this music never left, and now he's coming full circle with his album Playing Robots Into Heaven, out September 8th. For more on his vision behind this new record, his collage-like production techniques and his take on being a producer versus an artist, listen to the episode in full.

"These records changed my emotional perspective on music." Recorded live at Dekmantel, the Italian techno artist dissects the records that shaped his approach to DJing and production. There are few artists as widely respected as Donato Dozzy, who is known for his unique approach to building hypnotic, acid-infused atmospheres as a solo artist and as one half of Voices From The Lake. He is also a singular curator at the head of Spazio Disponibile alongside Neel, and a DJ with a reputation for building sophisticated and slowly unwinding sets at festivals like Labyrinth, Terraforma and Horst, as well as in public spaces and museums. In this Exchange live from Dekmantel 2023, Resident Advisor's editor-in-chief, Whitney Wei, asks Dozzy about the songs that shaped his craft in our Playing Favourites flagship series. He takes us back to his childhood, playing the first track that introduced him to electronic music before moving chronologically through his life and the pieces that acted as lynchpins in his creative development. He discusses how he grew up in a musical household, listening to classical orchestrations with his parents before finding Italo disco and the stylings of Giorgio Moroder, Lory D and The Future Sound of London. These albums, he says, influenced how he builds his sets, leaning into slowly unfolding narratives as he moves from one track to another. "When I started releasing albums, I decided that I wanted to create stories," he says. Listen to the episode in full. Tracklist: Franco Battiato - Summer on a Solitary Beach Giorgio Moroder - The Chase Lory D - Abrupt Interruption The Future Sound of London - Cascade Kruder & Dorfmeister - DJ Kicks 1996 Mike Parker - Dispatches Die Woodys - Fitchtl's Lied Verde Prato - Nina Sonando Donato Dozzy - Valentina

"I've always been fascinated with extreme art." The Fast Forward member discusses the Copenhagen techno sound, eroticism and his proclivity for noise and black metal. Martin Schacke has been leading the charge on developing the psytrance-inspired techno sound that's dominated clubs over the last couple of years. He's also known for making provocative, catchy club tunes like "Kisloty People"—his breakout single from 2019—and Apocalyptic Decadence, an LP that came out on Instruments of Discipline last year (which made Resident Advisor's "The Best Albums of 2022" list). He's joined by a rank of DJs from Copenhagen like Sugar and DJ Tool who are popularizing this fun and fast counterpoint to heads-down dance music, and which Schacke describes as originating from a desire to start a scene distinct from the Berghain sound. Interestingly, Schacke is also an artist of many trades. He's heavily involved with noise, industrial and black metal music, and he discusses how these more experimental forms have inspired his releases for the dance floor. "I've taken a lot of these ways of working with aesthetic opposites and absurdities from noise music, where it's normal to use extreme subject matter and go into dark territory and fun territory," he said. "I think those can really intertwine." In this RA Exchange, he talks about his roots in this scene as well as his proclivity for extreme aesthetics, taking breaks from dance music, the personal costs of choosing a life dedicated to being an artist and more. Listen to the episode in full.

"Just be obsessed with music. Love it." The beloved London artist gives a masterclass on how to make it as a DJ and build a sustainable career. Alice Moxom—better known by her stage name, Moxie—started out as a radio DJ on Kiss FM and NTS before playing parties and touring full-time. Now she has a label and party series that she curates called On Loop, which has invited artists like Matthew Herbert, Josey Rebelle, Leon Vynehall, K-Hand and Joy Orbison, in venues across Europe and the UK. The key to her success, she says, is that she hasn't rushed anything in her career. "Your sound can evolve and you can change," she says. "If you're thinking about this as a real career, the [opportunities] will always come around." In this episode of Resident Advisor's Exchange—the second in a three-part masterclass series called Future Proof, a collaboration with Rhythm Section—co-host Bradley Zero says that Moxie is "one of the most organized and graceful DJs on the circuit." She reveals how she has steadily built a career from the ground up, detailing how she's developed a synergistic relationship with her booking agent; selectively chosen gigs and mix opportunities; maneuvered stylistically without confusing promoters; and cultivated lasting relationships with a team of people she trusts. Listen to the episode in full. This conversation was recorded live in December, and you can watch video shorts from the talk on YouTube. Watch the Masterclass video playlist via the link below: https://www.youtube.com/@rhythmsectioninternational/streams Rhythm Section’s Future Proof project is supported by Arts Council England and PRS Foundation.

"Fandom is the new religion of our capitalist society." The genderqueer pop star discusses economic philosophy, queer aesthetics and the internet ahead of their new album. Avant-pop star Dorian Electra wasn't your average American student. As an 18-year-old, they were interested in exploring philosophy and political radicalisation through music, making their debut in 2010 with the song "I'm In Love With Friedrich Hayek"—a ballad to the economist who influenced Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s free-market ideology. Electra was simultaneously working as a stripper, channeling their exploration of gender into an early career series of pop videos that told the history of feminism, drag and vibrators. More than a decade later, the artist has brought these seemingly contradictory facets of their interests into a bizarre and beautiful symbiosis. On this week's RA Exchange, Electra speaks with moderator Gunseli Yalcinkaya about the underpinnings of Fanfare, their third album, which lands on October 6th. One of the album's central conceits is the meaning of fandom and online culture in 2023. "I've been experiencing hyper-online everything," they said. "The past few years have solidified the idea in my head that as we've grown increasingly secular, people still want something to give their life greater meaning, and they've found that in connecting with others online in a way that's largely replaced religion." They also discuss their proclivity for ultra-synthetic, cartoonishly masculine pop; their take on the internet zeitgeist; ADHD; musical performance as an expression of the extremities of human experience and more. Listen to the episode in full. This edition of the RA Exchange was recorded in collaboration with The Qube, London's first members' studio for music and content creators. If you're a music producer, songwriter, artist, photographer or podcaster and would like to apply for a membership, head over to theqube.com.

"Devotion is the main aim—to try to encourage commitment in people." The fabric resident and Houghton festival founder discusses his love of the crowd, DJing and more. Craig Richards, arguably one of UK dance music's most respected DJs, is normally averse to the spotlight. But the multi-hyphenate artist and fabric resident has played the London institution every Saturday for nearly two decades, DJing alongside fellow household names like Ricardo Villalobos and Nicolas Lutz. Over the years, Richards has profoundly shaped the canon that's defined the space and its programming week in and week out. He’s keenly attuned to other DJs and the flow of a night, and he's not indebted to one particular style or genre. In a Resident Advisor feature from 2019, Ray Philp described his sound as "intergalactic space metal" that goes far beyond techno, house or electro, instead interplaying classics with deep, headsy tunes that he tirelessly seeks out every week. In this interview with RA's European deputy editor Carlos Hawthorn, Richards talks about what makes a good record, and the DJ's role as a bridge between the past and present. He also discusses his endeavours beyond the booth—most notably the idyllic festival he started in 2017, Houghton, which is set in the English countryside—and his passion for painting and cross-disciplinary creativity. Listen to the episode in full.

"I approached and signed all of the first Warp acts." The Sheffield record producer and label cofounder discusses starting the UK label and the early days of bleep techno. Before Warp became the landmark label it is today, it was a Sheffield record store. Robert Gordon was an employee there in the early '80s, working alongside colleagues Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell, with whom he'd start the label in 1989. Listeners familiar with the contemporary UK techno landscape may associate Warp with luminaries like Aphex Twin and other names associated with IDM and bleep techno. It also released a lot of artists who were recording in a Sheffield studio called FON, which is where Robert Gordon found his footing even before starting Warp. In this Exchange—conducted by DJ, producer, CDR founder and Resident Advisor board member Tony Nwachukwu—Gordon talks about FON and laying the groundwork for the Sheffield scene. In 1985, he recalls, it was the first local commercial 24-track studio and attracted luminaries like David Bowie, Yazz and groups tied to post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire. More recently, it's produced work by 808 State, Nightmares On Wax and Sweet Exorcist. Gordon also reflects on FON's early days. It was foundational to the sound of the '00s and formed a tight-knit community around itself that eventually became intrinsic to a bigger musical movement. Although Gordon left Warp in 1991, his A&Ring for the label—along with his own productions and engineering assistance—defined its sound. Listen to their conversation in full.

"It's through collaboration that I've grown most with my sound." In this collaboration with Rhythm Section, the multi-instrumentalist talks about how he found his style and started his career. Jordan Rakei is a self-made musician. A multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and producer whose work dips into soul, hip-hop and electronic music, he moved to London from New Zealand, giving himself a four-month "buffer budget" to get his career off the ground. Now, he's released on Ninja Tune and Rhythm Section International, and has collaborated with a number of Grammy- and Oscar-award-nominated artists. But his journey wasn't easy, as he explains in this masterclass moderated by Roy Mills and Rhythm Section's Bradley Zero. Rakei talks about how to build a career as an independent artist, why he transitioned from working alone to working with a big agency, signing deals with labels, and living close to the edge in an expensive city. It's the first in a three-part series called Future Proof hosted by Rhythm Section International, all of which explore facets of creating and sustaining a career as a musician. This episode was recorded live in May, and you can watch video shorts from the talk on YouTube. Listen to their conversation in full. Watch the Masterclass video playlist via the link below: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIpCC9Ep-UEmgJkFN9QmisE_xxW-mgCOV Rhythm Section’s Future Proof project is supported by Arts Council England and PRS Foundation

"DJing and lecturing aren't different practices for me. I just fuse them together." The scholar and performer reflects on bringing critical ideas to club spaces and writing about raves. madison moore is a true multi-hyphenate: an artist, scholar, DJ and assistant professor of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. Despite having a hand in so many seemingly disparate endeavors, however, moore sees their work across academia and music as being intrinsically interconnected, and their mission is to find ways to bring theory and practice into one space. In this conversation with journalist and former RBMA editor-in-chief Aaron Gonsher, moore reflects on how he was first inspired by figures like Paul D. Miller (AKA DJ Spooky), who brought DJ technologies, parties and theory together. "Knowledge doesn't have to be gate kept behind a JSTOR portal," he says. "It doesn't have to be an institutional access thing. You can bring the knowledge, bring the ideas, bring the fun out." In a series of performance lectures focused on queer nightlife, moore teaches about the historical context around dance music and the significance of the club for queer Black folks, explaining that he sees performance as a critical tool to spread ideas. He explored this fusion of academia and dance music at his recent nightlife residency at The Kitchen in New York—where he curated a series of public programs with DJs, artists, scholars and queer nightlife performers—and in his book Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric. To hear his reflections on these projects and more, listen to the episode in full. Photo by Rome God

"What is our shared purpose and motivation for being here?" Our guest editor for June discusses community-building, innovation in music technology and more in this week's Exchange. Cherie Hu thinks about music differently. Trained in classical piano at The Juilliard School in New York, she went on to study math at Harvard while simultaneously launching a freelance journalism career. It was towards the end of her time in university that her parallel interests in music, writing and statistics coalesced in one long-term mission: to bridge the innovations happening in music creation and technology. First a newsletter and now an international membership-based platform, Water & Music was her answer to this unique topical intersection. "Water & Music's goal is to connect like-minded readers and develop a bottom-up culture of curiosity and critique around where music and tech are headed," she wrote earlier this month on RA. "Through media, my own personal goal is not only to document and analyse music-tech innovation as it happens, but also to foster a culture of proactive experimentation. I want to help artists and their teams use the tools at their disposal to expand the boundaries of possibility in both music and culture at large, and kickstart a longer-term dialogue around how music creators and professionals can incorporate tech into their careers in an ethical manner." Over the last few weeks, Hu has curated thoughtful and practical articles for RA that touch on the ethics and implications of AI, the metaverse and fandom, as well as more far-reaching topics that she explores in depth on the Water & Music website and Discord. In them, she urges everyone in creative ecosystems to think more critically about why trends happen, how we can cultivate sustainable artistic communities and the ways in which we can create more agency and collective ownership over how music is released and consumed. Listen to the episode in full.

"Singing is super vulnerable, but it's such a big release." The DJ and producer opens up about her new album and how she brings deeply personal issues to bear. Jayda G's father, William Richard Guy, died shortly before she turned ten. In the months leading up to his death, with the help of Jayda G's older sister, he recorded 11 hours of video tapes documenting his story for his youngest daughter. Guy, the Canadian DJ and producer's latest album on Ninja Tune, is built around snippets of his recordings, with each track inspired by either a particular chapter of his story or something she's learned about herself as she unpacked her grief. "This album is about him and for me," she wrote on Instagram. "I needed this. It gave me perspective, understanding and depth to myself and my outlook on life and family." For this episode of the RA Exchange, Jayda G spoke with Berlin-based artist Juba about making the album and the history that inspired it. She also opened up about integrating her own voice into her songs, a process that made her feel vulnerable, but also provided an enormous sense of release. While she doesn't have plans to sing the album live anytime soon, she revealed her other upcoming projects—including a feature-length documentary about her work in environmentalism—and how she balances her busy touring schedule with her parallel interest in science, her marriage and, most critically, her much-needed downtime. Listen to the episode in full.

"Punk is more an attitude than a style of music. And I think that techno is way more punk than punk." The Spanish DJ discusses the ethos of the underground, vinyl DJing and more on this week's Exchange from AVA Festival. Héctor Oaks relocated from his hometown of Madrid to study at "Berlin University"—the clubs, record stores and underground parties that would shape his career as an artist. After once famously saying he could "live in peace" if he could play Berghain just once, the techno DJ has since graced the institution's dance floor multiple times and earned residencies at Herrensauna and Bassiani. Now one of a handful of in-demand, vinyl-only DJs, he's also a prolific artist and the head of two labels, KAOS and OAKS. What makes Oaks especially interesting as an interview subject, though, isn't his newfound popularity, but the underlying ethos that drives his music career. A self-described "techno punk," he reflects on what happens to the punk ethos around the underground once the underground becomes mainstream. "When you see that you've worked for the underground and then the underground becomes pop, do you want to fight against it, or do you want to be part of it?" he asks. "We're not only carrying the music, but we're carrying the values." In this interview, Oaks also talks about the art of playing vinyl, his new hip-hop project, working for the now-defunct Record Loft and his forthcoming album and live show. Listen to the episode in full.

"If you feel like you're not progressing, the likelihood is that everyone else you're looking at is going through exactly the same thing." Conducta and Charisse C talk about isolation and mental health in this collaboration with Black Minds Matter UK. Resident Advisor is delighted to welcome back our quarterly collaboration with Black Minds Matter UK, a charity connecting Black individuals and families with free mental health services. In line with their mission to make topics around mental health more visible and accessible to the Black community, this recurring series dives deep into some of the issues that plague BIPOC artists specifically, not to mention people working within the creative industries more generally. In this episode, Vanessa Maria hosts engaging conversations with two London-based artists: Charisse C, a DJ and resident on NTS Radio who derives much of her musical inspiration from her Zimbabwean and South African heritage, and Conducta, a UKG tastemaker and the founder and A&R of Kiwi Rekords. The duo share their thoughts on themes around loneliness—the alienation of social media, the risk of burnout on the road and the self-doubt that accompanies any kind of achievement. But they also share inspiring ways to encourage transparency and a real dialogue around hard work and happiness in the dance music scene that isn't mitigated by social media and outward appearances of success. "Everything that people think has happened overnight in the last two or so years, that's all been a process and a journey of hard work," says Conducta. "I think one thing that will benefit young people coming up in the music industry is understanding that if you feel like you're hitting a stalemate, the likelihood is that everyone else you're looking at is going through exactly the same thing, feeling exactly the same thing." Listen to the episode in full.

"The dance floor is a portal and a transmission tool in addition to being a technology of togetherness." The British author’s new book, Dance Your Way Home, offers a sociocultural history of the dance floor. Emma Warren has been documenting grassroots music culture since co-founding Jockey Slut magazine in the mid '90s. From those early years to subsequent stints at THE FACE and Brixton’s youth-run Live Magazine, her journey of personal growth has become intertwined with nightlife. In this episode, the UK author speaks with Aaron Gonsher, former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Red Bull Music Academy, about her new book, Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through The Dance Floor. Writing about how music thrives through in-person connections and physical spaces, she provides a social history of the dance floor while highlighting the power of communion. Their conversation is a fascinating and far-ranging one; they speak about writing from the heart and Warren's deep connections with nightlife communities. She also talks about how the dance floor acted as a palliative in times of personal strife. "As I was writing [the book] and working it out through the writing, I realised that the less my dad could move or had control over his body, the more I needed to dance and have control over mine," she says of her father's disability. "So, I feel this absolute connection to the strength which you bring on the dance floor: that core control, that tightening of your body, that loosening of your limbs when you're moving and just how important that was to me—and what a life saver, really." Warren is also the author of three other books, including Make Some Space: Tuning Into Total Refreshment Centre, Document Your Culture: A Manual and Steam Down: Or How Things Begin. Listen to the conversation to hear her thoughts on why we dance together and what dancing tells us about ourselves.

This episode of the RA Exchange originally ran in 2022. Shanti Celeste is one of those artists whose personality matches her DJ style. Her fun-loving nature and breezy demeanour always light up a room, as do her vibrant sets that span sunny house music, slow-burning disco and emotive techno—just revisit her RA podcast for a reminder. Fresh off her Hessle Audio debut, the London-based artist sat down with Martha Pazienti-Caidan for an honest chat about track selection, bad gigs and her approach to production. During DJ sets, the Peach Discs co-founder doesn’t like to focus on genres. Instead, "I think about, like, building and releasing tension and making sure that I stay in a specific energy level," she explained. "Whereas before, I think I knew the energy I wanted to bring, but I didn't know how to do that cause I was just thinking about everything in terms of genre." Reaching this holistic stage, however, took time. It was a process of acquiring knowledge and experience but also confidence, she described, adding how she previously had "really bad imposter syndrome." Learning to recognise that certain factors might be outside an artist’s control is essential to self-realisation, she continued. Recounting her experience of playing big festival stages, she noted the importance of "learning what side of yourself to channel" rather than compromise on music. For more details on her experience playing with fellow women DJs, her lockdown romance and recording her vocals, listen to the discussion in full.

"We were doing parties in Staten Island that were completely packed; Manhattan didn't want anything to do with us." Three New York visionaries discuss the city's '90s heyday. '90s nightlife in New York conjures images of Party Monster, jacking disco house and a rotating cast of mega clubs that saw thousands of revellers pass through their doors each weekend. From Limelight and Sound Factory to Palladium and countless others, clubbing was hitting its stride in New York, while producers like Joey Beltram, Frankie Bones and Damon Wild were producing game-changing 12-inches. But it was also the beginning of a decline, catalysed by the rollout of Mayor Rudy Giuliani's discriminatory policies that slowly gutted the club scene and the communities that called it home. To honour Resident Advisor's partnership with Wire Festival in Brooklyn this weekend, we're revisiting a panel recorded at our 24/7 party at Nowadays in 2018. We tasked the beloved Brooklyn fanzine Love Injection with presenting discussions covering five decades of dance music history. In this panel, Strictly Rhythm cofounder Gladys Pizarro, DJ and producer Lenny Dee and drag superstar and vogue performer Kevin Aviance spoke with journalist (and former RA staffer) Max Pearl about the rise and fall of the city's club scene during its golden decade. They also discussed how the city was sequestered, forcing many artists at the vanguard of '90s-era techno to make music and throw their own parties as the scene grew and shifted beneath the weight of city-wide reforms. "We were doing parties in Staten Island that were completely packed; Manhattan didn't want anything to do with us," said Lenny D. "So when we were doing it, we were making parties out in Brooklyn. A lot of music at that time was made here in Brooklyn—Joey Beltram, Frankie Bones, Tommy Musto, Damon Wild. So we had this scene where we're making great music, but no one's letting us play, so we're just going to do it ourselves." Listen to the episode in full.

"You realise you're not just playing music. You give people the power to empower themselves." Cofounders CEM and MCMLXXXV discuss the revered party series and its fledgling label. Berlin queer party Herrensauna—which means "men's sauna" in German—started as a seed of an idea shared between friends Cem Dukkha (AKA CEM) and Nicholas Endlicher (AKA MCMLXXXV). They were teenagers in Vienna at the time, dreaming of becoming DJs in Berlin. When they finally relocated, they started throwing parties in the basement of a Neukölln off-location. This quickly snowballed into a residency at Tresor, and now a globally recognised brand that curates lineups at clubs and festivals around the world and counts Salome, SPFDJ, Héctor Oaks, JASSS and DJ Saliva as residents. In this RA Exchange, hosted ahead of Herrensauna's curated night at Wire Festival in New York, CEM and MCMLXXXV spoke with senior producer Chloe Lula about the party's origins and how its mission has changed, shifting from focusing on gay men to championing an all-inclusive vision of queerness. They also discussed their artwork and aesthetics—including their provocative re-appropriations of quasi-religious iconography—as well as the role that platforms like theirs have in shifting the cultural zeitgeist and attitudes towards the LGBTQIA+ community. Listen to the episode in full.

"You can trace techno's origins to the seminal 1988 album Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit, which featured many producers that are now regarded as techno pioneers." We discuss Detroit techno, Frankfurt's electronic music museum and more in this month's Critics' Roundtable. As we approach the end of May, and with it, Movement Festival in Detroit—one of the longest-running dance music events in the world—Resident Advisor returns to a discussion about electronic music's roots. In this month's Critics' Roundtable, RA music critics Kiana Mickles and Andrew Ryce talk with producer Chloe Lula about the newest release from Detroit "techno soul" stalwart Eddie Fowlkes and a breakout album from a newer Detroit name, DJ Girl, who just released on Planet Mu. The trio also discuss how techno's origins in Detroit's Black communities continue to be contested. The Museum of Modern Electronic Music in Frankfurt, which opened last year (and was written about recently in The New Yorker), has overlooked the city's key role in the creation and dissemination of techno, sparking backlash from the electronic music community. Mickles and Ryce lay out the implications of the continuous omission of Detroit from techno's narrative. Why is electronic music's origins an ongoing debate, and how do we honour its progenitors as electronic music moves further away from its foundations into the mainstream? Listen to the conversation in full. Tracklist: Eddie Fowlkes - Shake Your Hips DJ Girl - Technician Rhythim Is Rythim - It Is What It Is Jossy Mitsu - World's End

"It feels like every artist is presenting their work in the same way that a gallery or an art institution would." Seven artists share their thoughts on the genre-bending label and its legacy. Resident Advisor's April cover features Bill Kouligas, the singular curator at the helm of PAN. Now celebrating 15 years, the imprint's releases traverse a dizzying array of mediums and genres. As Whitney Wei writes in her article, PAN has long befuddled some people in electronic music. Its catalogue is a bricolage of musique concrete, improvisations, left-field club music, performance soundtracks and other strains of electronic-adjacent work that feel somewhat impossible to place. Amnesia Scanner's cyberpunk nu-metal and Eartheater's sweet singer-songwriter pop are some of the best examples of this immense range. But sitting in Bill's studio, she writes, everything makes sense in context. "I feel a lot of record labels tend to somehow fall under an umbrella of a sound, or a specific genre of music," reflect Amnesia Scanner in this episode of the Exchange. "With PAN, every artist is presenting their work as independent from the work of others, like in the same way that a gallery or an art institution would present work. Of course there are shared ideas and shared values and so on, but it's not built on a narrow idea of what kind of music PAN would represent." The label has garnered a devoted fanbase that recognises the vision uniting this seemingly far-reaching output. And as Kouligas has moved increasingly towards interdisciplinary interests such as fashion soundtracking and art directing, his audience has followed him. The music on the label has done the same, evolving from tracks for the dance floor to documentation of avant-garde visual art. This episode of the RA Exchange collects music and interviews from key individuals who have shaped PAN's trajectory and canon, including Anne Imhof, Objekt, M.E.S.H., Rashad Becker, Amnesia Scanner, Eartheater and Low Jack. Listen to the episode in full. If you're looking for more PAN content, be sure to tune into our live RA Exchange with fellow PAN artist Tzusing from Rewire Festival, which aired last week. Tracklist: Anne Imhof - Dark Times (Sex) Objekt - 35 (Cocoon Crush) M.E.S.H. - Search, Reveal (Hesaitix) Rashad Becker - Dances VII (Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. II) Amnesia Scanner - Faceless (Another Life) Eartheater - Claustra (Irisiri) Low Jack - Rough Rider (Low Jack Remix) (STILL)

"This is me dealing with how to be a progressive man in this era." The Sea Cucumber boss discusses his new album on PAN in this live Exchange from Rewire. Malaysian Chinese artist Tzusing is currently splitting his time between Taipei and Shanghai, but he spent a significant amount of time in the US as a young adult and university student. It was only after moving back to China in his early 20s and taking a long break from production that he amalgamated these diverse influences and refined his sound, releasing a string of EPs on the label L.I.E.S. and launching into his musical career in full force. His 2017 release, Invincible East, was his first exploration into more thematically loaded work that interrogated masculinity and power. His second (and newest) LP, Green Hat, builds on these tropes. The full-length—which came out on PAN in late March—examines Confucian values around familial obligation, the patriarchy and how to be "a progressive man" in 2023. It also brings together his penchant for trap, techno and industrial, while still mining Asian instrumental motifs. In Tzusing's words, the music itself is full of angst and fear, and it's his most intense output as an artist yet. In this live RA Exchange at Rewire Festival, he talks to Resident Advisor's senior producer, Chloe Lula, about the production of the album, Chinese club culture and his move towards a sound that isn't indebted to a singular genre or scene. The episode is part of Resident Advisor's cover series on PAN; read the article in full on our website, and listen to Tzusing's conversation in full here.

"Going back-to-back makes sense. We live together, we really love the same music." The Berlin-based duo discuss their partnership behind the decks—and in life. Tama Sumo and Lakuti are two of Berlin's best-known house DJs. Partners in life and in music, they've played as solo artists (and together) since the early '90s, and hold residencies at Panorama Bar. Unsurprisingly, they have an unparalleled synthesis behind the decks and in conversation, and on this unique episode of the RA Exchange, they interview each other about their formative experiences in the music industry and the roots of their respective musical practices—for Tama Sumo, the bars and lesbian weekenders in Kreuzberg, and for Lakuti, disused warehouses in Johannesburg. They also talk about deeper, more intrinsic aspects of their crafts, their relationship, and their identities as marginalised artists navigating Germany's house and techno scene. This interview was recorded live at The Standard in London as part of the series TheirStories, an essential event In London's queer cultural calendar that platforms narratives from the LGBTQIA+ community. Listen to the episode in full.

"Live improvised hardware connects so directly to the fundamental rawness of electronic music." UK techno lynchpin Surgeon reflects on his connection to machines and making music on the fly. Surgeon, also known as Anthony Child, has been one of techno's most influential and consistently brilliant artists since the mid-'90s. For the last decade, he has spent most of his creative resources on developing his abilities as a live performer, in his usual techno environment as well as more abstract settings. As Child reinforces in this live Dekmantel Exchange with Aaron Coultate, his live performance practice is at the heart of his creativity. "There was literally one day I woke up and realized that having the computer—DJing, as it were—was getting in the way of taking this form of performing further," he says. "That was determining the structure of what I was doing. And to be truly freeform and improvisational I had to be free of this imposed structure." This archived conversation comes on the heels of Surgeon's most recent LP, Crash Recoil, which RA music critic Kiana Mickles hailed as "one of his best albums ever." To get an inside look into this risk taking artist's production process and approach to dance floor composition, listen to the episode in full.

"Dance music artists are creating in an environment where they can be more outspoken about their queerness, which means that their work becomes extensions of their queerness." RA's critics discuss expressions of gender and sexuality in the underground scene during this month's roundtable. Each month, Resident Advisor reviews a number of standout EPs, albums and singles, but there are some that resonate with us more than others. In this episode, our in-house music critics Andrew Ryce and Kiana Mickles join RA's Senior Producer, Chloe Lula, in a deep dive into the releases that they considered to be the most noteworthy from this month: Surgeon's new LP, Crash Recoil; Fever Ray's much-anticipated new full length, Radical Romantics; and I. JORDAN and SHERELLE's split two-tracker. Beyond just assessing the music itself, we also debate bigger questions that these works raise. We discuss how some of this month's music invokes themes of love, romance and desire—which are relatively new to the electronic music underground; how representations of queerness are shifting in the contemporary music landscape; and the perennial pop-electronic music crossover, which has defined the contours of the last few weeks' worth of releases yet again. Listen to the conversation in full. This week's intro and outro music, "Transience," was composed by Jo Johnson.

“I actually believe that humans are made for more than what we're currently doing. We just need to switch on parts of our brains that we're not." Funktion-One creator Tony Andrews reflects on music and spirituality live from AVA London. According to visionary sound system designer Tony Andrews, the creator of Funktion-One, there’s a spiritual current that unites humanity—and good sound is the first way for us to explore our communal mind. In this RA Exchange recorded live from AVA London, the founder of one of the best high-end speakers on the market reflects on his experience engaging in the broader, spiritual meaning of music and the universe and how his decision to start Funktion-One in 1992 sprung from a desire to help humans connect with each other. Far from being a technical deep dive into loudspeaker design and engineering, this conversation delves into his first forays into the world of sound as well as the broader implications of music and how it can incite a paradigm shift in how we experience the human experience and consciousness. Listen to the full, live talk and Q&A moderated by RA contributor Will Lynch.

Since the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, there have been renewed efforts to shine a light on dance music's roots in Black communities. Still, there's a critical need for more Black-forefronted collectives and programmers—as well as more thoughtfully curated and balanced rosters of talent in clubs and festivals—to keep the origins of electronic music alive. In comes Brooklyn’s dweller festival, founded in 2019 by Discwoman's Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, which aims to highlight exclusively Black talent from across the globe. This year’s edition featured a live RA Exchange with Nigerian-British selector OK Williams, who spoke to RA music critic Kiana Mickles about some of the deep-rooted inequities that continue to bar Black artists from contributing to the contemporary dance music landscape. They also discuss Williams’ ascent on the global stage—beginning from her Early Bird residency at NTS and full-fledged touring career post-pandemic—and her first forays into production. This is a lively discussion that includes questions from the audience. Listen to the episode in full.

"I don't know what I would do if my life was on the line." In a new audio documentary, female Iranian musicians reflect on the implications of speaking out against the country's misogynistic regime. On September 16th, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini—from the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez—was arrested by Iran's morality police for not wearing her headscarf in accordance with the Islamic Republic's clerical standards. The circumstances of her death were suspicious; while authorities deny beating Amini and insisted in a statement that the cause of death was sudden heart failure, eyewitnesses, including women who were detained with Amini, reported that she was severely beaten and that she died as a result of police brutality. The incident sparked a series of protests described by the media as the most widespread in Iran in almost 10 years. In honour of International Women's Day, this week's RA Exchange examines the ongoing fight for women's rights in Iran. At the time of this writing, the situation on the ground has escalated, with the government arresting and killing protestors who have spoken out against the country's oppressive policing practices, and even inciting suspected poison attacks against dozens of schoolgirls in the country's capital. According to our guests, women and minorities face more discrimination than ever as the Islamic Republic continues to extend and entrench its grip over Iranian society. "It is this conflict that has to do with the regulation of women's bodies that has been at the core of the Islamic Republic's main agendas," says one interviewee. "By controlling women, they're also somehow solidifying their power within the society." RA Exchange's Senior Producer Chloe Lula starts this episode with a reflection on RA staff writer Anu Shukla's news piece from last autumn, which documented the protests when they first erupted, before speaking with Iranian musicians Azin Zahedi, Farahnaz Hatam and a third woman who asked to be removed from this episode for fear of her life. They reflect on the repercussions of the protests, the implications for the Iranian diaspora and how music and art can amplify sociopolitical issues—and galvanise communal action and positive change. Listen to the episode in full. Tracklist: Jo Johnson - Transience Jo Johnson - Vigil Shervin Hajipour - Baraye

In 2023, we're refreshing our Critics' Roundtable format, inviting RA's in-house staff writers and industry specialists to reflect on the releases that resonated with them, as well as the trends and news that's circulating around the music sphere. March's roundtable features Andrew Ryce and Kiana Mickles. In addition to discussing the much-anticipated EPs and albums that they've enjoyed—Caroline Polachek, Nene H, Fadi Mohem and more—the duo also raise important questions about the contemporary club music landscape: how should we consider an artist's core audience, especially when their music taps into an uncharted trend? What is the strategy behind releasing multiple albums at once, like Skrillex's recent double LP? What can we make of the new pop-electronic crossover, and what are the deeper implications of mainstream musicians appropriating underground tropes and themes? We explore these issues and more in this month's roundtable RA Exchange, and talk about our most anticipated new releases for the coming weeks. Listen to the conversation, moderated by RA's Senior Producer Chloe Lula, in full.

In this week's episode of the RA Exchange, we host an exclusive talk with Scottish novelist and playwright Irvine Welsh, who's best known for his 1993 book, Trainspotting. His work raises crucial and provocative questions around class, identity and the human condition, as well as running themes around nightlife and DJ culture. Welsh has always harbored an avid love of electronic music—and acid house specifically. In this live keynote interview at the Night Time Industries Association conference at E1 in London, he talks to RA's Senior Producer, Chloe Lula, about his enduring love of nightlife as well as the grueling creative process, his new record label and how club music has changed with the advent of new music production technologies and the rise of the bedroom techno producer. "All the good things really happen at night, the real freedom happens at night, the real expression happens at night," he says. Listen to the episode in full.

In honour of World Radio Day—which landed on February 13th—this week’s RA Exchange celebrates the power of radio in a documentary-style deep dive. UNESCO inaugurated World Radio Day in 2011 in order to commemorate its efficacy in reaching remote communities, connecting with people everywhere regardless of their education level, and providing a platform for positive and democratic discourse. It's also critical in spreading critical information during times of crisis or emergency. According to UNESCO, "increasing radio's journalistic standards and capacity should be considered as an investment in peace." On a more modest level, podcasting and radio, especially in the world of underground music, can help forge in-person and virtual networks and celebrate and spread new and lesser-known music. During the pandemic, it also held together underground music scenes when people couldn't be together in the club, and sustained a kind of intimacy and connection by letting people share music over the airwaves and community platform chat rooms. In this episode, we hear from various radio producers around the world—including Jamz Supernova, Hana Walker Brown, Dublab Barcelona and Hong Kong Community Radio, among others—about why radio resonates so strongly with them. "Good radio is always an exercise in connection, especially host-led radio,” says Rory Bowens, NTS’s Head of Radio Production. “The fact that it's a live experience is really crucial. People can listen to something in real time with a huge audience of other listeners at the same time, and that intrinsically connects them to each other." Take a listen to the episode in full.

London-based musician I. JORDAN—a disciple of fast-paced, high-energy dance music—has undergone a creative renaissance since 2021. Last February, they were nominated for Best Producer at the annual NME awards, and they celebrated a jam-packed touring and release schedule, which included signing to Ninja Tune. Now, they're on the heels of a residency they oversaw designed specifically for trans and nonbinary artists, produced by Brighter Sound and Generator. They're also planning a tour with close friend and collaborator SHERELLE. "There is something really beautiful about trans only spaces, something that I can't put words into," they tell host Vanessa Maria in this week's RA Exchange. "It's just a feeling. Trans people get it. Trans people know it. It just does stuff to you, and I can't really explain." Their conversation touches on the power of queer community, the spectre of imposter syndrome and the growing importance of nurturing creative outlets for marginalised musicians. Critically, I. JORDAN and Maria also take stock of what the underground scene can do to support trans and nonbinary artists by reconfiguring some of the industry's deeply rooted discriminatory practices from the ground up. Take a listen to the episode in full. This episode was recorded at Qube in East London.

DJ Perception is lauded as one of the leading voices in the contemporary UK garage landscape. His sets are widely known for being jam-packed with exclusive dubplates and sought-after cuts of slick 2-step, and his productions are just as highly revered, blending elements of UK garage with house and soul. “I like to make all types of garage, but never commercial music," he tells moderator Heléna Star in his interview. "It’s just underground.” In this live listening party hosted by Timehri Records and the Black Artist Database, the artist talks with Timehri head T Dunn about the production of his most recent LP, Journey To The Star, which landed on the label in October 2022. They also listen to segments of the record and discuss its wider concept and construction with a live audience. "The music I make has to be soulful," DJ Perception says. "It can be dark, but it has to be groovy and it has to be soulful. That's how I work." To hear more about the album, the diversity of the UK garage continuum and the underrated practice of bedroom music production, listen to the conversation in full.

Amsterdam-based DJ Antal Heitlager needs little introduction. As a co-founder of Rush Hour—a globally respected label and distributor of rare and collectable records—he has been disseminating his distinct vision for buoyant house, hip-hop, disco and more for over two decades. For this special edition of the RA Exchange, the artist and entrepreneur is interviewed by Berlin-based DJ Juba about the label and store’s 25-year anniversary, as well as his first forays into record collecting and the changing landscape of vinyl distribution in an ever-digitalizing world. To hear more about the inception of his legendary shop front and imprint, listen to the conversation in full.

In a scene dominated by thundering techno and its industrial iterations, Scotland’s experimental electronic landscape often goes unnoticed. This niche community of creatives finds inspiration in the country’s ethereal yet contradicting past, combining folk traditions with avant-garde production. In this documentary-style podcast, RA contributor Rowan Crerar speaks to artists, labels and festivals about the deep relationship between Scottish music and folklore. Hyperdub affiliate Proc Fiskal, musician Gavin L. Sutherland, Aberdeen's aerial community radio, interdisciplinary artist Abby Beatrice Quick and Glasgow label 12th Isle each discuss the complex nature of Scottish identity, highlighting how topics such as archaeology and science fiction influence creative practices. For more insights, listen to the conversation in full.

Peggy Gou is one of electronic music's biggest celebrities. Her catchy productions, high-intensity DJ sets and personal style have propelled her to the upper echelons of stardom—a journey that's brought an equal number of fans and critics. "There are a lot of assumptions about me," she tells moderator Souhayla Ou-Oumar during a live RA Exchange at last year's Amsterdam Dance Event. Over the course of the 50-minute conversation, which includes a Q&A with the audience, the label owner, producer, DJ and fashion designer spills the beans on her decision-making process, how she deals with haters and maintaining authenticity. Emphasising the power of saying no, the Korea-born artist explains how she executes her creative philosophy by being selective on projects. "I have a great team who follow my vision but basically, I'm a control freak." She says she's never had a manager and does all social media herself because "I don't like it when people tell me what to do." To hear more about how Gou finds inspiration, why South Korea is a place of healing for her and the importance of listening to the body, listen to the conversation in full.

There's a lot to be excited about this year. For the first Critics' Roundtable of 2023, RA staffers sat down to discuss the events, DJs, producers and technological developments that are poised to shape the electronic music landscape over the next twelve months. Featuring senior staff writer Nyshka Chandran, Bogotá city manager Luisa Uribe and US account manager Natalie Papaeracleous, the conversation starts in Colombia where artists such as Julianna and Matías Aguayo are creating parties and platforms that spotlight local talents. The group then explores how nature influences festival programming, focusing on the likes of Terraforma in Italy, Vietnam's (Re)treat and Thailand's Karma Kastle. Buzzworthy artists Sansibar, Amantra (AKA HUMA) and Hessle Audio's Toumba also get a mention, as does Venezuela's euphoric raptor house genre. Finally, the trio share their concerns and predictions for the Instagram economy, AI-generated music and the ethics of sampling. Listen to the conversation in full for more details on these topics.

Since at least the 1970s, artists have composed music for plants. From Mort Garson’s Plantasia to dublab's Plant Music compilation, albums recorded with nature in mind often intend to stimulate growth or simply entertain leafy creatures. This episode of Source Material, a documentary-style series, explores the symbiotic links between electronic music and house plants. Diving into the world of frequencies and root systems, @martharadio speaks to various experts to learn how nature responds to ambient tunes and synthesisers. Among them are biotherapeutic musician Imka, Joe Patitucci of PlantWave, an app that translates plants' biorhythms into music, sound artist Karine Bonneval and composer Erland Cooper. To discover how bass frequencies mimic bees and why festivals are adopting sonic soil pollution, listen to the episode.

Slimzee is a legend in every sense of the word. He launched Rinse FM alongside Geeneus and Uncle Dugs in 1994, running the station for three years out of his bedroom. His shows, focused on garage and grime, paved the way for the genres' current architects. As a member of Pay As U Go Cartel alongside Wiley and Flowdan, he also helped lay the foundations for early grime. Speaking to @martharadio, the East London veteran discusses the specifics of the Rinse FM compressor, explaining how he learnt to fine-tune frequency levels through trial and error. Back then, it was normal to focus on a specific sound in mixes and DJ sets but now, genres are more fluid, he noted, describing how he currently plays hybrids of dubstep and grime. The duo then go onto discuss the dos and don'ts of DJing with an MC, Slimzee's favourite festivals as well as his mental health journey. Listen to the conversation in full for more details.

Dance music deepened its presence in pop culture this year, expanding into TikTok's nichest corners as well as Billboard Hot 100 charts. For the December edition of the Critics' Roundtable, staffers Chloë Cochran, Whitney Ajayi, Martha Pazienti Caidan and contributor Vanessa Maria reflect on the major milestones of 2022. Electronic music was part of global conversations on gender disparity and sexual violence, the group noted. Women's safety in clubs was a particularly concerning issue this year, they continued, highlighting incidents of needle spiking at clubs. On a more positive note, they applauded Butterz cofounder Elijah, RA's guest editor from earlier this year, whose efforts to educate on issues in the music industry led to a staff position at SOAS University of London. To hear more about these topics, as well as the popularity of higher BPMs and definitive tunes like "B.O.T.A. (Baddest Of Them All)," listen to the chat in full.

Byrell The Great is a name synonymous with New York's ballroom scene. The Harlem native is known for his story-telling prowess and cheeky edits that span hip-hop, pop and meme culture, all of which are on full display in his seamless production, spirited DJ style and his high-energy mix series, Vogue Workouts. Live from Resident Advisor's 21st birthday celebration at Nowadays, the ballroom don discusses his involvement in the Kiki scene and the genre's growing popularity in mainstream culture. Speaking to staff writer Kiana Mickles, Byrell describes how he attended his first ball thanks to Teyana Taylor. He then goes to elaborate on the nuances of ballroom music, what sets New York's Kiki landscape apart from the wider scene and DJ etiquette during a ball before venturing into his production techniques. Finally, Mickles and Byrell flesh out what it means for the culture when artists such as Beyoncé and Madonna incorporate ballroom references. For more details on each of these topics, listen to the conversation in full.

Faced with shrinking margins and higher rents, event organisers are finding new ways to keep the party going. As the cost of living crisis continues to eat into club land, promoters around the world are increasingly being forced to adapt to shrinking margins. This new episode of Source Material, our documentary-style podcast series, shines a spotlight on Glasgow, Taipei and Chicago, where local organisers are testing out unconventional forms of inclusive promotion in response to widespread economic uncertainty. In Glasgow, Han Read runs a monthly night called Events Research Programme that operates off a Patreon subscription model. Bonjour, meanwhile, is a queer venue in the Scottish city that runs as a co-op, sharing a minimum 50 percent of its profits among staff in an effort to acquire more financial freedom. In Taipei, venue 23 Music Room is using its non-traditional business model to bolster the next generation of promoters while RA contributor Steve Noah describes the state of DIY parties in Chicago. Listen to the full conversation for details on each of these scenes. Producer: Rose Manson Executive Producer: Martha Pazienti Caidan

"I hate being recorded," Mala says nine minutes into this interview. "I don't like my sets being recorded, I don't like being video recorded." The Deep Medi boss and DMZ cofounder is describing his fiercely independent nature to journalist Kieran Yates, explaining how bright lights and prompts leads to self-consciousness. That's why DMZ parties are held in dark rooms, as to encourage freedom, he continues. Authenticity is a defining theme of Mala's career. Speaking to Yates live at SOUP in Manchester as part of RA's 21st birthday celebrations, the Croyden-raised artist discusses how signing a record deal with EMI at the age of 20 led to misrepresentation. This early exposure to the industry's commercial backbone paved the way for DMZ's democratic, inclusive ethos, he tells Yates. "If I create something that's true to myself, and I can live an authentic existence, somehow by us all being ourselves, I think that makes the world better." For more on the dubstep pioneer's approach to sound design and growing a community, listen to the chat in full.

It's been a busy year for Jessica Cho, AKA Korea Town Acid. She's put out three records since 2021 and built close ties with neighbouring cities like Montreal and New York all the while finessing her live hardware shows. Speaking to Resident Advisor during MUTEK Montreal this past August, Cho unpacks her creative philosophy and the inspiration for her new album, Elephant in the Room. "There's always pressure to make a banger," she says on the topic of sonic identity. "Sometimes, I just want to do what I do and make art." An advocate of cross-genre styles, the Toronto-based talent relies on her instincts when it comes to production. "I just try to do my thing, even if it's not digestible for everybody." Elephant in the Room is more than just palatable. Weaving in rap, jungle and glitch, it features an all-Canadian roster of guests and serves as a time capsule of Cho's pandemic experience. "I felt like I was the elephant in the room, isolated and trying to record this album." A classically trained pianist, Cho has a wide range of influences that informs her craft. To hear more about her love for hip-hop, how she began building her modular set-up and what the Toronto scene is like, listen to the full conversation.

New York's dance music culture evolves every weekend. A constant wave of new collectives, promoters and artists, combined with a host of legacy names and an ever-growing batch of enthusiastic ravers, infuse the city with a vivacious energy that's hard to find elsewhere. This episode of Reflections, a series that digs deep into RA content, pays tribute to New York nightlife through three heartfelt anecdotes that capture the vibrancy of past and present communities. Taken from RA's new limited-edition book Sacred Spaces, each message focuses on special party moments. Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy describes her quest to seek spirituality and communal transcendence through music, focusing on her experiences at David Mancuso's seminal The Loft party. Sharon White, a veteran name in New York's clubbing history, recounts the night of her unexpected debut at The Saint, an East Village spot that operated during the 1980s. The impromptu set went until 2 PM in the afternoon, leading the way for White to become one of the top grossing DJs on The Saint's roster. Finally, RA's editor-in-chief Whitney Wei describes coming of age at Palisades, an intimate Bushwick venue that lasted only two years but considerably shaped her club experiences. Sacred Spaces, available for £29.99 via the RA Store, features 26 tributes to the dance by the likes of Kevin Saunderson, Róisín Murphy, Eris Drew and Octo Octa, among others.

"Everyone knows I'm a lively character, I like the party." Oliver 'Skream' Jones is attempting to explain his stamina over a near two decade-long career and true to his unpretentious personality, he makes it sound easy. The 36 year-old has been making music since the age of 15 and despite being a busy father, this hour-long, unfiltered conversation at RA's London headquarters confirms that his love for the dance is as strong as ever. Discussing his childhood, the seminal Dubstep Forum and and finding confidence through music, the dubstep legend reveals how his social skills, born from childhood visits to the pub with his father, gave him his first record store job. "My musical taste is all over the place, my range is broad," he says. That includes pop, a style that he likes for its collaboration with underground producers. Skream's endurance in an industry that's synonymous with burnout is remarkable but he simply attributes it to pure instinct. "When something feels right, I do it. I don't see it as change, I see it as a natural feeling." That's why he made the decision years ago to focus on house and techno instead of dubstep, a style that he transformed from dark and slow to ravey. "I play for myself but that's what my fanbase has grown to love." That intuition also applies to his productions. "I've got to a point where I know what I want to hear and make it happen. That comes from doing the same thing for a long time." In the studio, he says he regularly listens to tracks repeatedly "and if it ever gets boring" or doesn't bring "a certain feeling," then he knows it's not ready. To hear about his approach to remixes, his parenting style and what he has in the pipeline, listen to the conversation in full.

Mykaell Riley has worn a number of hats in the music business. Starting off as a vocalist and founding member of Grammy-winning roots reggae band Steel Pulse, he's since dabbled in marketing, consulting, artist management and composing for the big screen. As director of a University of Westminster research project that examines the legacy of Jamaican music in the UK, he currently explores how ska, reggae, dub and lovers rock, among other genres, impacts British pop culture. Speaking to Vanessa Maria as part of Resident Advisor's ongoing partnership with Black Minds Matter, Riley discusses the historical positioning of Black music in the UK through the lens of his own experiences. From working with EMI and Island Records to becoming an educator, he explains how infrastructure and accessibility has changed the playing field for artists. He also pinpoints current injustices around Black British music, noting the need for more Black professionals in behind-the-scenes jobs. "Rave comes out of Black British music and even bands that you might not associate like Massive Attack or Prodigy are a component of the presence of Black British music," he describes. Yet, the cultural and creative value of Black British artistry has mainly benefitted non-Black communities, he warns. "It's the business end that we should be looking at as to why and how that continues to happen." To hear more about Riley's distinguished career and his thoughts on the current state of the industry, listen to the full conversation.

This past August, a panel of artists, creatives and various members of club communities gathered in Berlin to discuss the threats weighing on global nightlife. Part of Jägermeister's #SAVETHENIGHT initiative to rejuvenate the after-dark economy as well as Tresor's 31st anniversary celebrations, the discussion touched on a variety of social, economic and community issues such as gentrification, inclusion and safety that Resident Advisor later unpacked in a digital feature. The latest instalment of Reflections, a new series on the Exchange that explores content on RA's site, goes deeper on some of these topics. Discussing the sustainability of club culture, Bernard Koomson from Berlin-based creative studio DeadHype notes how more collaboration has helped build critical infrastructure while knowledge sharing can help a younger generation learn from their predecessors. Manchester promoter Alice Woods, who co-runs the Meat Free club nights as well as her own event for people with disabilities called All Under One Roof, emphasises the importance of parties as a welcoming arena for all individuals. "People with disabilities are still quite left behind," she describes. "That's a wider societal issue but I think as a nightlife industry as, as a clubbing sector, I think we can be ones to lead the way on that." For more details, listen to the conversation in full. https://save-the-night.com

In a way, every Critics' Roundtable episode feels like a time capsule. Each month, the show documents the tracks and talents on the personal playlists of RA staffers, serving as a snapshot of the musical zeitgeist at the time. On this edition, staff writer Kiana Mickles, software engineer Alex Wanyoike and senior writer Nyshka Chandran outline their most listened to records from the past three months and noteworthy artists in their respective cities. Discussing Kelela's long-awaited return from a long hiatus, the trio note how her new single marks a departure from her earlier club-oriented cuts. Moving onto the production duo of Abdul Raeva, whose heavy-hitting style brought back memories of the '90s UK label Orbital Records, the conversation gets into the ever-evolving palette of rave music. Djoser in Washington, DC, is more percussive techno than pure rave but he's a key US name who's leading the way for innovative club music and his dextrous drum work on his latest EP, Expand, gets a mention here. Shifting gears, the trio go on to describe some of their favourite local acts such as Damo B, a Manchester veteran with an extensive radio career. River Moon in New York also wins praise for breaking the mould of "techno stoicism," a term that describes when artists take themselves far too seriously. For more details on artists to watch and the trio's favourite RA's mixes of the year, listen to the conversation.

Patrice Rushen is the type of musician whose skill set can't be neatly summed up in a few sentences. After studying to become a classically trained pianist—work that began while she was barely a toddler—she arranged, performed and composed three albums of jazz fusion for Prestige records in the mid-'70s, all while landing sessions playing with the likes of Donald Byrd and Jean-Luc Ponty. She was already a highly respected arranger, writer and instrumentalist in her scene and one of the few women at the time to lead their own band and control the creative process. But it was her five album stint for Elektra Records that really brought her virtuosic musicianship, songwriting and her voice to disco and R&B. If you haven't heard her music yourself, you've almost definitely heard it sampled by the likes of Mary J. Blige, George Michael and the Men In Black theme song (calling it a sample is generous—the producers more or less added Will Smith's vocals to a modernised version of her 1982 composition "Forget Me Nots."). Apart from her career as a performing and recording artist, she's also a veteran music director, calling the shots for big budget tours, awards ceremonies and TV shows. She even composes symphonic pieces for orchestras and has a growing portfolio of film soundtracks. Listen back to Zakia Sewell's 2019 conversation with the veteran artist to learn more about her multifaceted career.

Shanti Celeste is one of those artists whose personality matches her DJ style. Her fun-loving nature and breezy demeanour always light up a room, as do her vibrant sets that span sunny house music, slow-burning disco and emotive techno. Fresh off her Hessle Audio debut, the London-based artist sat down with RA's Martha Pazienti-Caidan for an honest chat about track selection, bad gigs and her approach to production. During DJ sets, the Peach Discs co-founder doesn’t like to focus on genres. Instead, "I think about, like, building and releasing tension and making sure that I stay in a specific energy level," she explained. "Whereas before, I think I knew the energy I wanted to bring, but I didn't know how to do that cause I was just thinking about everything in terms of genre." Reaching this holistic stage, however, took time. It was a process of acquiring knowledge and experience but also confidence, she described, adding how she previously had "really bad imposter syndrome." Learning to deal with bad gigs and recognising that certain factors might be outside an artist’s control are essential to self-realisation, she continued. Going on to discuss her experience of playing big festival stages, she noted the importance of "learning what side of yourself to channel" rather than compromise on music. For more details on her experience playing with fellow women DJs, her lockdown romance and recording her vocals, listen to the chat in full.

What did your summer sound like? For the RA staffers featured on this month's episode of the Critics' Roundtable, the answer ranges from dubby jungle to cheeky UKG to hazy krautrock. Looking back on their favourite records from recent months, managing editor Chloe Lula, Mexico City manager Valeria Martin del Campo and senior writer Nyshka Chandran highlight Dax J's Soul Enforcer,Prelude by Barbie Bertisch and Lichi's latest fruit-inspired compilation. The conversation then shifts to special live performances. Aquarian's dextrous mixing at Dekmantel gets a mention, as does SCHNITT and Gianluca Sibaldi's captivating AV performance at MUTEK Montreal, where they scanned audiences in real-time. Moving onto industry trends and significant news stories, the trio discuss the significance of Mexico City online radio station Aire Libre shutting down, the impact of algorithmic populism on artists and the massive labour crunch in event production jobs. For more details on each of these topics, listen to the full conversation.

Bahar is an avid collector of rare vinyl, possessing one of the world's biggest vinyl collections. The artist has embodied the vinyl-only ethos since growing up in Chicago in the '70s—the heyday of gospel, funk, and jazz soul in the US. He started the party Soul In The Hole with Lee Collins, which embodied and celebrated his passion for what he calls "real" music—music made by "real" musicians playing "real" instruments—and is still actively touring and spreading the spirit of Chicago house at sets around the world. He and Lula discuss kinship among collectors, the origins of Black funk and the instrumentation that brings this singular genre to life. Listen to their conversation in full.

In many ways, Eli Escobar represents the soul of New York nightlife. He can literally play any genre, often jumping from Afrobeats to garage to disco in a single session—a wide-ranging style that's unique to the city and tangible on his recent RA podcast. First emerging on the scene in the late '90s, he's built a reputation for consistently drawing loyal crowds without ever compromising on his personal style and his long-running parties are every promoter's dream. Live from Nowadays, the native New Yorker speaks to staff writers Kiana Mickles and Nyshka Chandran about his decades-long career. From growing up in the city during the '80s and '90s to holding down weekly residencies, Escobar reflects over his time in the industry while sharing valuable lessons for up-and-coming acts, including why it's ok to take one's time as a producer. For details on his hip-hop background and why he thinks Brooklyn will remain New York's nightlife capital, listen to the conversation.

Like countless others, Steve Goodman played a lot of video games during lockdown. At the time, the artist known as Kode9 and founder of the iconic Hyperdub label found himself imagining a game about Scotland and the country's plan to set up a colony in Panama back in the 1690s. Those thoughts later crystallised into Astro-Darien, an AV installation, "sonic fiction" and album that explores Scotland's space program and its past colonial ambitions through the lens of a video game. Speaking to RA on this week's episode of the Exchange, Goodman delves into the various facets of this project, including Escapology, his score to Astro-Darien. The album, released in July, is "like a film trailer that's giving you a little taste of various bits of story and strands of a kind of palette of sounds and a world," he explains. "So if you want, there's places to go deeper on it but if you are not interested in that, just treat it as a slightly weird dance music record." Science fiction aside, the Hyperdub founder also discusses the cyclical nature of music and why jungle is currently experiencing what many have called a revival. "Music doesn't move forward, it doesn't progress in a linear fashion," he describes, attributing that to "generational relationships." For more deep thoughts and Goodman's guide on hiking in the Scottish Highlands, listen to the conversation in full.

This volume of the Critics Roundtable, Resident Advisor's monthly podcast that showcases staff selections, looks back at the summer's important moments and releases in electronic music. Over the course of 40 minutes, podcasts chief Martha Pazienti Caidan, events writer Katie Thomas and content intern Fahad Akinsanya each recap a memorable news story, record and live performance from the past two months. Offering insights, opinions and most importantly, discussion, the trio praise the reopening of London venue The Cross and analyse The Jaguar Foundation's latest report on gender diversity in UK dance music. Also on the agenda is the public backlash against RA's critical review of Beyonce's new album. In terms of new releases, the new EP by Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal gets a mention, as does Sierra and CalvoMusic's "Fast Lingo." Finally, the trio highlight their favourite festival gigs, which include Vanyfox and Tame Impala at Primavera Sound. Listen to the episode for all the details.

Patrick Topping's love of dance music stretches back to his early teenage years when he discovered mákina, a subgenre of hard Spanish techno that's popular in North East England. "I still love that music now," he says on this week's episode. Since those early days as a young raver in Newcastle, Topping has become an in-demand artist known for a wide range of styles that includes happy hardcore, classic pop and gospel-inflected house. Currently holding down a summer residency at DC-10 in Ibiza, which he describes as "the pinnacle of my career," the UK artist explains how he reached this stage after starting out in the industry as promoter, following in his father's footsteps. After being mentored by Jamie Jones, Topping says he's now in a position to pass on insights to younger artists as well as support emerging talents through his residency and label, Trick. Topping then goes onto his discuss why he prefers to play sober these days—"it changed my relationship with DJing"—and why he controls his own social media presence—"you're pulling together bits of media to tell your story, it's kind of like DJing." Listen to the full conversation for more details.

A repeat episode from 2020. Lafawndah's second album, The Fifth Season, on French label Latency, is a journey through science fiction, friendship and cinematic storytelling. It saw the Paris-born artist expand the myths of NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and cover the likes of Beverly Glenn Copeland and Lili Boulanger. The record continues a four-year run of avant pop jewels, kicked off by her a debut EP for Warp and a collaboration with minimalist composer Midori Takada in 2018, before her first full-length statement, 2019's Ancestor Boy. Here, she speaks with Martha Pazienti Caidan about the making of The Fifth Season, an LP that's elemental, emotional and uncannily fitting for the present moment.

Berlin has witnessed an alarming number of drug and needle spiking incidents in recent months, raising worries about nightlife safety in one of the world's top clubbing destinations. In this edition of Reflections, a new series on the RA Exchange that breaks down important journalism on our site, staff writer Anu Shukla and managing editor Chloe Lula examine the context surrounding recent spiking claims. Shukla, discussing her article on the topic, describes how she spoke to two women who said they were spiked with needles at Berghain and Sisyphos. Their stories have pushed others to share their own experiences with spiking, Shukla says. Lula, who has been looking into the socio-economic and political climate behind spiking, notes how some clubbers may now feel unsafe going out alone. The pandemic has brought about a rise in anti-social behaviour and regressive attitudes towards sex, which could be a factor behind spiking, she describes. Listen to the full conversation to understand how spiking poses serious implications for women and minorities in nightlife. For resources on community care, harm reduction and mental health, revisit our list from earlier this year: https://ra.co/features/3961

Darren Dixon, AKA D Double E, wants the world to know that he's not just a MC. In a short but deep chat with London DJ and presenter Tash LC on the sidelines of Outlook Festival's debut UK edition, the grime veteran discusses his recent productions for for the likes of Novelist and others. Despite producing for years, Dixon has largely hidden that side of his artistry from the public. But that's now changing following the release of his latest EP, Bluku! Bluku! 2. "It's a separate life but I'm now pushing it into the world," Dixon tells Tash LC ahead of his live performance at the festival. His production and vocals on the new EP touch on classic grime but there's also elements of '80s synth music and R&B. The record is a reflection of his personal tastes, he explains. Putting out new music is a chance for fans to see his personality, he continues, noting how that's not always possible during live grime shows. "When I'm doing grime sets, they're playing mad beats and I have no choice but to spit on the beat," he says. Listen to the full conversation for more details on Dixon's creative process as well as his collaborations with Swindle and Chip.

New music, community-driven parties, tech talk and more from RA staffers. Every month, members of Resident Advisor's global team highlight their favourite artists, exciting labels and industry trends on the Critics' Roundtable podcast. This edition, featuring senior designer Lucy Ross, senior US partnerships lead Lottie Moore and senior staff writer Nyshka Chandran, jumps across genres and regions in a reflection of the trio's myriad tastes. Selections feature records with an introspective touch, setting the tone for a mindful summer. From the furious breaks of NIGELTHREETIMES to V.C.R's gospel-inspired soul to Joy Orbison collaborator KEYAH/BLU, the group describes how each artist incorporates a cinematic gloss into their respective compositions. Elsewhere, Honolulu-based label Aloha Got Soul gets a mention for its commitment to showcasing Hawaiian funk and jazz, as does young amapiano star Uncle Waffles, whose global footprint keeps expanding. Recent developments impacting the electronic music ecosystem are also discussed. Moore looks at community-building initiatives of promoters, highlighting Los Angeles' Mapamota and noting the potential of chat platforms such as Discord to strengthen ties with punters. Ross, meanwhile, summarises how AI is influencing brand identity from a designer's viewpoint. Listen to the full podcast for more.

As a DJ, Rafaela Andrade AKA Badsista channels her childhood, culture and history into no-holds-barred sets that blur the lines between Chicago house, techno, hip-hop, pop and baile funk. At this year's edition of Nuits Sonores, the São Paulo creative jumped from Rihanna to acid, incorporating a medley of styles she grew up with. "I'm a result of my time," she tells Resident Advisor at the Lyon festival. Growing up, Andrade says she was constantly exposed to music from family members, street parties and friends. Those influences, reflected in her mixes and performances, add a degree of intentionality and meaning to her craft, she explains. Baile funk is a recurring sound in her sets and productions. Speaking to Lula about the genre, Andrade discusses similarities with punk rock and how the genre varies around Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, it's percussive and faster while in Belo Horizonte, it's slower and more vocal-heavy, she describes. Baile funk is also deeply intertwined with local politics, she points out. Federal programs under former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva provided computers to working-class neighborhoods, enabling more people to access music-making software. Under the current government, however, equipment has become expensive, which is weighing on the creative economy, she warns. When Andrade isn't DJing, she focuses on education and club nights. As co-founder of collective BANDIDA, she helps to throw parties in São Paulo that showcase women artists in addition to teaching women of marginalised backgrounds how to DJ and produce using affordable hardware. For more details on her community-oriented approach to nightlife, listen to the full conversation.

Reflections, a new addition on the RA Exchange, takes a magnifying glass to long-form journalism on our website. On each episode, writers break down their latest feature in an effort to shed more light on underlying issues surrounding the story. As part of Resident Advisor's technology month, senior staff writer Nyshka Chandran investigated how blockchain networks known as Decentralized Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) are looking to disrupt the global nightlife industry. Here, she outlines how she came across the niche world of Web3 nightlife and explains the cautious sentiment behind this fast-growing sector. While several DAOs throw parties featuring electronic music artists, only a few seek to operate their own venues and transform the process of event curation, she notes. But their lofty ambitions are tied to the fate of the cryptocurrency market, which could ultimately make or break a DAO, she warns. Listen to the full conversation for more details.

A repeat episode from last year in celebration of Pride month. Steven Braines and Sophia Kearney founded the party brand He.She.They. in 2018 with a mission to make their events "a utopia where people feel they belong whilst expressing their utmost individuality." Their first event was at London's Ministry Of Sound and has since visited Pacha, Watergate, Rex Club and other big-name venues in Europe, Asia and the United States. They also run the artist management agency Weird & Wonderful, representing acts like Jossy Mitsu, LOUISAHHH and Maya Jane Coles, who's also a regular DJ for He.She.They. In conversation with journalist and author Marcus Barnes, Kearney and Braines expand on the history and ethos behind the brand, having to trade DC10 for London lockdown and their Pride parties in Brighton.

As an artist focused on experimental electronics, visuals, AI and augmented reality, Portrait XO is used to thinking in a multidisciplinary approach. Whether developing sound installations, musical dining experiences or audiovisual albums, the Berlin-based creator consistently intertwines music, art and immersive technologies. This integrative way of working stems from the artist's synesthesia, a neurological condition in which people experience one sense through another. "It's like a cross wiring of senses," Portrait XO explains on this episode of the Exchange. Exploring synaesthetic reactions between sound, taste and sight is now a major element of her work. One project involved her performing music based on sounds that she experienced from flavours. Most of her productions are centred around human-machine collaboration. Her 2020 album, WIRE, used machine learning to generate ten hours of new audio from just hour of her recorded vocals. Working with AI "feels like a 50/50 collaboration, at least when it comes to melodies," she describes. While AI isn't smart enough to create full lyrics and melodies, it's "a really great idea sparker and something I’ll hear will then inspire me to write the rest of the melodic phrase or the best lyrical idea that I get out of it," she continues. For more details on how synesthesia and machine learning influence her creative process, listen to the full conversation.

Two new faces join Head Of Podcasts Martha Pazienti-Caidan on the June edition of Critics' Roundtable, Resident Advisor's monthly podcast that showcases the varied tastes of our contributors. Over the course of 40 minutes, Glasgow City Manager Rose Manson, Staff Writer Zoey Shopmaker and Pazienti-Caidan herself present their favourite music and new stories from the past three months. Their selections include New York producer K Wata, whose recent 12-inch connects the dots between loopy drum patterns and experimental ambient, as well as the 10 year anniversary compilation of UK label Local Action. Kiernan Laveaux's March mix for Noods Radio is also highlighted, as is the new Air Max '97 EP and Glasgow community radio station Buena Vida. Towards the end of the chat, the trio discuss a directory of women, trans and non-binary producers, the slow pace of festival ticket sales and efforts to end sexual violence at large gatherings. Listen to the conversation in full.

Collaboration is intrinsic to creative jobs. Whether you're a lone wolf or a team player, it's impossible to avoid partnerships and group coordination. But working with other people can get messy, especially when ego is involved. As part of Resident Advisor's ongoing collaboration with Black Minds Matter, this episode of the Exchange explores how alliances affect an artist's craft and wellbeing. In separate conversations with UK singer-songwriter Aluna and Hamburg-based DJ crew SLIC Unit, host Vanessa Maria asks them about the challenges of building collectively versus individually. For SLIC Unit, being part of a network is all about mutual trust. Each person brings different talents to the table so it's important to reinforce each another while streamlining the decision-making process, founding members Nissa and SENU describe. "Being together or being in a collective always means more work," they say, referring to the need for clear communication, empathy and making time for everyone's projects. SLIC Unit practices what they call "radical solidarity," a support system that reduces chaos and stress while enabling them to have fun while working. Aluna, on the other hand, has a solo career in addition to being one-half of the duo AlunaGeorge. For her, going solo meant confronting her relationship with fear. Being in a band provided her with a sense of safety but that ultimately became a warning bell, she explains. "I knew that I was using it as a safety net from a place of either displacement or fear," she continues, alluding to her issues with racism and sexism. At the end of the day, it's important for artists to establish stability and security within themselves before they can join a group, she notes. For more insights on how creatives can preserve authenticity and self-worth in a team environment or on their own, listen to the hour-long podcast.

Pirate radio, dubstep and documentary filmmaking—the many faces of Heny G. Malcolm Christopher Gustave, AKA Heny G, is a name synonymous with pirate radio and dubstep. Through his own shows and station, he championed a melodic style of the syncopated, sub-bass sound that's since influenced several of the genre's stalwarts. Speaking with Resident Advisor contributor Marcus Barnes, Gustave explains how his love for radio pushed him to champion diverse artists in dance music. Tracing the trajectory of his time in the industry, Gustave describes how he started in pirate radio at the age of 13. Developing an obsession with jungle, garage and house music, he went onto work at Rinse FM during the 2000s when it was still an unlicensed platform. Around that tinme, he also launching his own station, React FM. While DJing and presenting, Gustave fine-tuned his signature style of emotive dubstep. Nine years since the release of his debut album Child Hood, his soulful productions continue to resonate with old and new heads alike, as Barnes points out. Over the past year, Gustave has been working on a documentary called The Last Weekend. Chatting to Barnes about the creative process, he outlines his entry into filmmaking and how the art form has added another layer to his ever-evolving career. Listen to the discussion for the full details.

On the debut episode of our new Reflections series, New York staff writer Kiana Mickles analyses recent developments in local nightlife following the closure of a treasured Brooklyn venue. Resident Advisor publishes several pieces of long-form journalism per week but due to word count limitations, there's only so much information our reporters can pack in. To ensure important stories get the full coverage they deserve, we've started a new series on the RA Exchange. Reflections takes a deeper dive into the editorial content on our website by inviting writers to dissect one of their recent features. A behind-the-scenes look into the conceptualisation and research behind these articles, Reflections aims to provide updates on the highlighted topic as well as shed light on the journalistic process. For the inaugural episode, New York staff writer Kiana Mickles discusses her feature on Bossa Nova Civic Club from February this year. Ever since a fire forced the iconic venue to close indefinitely, Brooklyn nightlife hasn't been the same, she explained in a conversation with Martha Pazienti Caidan. The club was celebrated for its weekday programming but now that it's shut, Brooklynites have fewer party options on school nights, Mickles described. Bossa's fire is one of many disturbing incidents in New York nightlife this year, she continued. Recent episodes of violence and crime in various clubs have shaken artists and punters, particularly those from minority backgrounds. Mace-like fumes were reported at Nowadays, Rash was the victim of an arson attack and allegations of drink spiking at popular venues remain rampant. Listen to the full conversation below for more details on these issues. https://ra.co/exchange/610 Tracklist: quest?onmarq - Tropical Goth https://questionmarcdj.bandcamp.com/album/tropical-goth-rave-water Ben Bondy - Everything I Can't Be [Quiet Time] https://benbondy.bandcamp.com/album/ben-bondy

Live from Rewire Festival, Planet Mu affiliate Jana Rush and sound researcher Caroline Claus discuss gender politics, audio equipment and urban landscapes. At this year's instalment of Rewire Festival, which took place in The Hague from April 8th to 10th, artists were paired with sociologists and anthropologists for a series of stimulating conversations. One discussion between Chicago producer Jana Rush and Caroline Claus, a Brussels-based sound researcher, stood out for its interconnections between dance music and urban environments as well as gender and technology so for this week's Exchange, we're presenting their chat. Rush, known for her experimental forays into footwork and juke, incorporates a range of textures in her albums. From industrial to funky, her tracks frequently enter the realm of sound art but no matter how avant-garde she gets, her city remains a constant source of inspiration. Whether evoking the groove of house vocalists or the Windy City's politically-charged jazz movement, she's been a pillar of Chicago's club community for years. Claus, meanwhile, focuses on a topic known as "sonic urbanism," or how noise and vibrations impact city spaces such as railways and parks. Whether using field recordings for urban planning or engaging with the concept of sonic warfare, her studies explore interactions between individuals and spaces through sound. It can be said that both Rush and Claus are rooted in a sense of place—albeit in different ways. Rush, for instance, explained how she draws inspiration from music played in passing cars. The two also tackle the role of gender on their respective equipment. Claus mentions how her identity shapes the intentions of her recordings while Rush describes how she felt compelled to master technical equipment because "if you don't know what you don't know, people are gonna capitalise off that and they're not gonna let it go because you're a female." During their 25-minute long talk, Rush also explains how she uses binary code and how people often perceive her as aggressive. Listen on for the full details. Tracklist: Jana Rush - Clown [Planet Mu]

Every day at Resident Advisor, we discuss the latest interesting music but there's only so much information we can pack into features, reviews and news. The Critics' Roundtable podcast, part of our Exchange series, is a chance for the team to go deeper into striking artists, records and industry trends in the global club underground. This instalment, featuring senior staff writer Nyshka Chandran, music editor Andrew Ryce and chief creative and brand officer Kazim Rashid, touches on recent releases in London, Ecuador, Atlanta and beyond. First, each highlight their favourite albums from the past four months, with selections ranging from Terrence Dixon's supremely abstract techno to Marcela Dias Sindaco's sexy electro. Next, contributors discuss an artist or platform of note. Washington DC label PPU gets a mention, as do the hard-hitting bass mutations of Nikki Nair and Colombian label Insurgentes. Finally, Nyshka, Andrew and Kazim reflect on significant developments in the electronic music world, commenting on the ongoing attempts to get artists paid for online mixes, the intersection of club music and theatre and the recent passing of hip-hop icon DJ Kay Slay. Tracklist: Alabaster DePlume - Visitors XT8B – Oak [International Anthem] Terrence Dixon - Aurora - Other Dimensions [30D Records] Marcela Dias Sindaco - À Flor Da Pele - Rio de Janeiro 3025 EP [Fixed Rhythms] Nikki Nair & Nala - The World Is Always Ending - The World Is Always Ending [Dirtybird] Dwight Sykes - You’re Exactly - On The Rocks [PPU] PVSSY & Entrañas - Manía (Menzi remix - Fervor [TraTraTrax] Terrence Dixon - Aurora - Other Dimensions [30D Records]

Zepherin Saint's first release, 1988's Give Me Back Your Love as Boyz in Shock featuring Carol Leeming, was one of the first soulful house records to hit the UK. Saint played a key role in the UK's dance music scene, but as journalist Marcus Barnes highlights in this week's Resident Advisor Exchange, the influence and value of his work over the years has often been overlooked. Saint grew up in Harrow, North West London. His earliest experiments with music happened at school, playing the drums in a band making music that he describes as "Spandau Ballet funk, soul and pop tracks." The tunes were so good that their teacher organised studio time so they could make a demo. Handed down one of Harrow's key soundsystems from his older brother, Saint would go on to build rigs, and recording studios, of his own, supplying the sound for many acid house nights as the scene exploded. He worked at legendary London shop Black Market Records and spent time in the US managing R&B artists like Terri Walker, before returning to the UK to launch Tribe Records, bringing dance music from South Africa and establishing the blueprint for what is now the Afro house scene. Today, Saint is based in Melbourne, where he's started a new label, Inner Sauce, to celebrate the live house sound bubbling there. In an enlightening conversation with Barnes, Saint discusses Melbourne's return to partying post lockdown, building soundsystems, finding his identity in London as a young West Indian man, working at Black Market Records and how he's now turning his focus back onto his own productions.

Nik Colk Void's new LP, Bucked Up Space, is her ninth studio album, but her first as a solo artist. Based in Norfolk, Void is an electronic musician and analogue synthesiser virtuoso who forms part of both Factory Floor and Carter Tutti Void (with Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti of pioneering industrial group Throbbing Gristle). Her work has been released on iconic labels like DFA, Mute and Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records, and in late 2017 she released 33 33, a collaborative record as NPVR with the late Peter Rehberg of Editions Mego. In this week's Resident Advisor Exchange, Void talks about her relationship with Rehberg and how her confidence grew significantly through their working together. Without him, she explains, she may not have found the voice and the language she was looking for to put out her own full-length record. It is fitting and meaningful, therefore, that on April 8th, Bucked Up Space came out on Editions Mego. In conversation with RA writer Katie Thomas, Nik Colk Void discusses her album, the process of mastering analogue synths, the art and value of collaboration and affirming performances—plus details about a new Factory Floor record that's on the horizon. Tracklist: Nik Colk Void - Big Breather (Editions Mego) Nik Colk Void - FlatTime (Editions Mego)

This week's Resident Advisor Exchange was recorded in January, live from Southbank Centre in London. Shortly before their Royal Festival Hall performance with The Outlook Orchestra, drum & bass and jungle originators Fabio & Grooverider sat down with Heléna Star to talk about the show. As you can hear from the applause and roars of laughter throughout the recording, the audience was besotted. The UK dance music scene would look very different without Fabio & Grooverider's contributions over the last few decades. Coming from pirate radio, where they first teamed up in 1987 on Phase One, the duo would go on to carve out the path for drum & bass and jungle, as well as to influence the trajectories of house, techno and breakbeat. Grooverider captures their legacy best when he says: "We are this music." Launched in 2017, The Outlook Orchestra has collaborated with other pioneering artists like David Rodigan and Mala. The show with Fabio & Grooverider, which they will perform again at Outlook Festival in June, saw 30 years of drum & bass history packed into 31 tracks. In conversation with Heléna Star, Fabio & Grooverider discussed how the show came together, as well as their staying power in the scene, the legacy of their seminal club night Rage, how drum & bass is still growing and how humour is a vital part of their relationship. Fittingly, they also cracked a lot of jokes.

This week's Exchange was recorded in November 2021 as part of our Full Circle series, which celebrates women in electronic music. DJ, producer and community organiser JADALAREIGN sat down with two of Resident Advisor's staff writers, Kiana Mickles and Nyshka Chandran, at our New York office. JADALAREIGN was raised about an hour north of New York City, in a musical household soundtracked by funk, soul, hip-hop and R&B. Growing up in a predominantly white neighbourhood impacted how she operates today—her work prioritises cultivating community, as community wasn't always something she felt she had. After playing instruments, studying fashion and ending up in a corporate job, JADALAREIGN became increasingly engaged in music through her side hustle as the music director for an entertainment blog. In 2015, she took her first DJ lesson and felt instantly drawn to the craft. Gradually, she grew more and more immersed in the New York scene. Today, JADALAREIGN is a booker for leading New York club Nowadays, using her role heading up the Friday night programming to create more space and opportunity for people of colour in dance music. She also runs a workshop series called SKILLSHARE, which supports other women of colour, as well as queer folks, non-binary people and trans people, wanting to learn about the ins and outs of the music industry. In 2020, she launched In Sessions with Sam Law and FIVEBOI, a digital production camp that, when it first launched, reached around 300 people daily from 30 different countries. In this Exchange, JADALAREIGN discusses her work and community projects, how New York's dance music culture has changed in recent years and the importance of the scene's players engaging in honest reflection to increase diversity. She also touches on the value of mentorship for marginalised creatives and what can be done to prevent artists of colour feeling tokenised. Tracklist: JADALAREIGN - 2B2S (HAUS of ALTR)

This week's Resident Advisor Exchange, recorded live at AVA London with journalist Kieran Yates, forms part of Elijah's guest-edited month. Throughout March, we've run curated content published with the intention of demystifying the music industry. Elijah & Skilliam began DJing together in 2007. In 2010, they launched a label, Butterz, putting out music from the likes of Terror Danjah, Royal-T, Flava D and Murlo. Over the course of the next decade, they played a vital role in the way grime developed and exploded in the UK. Elijah is also an artist manager, looking after the careers of Flava D, DJ Q and Swindle. He uses his platform and deep understanding of the inner workings of the music industry to share tips and probing questions to help shape the future of electronic music. As we wrap up Elijah's guest-edited month, he spoke to Yates about how the industry has changed since his early years as a DJ, the difference between creating art and creating content, the limitations of not engaging with electronic music outside of Europe, and how the measure of your legacy as an artist won't just be about your art, but about how you interacted with others and shared your knowledge. Tracklist: Phil Keiran - No Life (Roman Flügel Remix) (Hot Creations) KiNK - Disco Spectrum (Sofia)

Laila McKenzie began a life in dance music when she was 16 years old, collecting glasses in a club in Sheffield. She has since acquired an intricate knowledge of the music industry and of house in particular, having spent her life promoting, managing events, dancing and most recently co-authoring Lady Of The House with Ian "Snowy" Snowball, a book that tells the stories of more than 150 pioneering women in dance music. From March 8th through 12th, to coincide with International Women's Day, the inaugural Lady Of The House exhibition took place at Lost Horizon in Bristol, where McKenzie is based. In this week's Exchange, which was recorded before the exhibition, she discusses how Lady Of The House came to be and how the three pillars—celebrating, championing and honouring women—tied into the multi-day cultural exhibit. According to McKenzie, Lady Of The House is about preserving the legacy of dance music. "We've started levelling the playing field for gender," she said. "Now we need to do it for people from low socio-economic backgrounds, Black, brown, LGBTQI+, disabled women. We need to give them that elevation." In conversation with Vanessa Maria, McKenzie discussed what it means to be a woman in dance music, how she's experienced the industry change over the years, the importance of community and how dance music has been both her demon and her saviour. Tracklist: Just Her - Follow You Down (GU Music)

An archive episode for International Women's Month with the late, great Detroit producer. For International Women's Month, we revisit K-HAND's Resident Advisor Exchange, originally published in November 2019. The "First Lady Of Detroit," as Detroit City Council deemed her in 2017, died in August 2021. The following text is from the original post. Kelli Hand used to be described as an unsung hero of Detroit house and techno but recently she's finally been getting her due. With a production career beginning in 1990, she has a sprawling discography packed with timeless releases for key labels like Warp, Tresor and her own Acacia Records. Over the years she's produced several hundred tracks, each bearing her distinctive knack for jack and a style marked by a timeless flavour of minimalism. In conversation with Matt Unicomb, we hear about how her perspective on releasing music and DJing has changed over the last three decades and her experiences of the ebb and flow of a life spent in dance music. Launching from formative experiences at Paradise Garage and the Music Box, Hand's story covers several vital eras of American dance music history, a lineage that feeds directly into the rare staying power of her productions. Tracklist: K-HAND - Untitled B1 [Acacia Records] K-HAND - Untitled A1 [Acacia Records]

The 600th episode of the Exchange marks a pivot in Resident Advisor’s audio coverage. Source Material, one of our new series, moves towards in-depth, documentary-style reports on the electronic music community and beyond. For the inaugural edition of Source Material, we invite perspectives from Ukraine following the country’s invasion by Russia, which has sparked a humanitarian crisis with over 1.5 million displaced refugees. Starting in 2014, Kyiv became a global dance music destination, due to its world-class venues and festivals, plus the government’s relatively hands-off approach towards enforcing social gathering regulations during Covid. Many flocked to its dance floors during a time when other countries operated under stringent lockdowns, and interest in the city only continued to grow. But the promise of Kyiv’s fertile club scene has been completely decimated by the war. Those who made the community so vibrant are now faced with the unimaginable decision to either flee or fight. The voices within this episode include Timur, known as the producer John Object, an affiliate of CXEMA, who is defending his country as part of the Territorial Defense Force, and Margareeta, RA’s City Manager for Kyiv, who discusses the emotional toll of fleeing from the war. Woven throughout are also interviews with anti-war protestors in the streets of Berlin and the volunteers helping refugees at the city’s main train stations. Guests: John Object, Margarita Evi Interviewer: Whitney Wei Tracklist: John Object - Draft (2010) John Object - Xanax & Silk (Live) (2016) John Object - Kiss (2018)

The jungle and drum & bass pioneer—and captivating storyteller—unpacks his life, career and new book. Alongside peers like Fabio, Grooverider, Jumping Jack Frost, Randall, Micky Finn, LTJ Bukem and Nicky Blackmarket, Ray Keith played a leading role as jungle took over London in the mid '90s. His new autobiographical book, Dark Soldier, is a reflection on his life: his personal journey, his career, the highs and lows, and the many people who have influenced him. It's also the story of how he and the scene moved from analogue into electronic music. "I was in the right place at the right time," he said in this week's Resident Advisor Exchange, referring to the many Monday nights spent at Heaven in London, catching sets from the likes of Carl Cox, Paul Oakenfold and Paul "Trouble" Anderson. "I was a purist, absorbing the sounds." Keith has put out so many records over the years, under so many different aliases, that he's lost count. He's also had radio shows on Vibe FM, Kiss FM and recently Thames Delta radio, cofounded a booking agency and headed up several record labels. He's a legend in the scene with a wealth of stories to tell. In this week's Exchange, Keith talks about growing up in Colchester, the importance of record stores as a community hub, dubplate culture, how music saved his life and the thrill of watching his daughter, AKA LO Selecta, play her first DJ set. Tracklist: Dark Soldier - Need Me (Forthcoming) Dark Soldier - Newman Elec (Forthcoming)

Kadallah Burrowes explores the term "Afrofuturism" with the help of Suzi Analogue, Neema Githere, Mia Imani Harrison and Jackie Queens. This past Juneteenth, Burrowes held a digital event called A Moment In Between (after which this podcast is named) at COMMON, a digital club that forms part of Currents.FM. It was, in their words, "a digital pan-African celebration of Black liberation." The interviewees in this week's Exchange all helped make A Moment In Between possible: artists Jackie Queens and Suzi Analogue, plus cultural critics Neema Githere and Mia Imani Harrison. In this documentary-style podcast, which forms part of our celebration of Black Futures Month in the US, Burrowes et al. discuss the term "Afrofuturism. They discuss its imperfect, controversial nature (it was coined by a white academic), how it intersects with electronic music and its relationship to the legacy of the writer Octavia Butler. Last week's Exchange saw Burrowes in conversation with Analogue, the producer, singer, songwriter and founder of Never Normal Records. This week, Analogue delves deeper into her connection to the concept of Afrofuturism. "Afrofuturism to me is just being Black," she said. "It's a bunch of things. Self-determination, self-preservation and self-expression." Born in Nairobi and now based in Brooklyn, Neema Githere is a guerrilla theorist who works within the digital diaspora. In 2017, Githere coined the term "Afropresentism," which presents the idea that the Afrofuturism being theorised in the '90s and early '00s exists here and now. "Afrofuturism is concerned with space," Githere said. "Afropresentism is concerned with earth." Mia Imani Harrison is an interdisciplinary artist and conceptual creator working within dream technology. Her part in A Moment In Between saw COMMON, which had primarily been a space for music, become a place for Black people to come and talk about their dreams. Harrison's understanding of Afrofuturism began with "intergalactic Black folks" in music—Sun Ra, Grace Jones, Parliament-Funkadelic—and has grown into an interest in artists that build worlds and galaxies in their work. "I've always been interested in expanding our concept of the realities we exist within," she said. "Especially as Black people, because we're already told what we can and cannot do, and the perimeters of the spaces that we exist in." The final speaker is Jackie Queens, singer, songwriter, label and agency founder, and community member of Currents.FM and electronic music network female:pressure. Queens' thoughts about Afrofuturism tie in with Githere's Afropresentism. "People say Africa is the future," Queens said. "But I don't like to look at it that way. I always feel like we're the present." https://ra.co/exchange/598

Suzi Analogue spoke with Kadallah Burrowes about using her label Never Normal to champion innovative Black creators. Suzi Analogue is a loudspeaker for innovative Black creators. In this week's RA Exchange, the producer, singer, songwriter and founder of Never Normal Records speaks with trans-disciplinary artist, musician, creative technologist Kadallah Burrowes about championing art from across the African diaspora. This is the first of two Exchanges hosted by Burrowes, who, next week, will be exploring the term "Afrofuturism" in an audio documentary that forms part of our celebration of Black History Month in the US. Suzi Analogue first experienced club and electronic music in her hometown of Baltimore. Starting out in her teens as a songwriter and producer, her engagement with creative platforms online led to her involvement in events and community radio while studying in Philadelphia. It was when she moved to The Bronx in New York that Analogue first started to feel there wasn't space for young and innovative Black electronic artists to showcase their work. As she played shows abroad and across Europe, she felt encouraged to start a platform of her own, a space to build her own archive and celebrate fellow artists. In 2014, she launched her label Never Normal, a commitment to bolstering Black femme-identifying people to advocate for music, whether through running labels, parties or just shouting about the new music you love. Since its launch, the label has featured work from artists in Atlanta, Oakland, Chicago, Brooklyn, Miami and more. "They're originators in their cities," she explained. "Never Normal is a journey that's building over time." In conversation with Burrowes, Analogue discussed the politics of Black futurism, travelling to Uganda as a US state department cultural diplomat and the importance of capturing and echoing ancestral messages through art and sound. Tracklist: Suzi Analogue - Slow [Never Normal] @uziklip @sunjiru

"My real gift is arrangement." William Orbit opens up on his 40-year career. Share Born in Hackney, London, in 1956, Orbit has been writing, producing and arranging music for four decades. With almost 1,200 credits to his name on Discogs, his vast and varied body of work spans classical, pop and electronic. He produced for some of pop music's most seminal artists—Madonna, All Saints, Blur, Robbie Williams, Pink—as well as being, as his interviewer Matt McDermott explains, "one of the most prolific electronic music remixers of the '90s." He released 11 solo albums and seven collaborative albums—as part of Torch Song, Strange Cargo and Bassomatic—and founded Guerilla Studios in the '80s, working with artists like Cabaret Voltaire and Gary Numan. In 1995, Orbit released the Pieces In A Modern Style LP, which paved the way for musicians like Nils Frahm and Jon Hopkins, who bring together classical arrangements with electronic production in revelatory ways. The journalist Kate Hutchinson described Orbit as "the Mark Ronson or Jack Antonoff of his day." But as this conversation with RA highlights, Orbit is once again enjoying his day. Having, in his own words, "spent 20 years becoming disengaged," he has just put out his first solo release in seven years—the Sunbeam EP on Anjunadeep—and things are feeling good. "I know how to have fun," he said. In conversation with McDermott, Orbit shares stories about his fascinating career, how to make a great record, working with Madonna and how to stay relevant in a fickle industry. Tracklist: William Orbit - Diso [Anjunadeep] William Orbit - Wordsworth [Anjunadeep] @williamorbit

FAUZIA, DamnShaq and counsellor Darlington Zvionere discuss performance anxiety and how to overcome it with Vanessa Maria. As part of Resident Advisor's wellness month, and in collaboration with Black Minds Matter, host Vanessa Maria discusses performance anxiety—what it is, how it manifests, how to overcome it—with FAUZIA, DamnShaq and Psychotherapeutic counsellor Darlington Zvionere. Support Black Minds Matter here: http://bit.ly/BMMRA In simple terms, performance anxiety is stage fright. As Zvionere explains, artists may experience everything from clammy hands to stiffness and blurred vision, which then impacts their performance. It's a vicious cycle, he says, as a falter in your performance will likely lead to increased nerves next time. "Be the best you can be in that moment," advises Zvionere. "Worry about tomorrow, tomorrow." In her own experience as a DJ, Maria has suffered from performance anxiety to the point of cancelling shows and relying on the influence of alcohol to calm her nerves. She speaks to DJ, promoter and presenter DamnShaq, known for his "madman" energy in the booth, about the pressure he used to put on himself. He reflects on how the pandemic has allowed him some time to reset and make peace with the fact that his boisterous stage character is not a sustainable way to function day-to-day. For FAUZIA, whose transition from DJing to having a live show has come with a huge increase in pre-performance anxiety, steadying her nerves is a work in progress. She speaks to Vanessa about fine-tuning her set, stepping away from social media and the confidence boost of working with Kelela. Black Minds Matter is a charity on a mission to connect Black families with free mental health services from qualified Black therapists. They are currently looking for 21,000 long-term donors who are able to donate £5 per month. With your support, they will be able to take steps forward to achieve their goal of lasting impact on Black mental health. Contributions can be made on the website if you are in a position to do so. Tracklist: Space Afrika - yyyyyy2222 [Dais Records] Fauzia - Lap, Sir Fauzia - When It's All Over [with Kelela] Fauzia - Lap, Sir Kundai - Decisions House of Pharaohs - Okay (Instrumental) andarctica - waiting on the tides @djfauzia @damnshaq

A rare, revealing interview with the long-time Circoloco resident. For many years, Andrew Grant was one of Circoloco’s most ubiquitous DJs. He landed on the White Isle in the summer of 2001, having spent a few months in Sheffield, England, DJing whenever and wherever he could. Yet, in spite of his widespread public appearances, Grant’s personal accounts of his past are little known given his reclusive character—until now. For this week’s exchange, host Marcus Barnes engaged in a candid conversation with Andrew Grant about his experiences grinding in the clubbing Mecca, teaching lacrosse in the northern UK and even working briefly as DC10's light technician. Raised in Baltimore, Grant’s first musical memories involved listening to Baltimore club radio stations late at night. Back then, he wasn’t allowed to listen to radio, so he’d have to do so quietly and away from prying ears. He recalls catching the Basement Boys remix of the Crystal Waters club classic, “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless),” on MTV, feeling inspired by the fact these artists on the TV were from his hometown. When Grant first began DJing in 1988, he was spinning hip-hop records at house parties and in basements across the city. “I had a box of records and a decent pair of headphones,” he tells Barnes. “I felt like I was doing the right thing.” It wasn’t until a visit to NYC club Twilo in the mid-’90s that he really began to engage with dance music. A few years down the line, in Ibiza, Grant caught his first big break—he was invited to play a Thursday morning after party at DC10. Not long after, he was playing primetime slots on a Monday at Circoloco, before becoming the first American resident of the iconic Ibiza brand when he was just 24-years-old.

The PAN affiliate talks opera, cooking and solitude. Read more: https://ra.co/exchange/593 @pan-daijing

Dreaming 2 B REAL. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/592 @finnmccorry

Riding the wave from DIY hardcore to DIY dance music. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/591 @relaxerrelaxer

A roundup of our favourite albums, mixes and moments of the year. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/590

Talking mental health and jazz with the Booty Bass boss. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/589

Get free with the Fake Accent boss, live from Unsound 2021. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/588 @tygapaw

Fusing instruments and electronics with a core member of the legendary group. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/586

A driving force behind Audiowhore, Siesta and Eskimo Dance bridging grime and house histories. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/587 @stevencee

Fusing artist management with diversity and inclusion. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/585

Welcome to the Muvaland. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/584 @CAKESDAKILLA

The producer behind some of the biggest albums in recent memory shares his creative process and musical journey. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/582

Scaling new heights with one of the most important artists of the last five years. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/582

From the airwaves to the dance. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/581 @tash-lc

Healing house from South Africa to the world. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/580

Exploring Sound Of My World with the renowned Afrobeats producer. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/579

Untold stories with the HTK Productions founder. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/578

Connecting the history of women's lament with contemporary music practice. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/577 @nite-jewel

Mastering the arts of production, singing and songwriting. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/576

The BBC Radio 1 upstart building toward utopian futures.

The powerhouse singer welcomes you to Gigi's House. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/574

Welcoming a breakthrough artist with a world-beating sound. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/572 @tshamusic

Connecting contemporary African musics with diasporic communities. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/571

Bamboozling techno innovations. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/571 @BAMBOUNOU

The journalist documenting abuses at sea who opened an archive of field recordings to musicians. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/570

Getting Pretty Weird with the artist formerly known as Barely Legal. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/569 @dj-barely-legal

Bridging the UK and US rap scenes. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/568 @tiffanycalver

Ash Lauryn speaks with one of Detroit's most distinctive musical voices. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/567

Riding Chicago house's second wave with the edits specialist. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/566 @jamie3too6

Clipz, Lobster Boy and a Dream Vision Future. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/565 @redlight-uk

Black and queer storytelling with the PRIM founder. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/563

Navigating the rough and the smooth with the revitalised UK producer. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/563 @KARENNYAMEKG

Getting to know the music behind the man. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/562 @vvvirgilabloh

Talking electronic music history and education with the Bob Moog Foundation executive director. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/561

The story of No Signal radio. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/560

Howie Lee, Yu Su, Bézier and Angela Lin talk background, memory and identity for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/559

Three decades of classic American techno. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/558 @john-beltran

The resurgent East Bay producer tells his story. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/557 @dax-pierson

Standout electronic music from March and April. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/556

Andrew Mensah speaks to the CDR founder about navigating ego as an artist, community entrepreneurship and what's next for the platform. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/555

Talking the tenth anniversary of "Another Girl" and NFT music releases. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/554 @jacquesgreene

The House Gospel Choir founder speaks to Heléna Star. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/552

The PC Music alumnus talks Harlecore, his debut album for Mad Decent. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/552 @dannylharle

A dedication to the late synthesist following the release of her first album in 30 years. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/551 @igetrvng

The Intervention founder shares her story with Vanessa Maria. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/550 @ifeoluwa_1234

Utopian raving with the rising party promoters. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/549

The producer, DJ and Rinse FM host in conversation on the eve of the release of her new EP, Grotto. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/548 @objectblue

Three contributors share highlights from electronic music in 2021. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/547

Vanessa Maria in conversation with the Play Nice co-founder. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/546

The Fractal Fantasy cofounder talks Virtua, CGI and Ten Billion Angels. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/545 @zora-jones

An insight into the life of the audio documentary maker and DJ. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/544

South Africa's house music icon. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/543 @realblackcoffee

The multimedia artist soundtracking the singularity. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/541

Andrew Mensah speaks to the Touching Bass cofounder for the first in a series of interviews released with Black Minds Matter. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://ra.co/exchange/541

A live Exchange with a pillar of UK funky. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=540 @roskaroskaroska

The House Of Silk founder talks UK garage and the London events landscape. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=539 @deejay-s-houseofsilk

Setting the record straight on deep tech. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=538 @markradford

Tajh Morris, Ash Lauryn and Matt McDermott reflect on a year of dramatic upheaval. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=537

The funk legend connecting with a new generation. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=536

London's afro house advocate shares his story. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=535 @sefkombo

The Teklife innovator returns with his second album. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=534

BBC Radio 1's longest serving DJ celebrates 50 years of broadcasting. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=533

Darren Cunningham talks karma and desire. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=532

A live panel from Unsound Lab on rethinking music journalism. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=531

A driving force behind 4 Hero, Reinforced Records and 2000 Black speaks to Heléna Star. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=530

The drum & bass innovator talks through his first album in 14 years. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=529

Dance music's harbinger of ecocide. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=528

A live online exchange with the dance pop star. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=528

How the Red Hot Chili Peppers' guitarist learned to think like an electronic musician. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=527

A vital presence in modern music tells his story. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=526 @gaikasays

Exploring science fiction, friendship and cinematic storytelling. For more, visit Resident Advisor: residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=525 @lafawndah

The Hyperdub mainstay sits down with Martha Pazienti-Caiden. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=524 @ikonika

The RVNG Intl. star lifts the lid on her new album. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=523 @kate-nv

How artists and activists are facing up to homophobia in Poland. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=521 Sign the petition to free Margot Szutowicz: https://www.change.org/p/zbigniew-ziobro-the-public-prosecutor-general-zbigniew-ziobro-sejm-pl-free-margot-s-o-s-sexual-and-gender-democracy-in-poland?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=custom_url&recruited_by_id=fd89a790-8b48-11e3-a148-398209ede71a&fbclid=IwAR1HHPZ6EyF9xxlUedLPyp5tBiHYwG5RlkveyIxyPAWgccyA5Quf4p9RBFQ

A trailblazing figure of Detroit dance music speaks to Ash Lauryn. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=520 @djminx

One of the UK's essential DJs reflects on the state of dance music and his recent DJ Kicks mix. For more, visit Resident Advisor: http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=519

The R&S artist holds forth on his journey from the conservatory to the club, and the importance of Black music and representation to dance music's future. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=518

The electronic pop producer shares the story behind her new album. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=517 @jessylanza

Five DJs remember their first public performance. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=516

The multifaceted artist shares the ideas behind his media-crossing works. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=515 @duvaltimothy

Putting the Detroit in Detroit techno. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=514 @detroitwax

What makes community radio so crucial in times of crisis? For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=513

From Slum Village to hi-tech jazz with the Detroit luminary. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=512 @waajeed

The film composer looks back on his electronic roots. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=511 @junkiexl

The electronic-pop auteur speaks her mind. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=510 @actuallygrimes

Techno surrealism with the Cabaret Voltaire cofounder. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=509

Talking eternal music with a profoundly moving artist. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=508

E.M.M.A., Pearson Sound and Blackdown on the software that democratised electronic music. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=507

The Turner Prize-winning artist on the social and political importance of rave culture. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=506

Hardcore, gabba, breakbeat techno, rave—Vivian Host hears from the New Yorker who pioneered them all. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=505

The brothers Hartnoll tell their story live from inner city electronic. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=504 @orbital-4

d-_-b For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=503 @black-jazz-consortium

27 perspectives on how the coronavirus crisis is impacting the international electronic music community. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=502

Tens across the board for the ballroom star. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=501 @vjuan-allure

Exchange number 500 with the talented Mr. Jenkinson. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=500 @squarepusher

A new podcast series highlighting what makes local scenes great. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=499

Polish activists talk threats and strategies against right-wing violence and homophobic rhetoric, live from Unsound 2019. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=497

The creative force behind Munich's BLITZ club tells his story. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=497

Bristol drum & bass and beyond. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=496

An essential piece of Detroit dance music history share his story with Ash Lauryn. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=495

The singular techno artist reflects on his best album yet. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=494

24 hours in our world. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=493

Sónar festival's head of communications shares decades of experience at shesaid.so's MEETSSS conference. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=492 @sonarfestival @shesaidso

The avant-garde icon talks life and death. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=491

Exploring the the art of activism live from ADE 2019. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=490

Exploring the intergenerational links of UK sound system culture. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=489 @shyonebeats @j-j-frost

RA's editorial staff select their personal favourites of the year. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=488

DeForrest Brown, Jr. unpacks his new record for Planet Mu. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=487

The deaf experience of electronic music and Gabber Eleganza feature on this month's episode. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=486

A sitting with one of Detroit's most crucial producers. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=485 @khand

Judy Griffith and Andy Blackett reflect on two decades at the top of London clubbing. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=484 @fabric

Patrice Bäumel, Gunnar Haslam and Telefon Tel Aviv discuss the financial challenges facing music producers. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=483

From post-punk to modern electronics with the Berlin maverick, live in conversation at MUTEK. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=482

The iconic voice of Phreek, Logg and Black Ivory tells his story live from Dekmantel Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=481

UK garage history 101 with a pillar of the scene. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=480 @djspoony1

In a pacific state of mind. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=479 @808-state-official

Four critics, one table. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=478 @indiajordan @gabber-modus-operandi @schacke @moma_ready @voltek

Richie. Hawtin. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=477 @richiehawtin

Veterans and newer faces share their experiences of a changing music industry live from Dekmantel Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=476

25 years of dance music amidst California's natural beauty. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=475

The Atlanta house doyen kicks off a new series of podcasts hosted by Underground And Black's Ash Lauryn. @kai-alce @ashlauryn @undergroundandblack

Bridging house, soul and folklore with a musician that's seen it all. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=473 @osunlade

Angus Finlayson speaks to Avalon Emerson, Mat Dryhurst, Marta Salogni and others about the impact of streaming services on artists. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=472

DJing, production, running labels, distribution—we hear from the German artist who does it all. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=471 @cinthie

Live from RA's Paris Community Connections event with the DEMENT3D records boss. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=470 @francoisx

The prodigiously talented composer looks back on an illustrious career. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=468

Bringing avant-garde music into the 21st century with the French polymath. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=468 @fefeatkinson

A look inside the mind of one of house music's most intriguing figures. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=467 @chez-damier

An all-star cast ponder the future of dance music culture live from IMS 2019. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=466

This month, we look into the environmental impact of the vinyl industry and the delicate art of posthumous releases. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=465

From Flesh to Heaven and back with a crucial Manchester DJ. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=464 @djpaulette

A crucial figure in dance music radio tells his story live in Sydney. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=463 @timsweeney

A pillar of dance music history reflects on thirty years of Inner City. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=462 @kevinsaunderson

Dance music's patron saint in session live from AVA Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=461 @theblackmadonna

The founder of shesaid.so tells her story live at the second edition of Full Circle. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=460 @shesaidso

Where the Berlin underground meets the main stage. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=459 @modeselektor

The life and times of one of Scotland's most inventive techno artists. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=458 @neil-landstrumm

An iconic designer in electronic music and beyond shares his story with Trevor Jackson. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=457

The man in orange shares his spiritual journey through sound. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=456 @laraaji

Behind the scenes at Movement, the defining event from the birthplace of techno. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=455 @paxahau

RA's North American editorial team talk top releases, DJs and trends. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=454

Words of wisdom from the lord of the dance. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=453

Take a tour of the UK's wildest rave and explore the implications of Brexit on electronic music. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=452

Lucky Cloud, Classic Album Sundays and Klipschorns. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=451 @colleen-cosmo-murphy

We check in with the London promoters as they prepare to host their first festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=450 @krankbrother

The Discwoman cofounder reflects on five years of techno feminism. Find out more about this Exchange with Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson on Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=449 @discwoman

A lifelong raver and DJ answers her true calling. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=448 @kimannfoxman

This month's episode opens with a profile of an exciting sound from Tanzania. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=447

We hear from the techno innovator making fascinating large-scale art works. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=446 @dasha-rush

Sassy J, Varg and Hieroglyphic Being feature in this panel discussion recorded at Dekmantel Festival 2018. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=445 @sassyj @somuchnoise2beheard

Our second podcast with The Knife cofounder this week is a live interview recorded at Unsound 2018. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=444 @olofdreijer

The co-founder of one of London's best drum & bass nights tells her story. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=443 @mantra

A conversation with Midori Takada and Lafawndah also features in this month's podcast. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=442

A look inside the fine art of directing music and arts festivals. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=441

One of Germany's top DJ exports gives her deepest interview to date. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=440 @tinicouldbeworse

A sitting with the diva of the diode. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=439 @suzanneciani

We return to Dekmantel Festival for a live version of one our favourite feature series. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=438

A conversation with a true eccentric of modern music. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=437 @jimi-tenor-official

RA's editorial staff look back on the year. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=436

Drug education strategies for promoters, politicians and ravers. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=435

Pushing drum & bass forward with a true don. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=434 @dbridge_exitrecords

King of the synths. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=433 @richarddevine

Exploring a golden era live from RA's 24/7 party. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=432

An interview with the founders of Pink Noise Zine also features in this month's episode. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=431 @nyege-nyege-tapes

Throwing shade with the NTS and Ninja Tune favourite. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=430 @nabihahiqbal

The Warp maestro in conversation at Dekmantel Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=428 @throttleclark

Examining the complex relationship between club culture and corporations. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=428

Live with the Shadow Wolf at Dekmantel Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=427 @legowelt-official

This month's episode features a pioneer in drug harm reduction and a thriving UK label. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=426 @lobster-theremin

An extended conversation with the man from Mo'Wax and UNKLE. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=425 @james-lavelle

One of London's leading promoters explain how they throw enormous parties. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=424

56 minutes of real talk with a singular techno artist. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=423 @ternesc

Living dangerously with the enfant terrible behind TodaysArt, the Netherlands' key interdisciplinary arts and music festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=422 @todaysart

New York's shapeshifter on the peaks and troughs of a decade in the business. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=421 @faltydl

This month's show features kids and parents raving together, the soundsystem from a legendary club and a look at one of Amsterdam's best venues. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=420

We hear the story of how the label manager, booking agent and journalist became a key figure in Berlin techno. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=419

The missing link between free jazz, dancehall and metal. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=418 @ninja-tune

The hybrid drum & bass duo on conquering the States. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=417 @ivylab

We hear about the comeback of one the Midwest's most creative producers. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=416 @tduvante

Flares and power moves with the long-serving Warp duo. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=415 @plaid

The French DJ gives his most candid interview to date. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=414 @jeremyunderground

This month's edition looks at one of the most controversial recreational drugs in existence. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=413

A conversation with one of dance music's best-loved live acts, recorded live at AVA Festival. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=412 @kink

This edition of ://about blank's Amplified Kitchen series tackles how the internet is shaping activism. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=411 @about-blank-berlin @femalepressure

We get Beatdown by Detroit's master of hypnotic deep house. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=410 @mixmodedetroit

Real talk with the New York shapeshifter. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=409 @dennis-ferrer

The R&S founder reflects on thirty years of groundbreaking electronics. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=408 @r-srecords

We check in with Innervisions' master of classical house. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=407 @henrikschwarz

The Birmingham prodigy talks Godflesh, techno and staying sane. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=406 @jk-flesh

Lisa Smith tells her story onstage at Unsound 2017. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=405 @djshiva

Ibiza through the ages with a dance music polymath. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=404

This month we discuss some of the year's best releases and ask how artists fill the countless hours they spend travelling. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=403

The BBC Radio 1 MVP explains her rise to the top. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=402 @btraits

From Mount Everest to Hollywood with the game-changing DJ. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=401 @pauloakenfold

We celebrate 400 Exchanges with the Hamburg assassin. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=400 @helena-hauff

On this month's show we look at how label managers and A&Rs handle the tricky process of giving feedback on artist's music. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=399

Inside the sonic mind of a Midwest techno master. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=398 @d-knox

Vera and Alexandra tell the story behind one of Berlin's hottest labels. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=397 @melliflowrecords @veragoesdeep @alexandra_melliflow

Exploring the substance of Berlin techno. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=396 @peter-kuschnereit

This month's show also features some horror stories about DJs losing their records. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=395 @ableton

A key voice in modern electronic music reflects on the experiences that shaped her thought-provoking sound. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=394

Chasing the essence of music with one of Germany's most gifted artists. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=392

Hard Wax, female:pressure and granular synthesis. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=392 @indigo

What makes a great soundsystem? That's one of the questions we'll be trying to answer on this month's show. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=391

We talk to Radar's Ollie Ashley about the station that's becoming an essential part of the London music community. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=390 @radarradio_ldn

Recorded live at Loop with Discwoman's Shyboi, stud1nt and DJ Haram. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=389 @djshyboi @stud1nt @djharam @ableton @discwoman

Everything is recorded with the brains behind XL Recordings. For more, visit Resident Advisor: https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=387 @xl-recordings