DJ Flight has been a constant throughout the many peaks and troughs of drum & bass. She's one of the genre's key chroniclers, with a real-time history of drum & bass in her archives as a radio presenter, and a level of behind the scenes involvement that spans decades. While Flight's advocacy for equitable gender representation in drum & bass through her EQ50 collective is the most visible, it's by no means the sole initiative. Her work also extends to the Prison Radio Association—the...
Jun 24, 2024•2 hr
The first thing you might realise during a MUSCLECARS set is the sheer musicality of the duo's selections. Vocals glimmer at the centre, unfolding into enchanting, soulful coos, while drums strike captivating rhythms and gilded synths reach towards the sky. It's a jazzy New York house sound mythologised by pioneers like Joe Claussell, Carlos Sanchez and Timmy Regisford (whose songs all make it to this RA Podcast). For years, New York natives Brandon Weems and Craig Handfield have run their Color...
Jun 17, 2024•2 hr 12 min
Young partygoers might know Man Power, AKA Geoff Kirkwood, as the earnest geezer going back-to-back with DJs like Ewan McVicar, Paul Woolford, La La and Skream—peak-time specialists with a fine line in boofy bangers and ravey techno. Kirkwood is also a dab hand at the kind of elliptical house and deep cut detours favored by '00s labels like DFA and Optimo. In spite of a long track record as a producer and promoter, if you had to boil Kirkwood's work in recent years down to a single quality, it m...
Jun 10, 2024•2 hr
People tend to remember the first time they see BEIGE DJ—and a lot of the times after, too. One RA editor described them as "doing some crazy shit" after seeing a set. The Detroit DJ is all about playing to party rock, but also gently subverting expectations. It's a cliché now that good DJs can make whole new tracks out of blending existing songs together. Few embody this as easily or effortlessly as BEIGE, who loves to take sounds you already know and present them in a context you've never hear...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 32 min
Actress' highlight reel needs little exposition. Darren J. Cunningham has been a prominent yet inscrutable figure in electronic music since the late 2000s, typically flickering to life from the margins before receding into the shadows. Beloved albums like R.I.P., Karma & Desire and Splazsh may switch up the template, but the Actress hallmarks of haze, murk and showstopping beauty remain. As you'll see in the interview below, he's a man of few words—that's in character for him. What's charact...
May 27, 2024•54 min
Julia Govor is one of those artists who can take the fundamentals of techno and make it sound hers. At this point in her career, the Georgia-born, New York City-based artist has established a style that feels half-Rome school, half Japanese hypnotic techno, but fully Julia Govor. Her label Jujuka has become a home for the stuff, featuring plenty of her own work along with like-minded folks like EMIT and Victoria Mussi, and she recently put out the biggest and best release of her career with the ...
May 20, 2024•1 hr 10 min
"All in my life, I've gone back and forth between North and East London," Karen Nyame KG said in a recent mini-doc about her studio process. "These areas are multicultural [...] you just become a sponge for that type of energy." More than two decades into her career, these parts of the UK capital remain a defining influence on The Rhythm Goddess, whose music weaves together ideas from across London and the diaspora, blending R&B and soul with global dance music forms. A leading face of Londo...
May 13, 2024•1 hr
This past February, Tesfa Williams released his debut album—over 20 years into his career. Raves Of Future Past distilled decades of experience on London dance floors into a potent and powerful blend of grime, house, rave and techno. Made with an Elektron Digitakt to imitate the rough textures of early '00s UK dance music, the LP is an anachronistic history lesson that throws everything in a blender, imagining what gqom might sound like as an Eski track and giving new life to the short-lived "su...
May 06, 2024•1 hr 29 min
Simon Aussel is known for a particularly wild DJing style and leftfield bassy bangers, and it's his curious and playful approach to clubland that's won him loyal fans over the years. Whether photographing drink tokens from gigs or creating an 8-bit version of his debut album on a Game Boy cartridge, he seems to approach every endeavour with childlike joy and wonder—rare qualities in an industry that can leave so many jaded. The Nantes-born, Paris-based artist's love of club culture, digging and ...
Apr 29, 2024•1 hr 47 min
By anyone's standards, KI/KI has had a meteoric rise. She started DJing at queer party SPIELRAUM in Amsterdam in 2018, and by now she's one of Europe's most-talked about DJs. She blends modern strands of techno with trance and acid in a way that feels all her own, veering away from the sugar highs of other DJs or the clobbering kick drums of so much fast dance music. Her style is aerodynamic and sleek, not bludgeoning. In addition to her DJ career, KI/KI runs the label slash, which has put out m...
Apr 22, 2024•1 hr 36 min
Earlier this year, we described Los Angeles act 1morning as one of the funkiest young producers in modern-day techno. And we stand by it. The fast-rising upstart is building a solid fan base around North America and beyond with a rugged, vintage style of swung techno and hardgroove. His all-vinyl DJ sets and pumping productions on the likes of Fixed Rhythms and Mála Ádh stand out for their distinctly old-school flavour—steamrolling hi-hats à la Robert Hood, swift choppage behind the decks and de...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Sam Coates took to techno like a diligent pupil, falling in love with the genre through labels like CLR in the late '00s. It didn't take long for the student to surpass his proverbial teachers. Almost immediately, the Manchester native was putting out pitch-perfect, functional techno records with everything intricately balanced. The requisite move to Berlin only sealed his fate as a future techno luminary, and by now, based in Kyiv, he's one of techno's most reliable, yet exciting, workhorses. S...
Apr 08, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Most underground movements in the arts can be boiled down to one key ingredient: friends doing dope shit together. Childhood BFFs Luca Medici and Delbert Perez have been doing just that with INVT (that's "innovate"), a multidisciplinary art project that spans club music and streetwear. Before exploding onto the international stage and playing to massive crowds in Ibiza and Tulum, the Miami natives built a solid community at home through electrifying DJ sets, releases and fashion. They might be g...
Apr 01, 2024•1 hr 4 min
Last year, when we wrote that "the best UK garage is coming out of Los Angeles," we were talking about Introspekt. The US DJ, who has since moved to New York, really understands the genre—its appeal, swing and unique, bassy whomp. Listen to any of her tracks, like last year's "Forlorn," and you'll hear someone who produces like she's been making UKG all her life. This is probably partly because she comes from a dubstep background, but either way, if you're looking for new UK garage beats, Intros...
Mar 25, 2024•1 hr 35 min
Berlin label and collective Live From Earth crew does things its own way. And it works. Over the past ten years, the team has become a major force in the city, mixing a killer ear for techno and house with a sense of humour and pop sensibility that has proven irresistible to audiences and scenes around the world. That's why we chose Live From Earth for our latest cover story: its DIY attitude, humble origins and tenacious spirit are everything we love about underground dance music. Accompanying ...
Mar 18, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Of all the Berlin DJs who make a living spinning strange, I'm-not-sharing-the-tracklist kind of records, Sugar Free, originally hailing from Madrid, might be the most fun. She plays bold, colourful tracks with an air of sci-fi and sleaze, somewhere between Italo, hi-NRG, electro and house. (Her Dimensions Mix last year was one of our favourites of 2023.) She's the kind of DJ who messes with your perception of genres and tempos by how she blends tracks together, and also a DJ with a rare grasp of...
Mar 11, 2024•1 hr 17 min
FAUZIA is an artist of many moods. The UK talent moves from IDM to soul on her NTS Radio residency, while her club DJ sets reveal her love for '90s-style breaks, electro and bass-heavy sounds. In the studio, she explores her softer side through self-released homespun dub and ambient jungle. In recent years, she's gravitated towards live performances. Her gossamer vocals, one of her strongest suits, cuts through live instrumentation like a hummingbird in agile flight. In 2020, the London-based ta...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Shubostar's RA Podcast begins and ends with video game music. (The beginning kind of sounds like Mary Poppins, actually.) Lots of DJs and producers play or make music that emulates the nostalgic sounds of old-school gaming, but the South Korean artist goes direct to the source. Before falling in love with dance music, she went to an animation-focused high school and learned how to make video games—so it's basically in her musical DNA. And while her DJing isn't as out-there as you might expect fr...
Feb 26, 2024•1 hr 2 min
If Bitter Babe was a perfume, her scent would be animalic—heavy musk, bergamot, worn leather and burnt spices. The Bogotá-born, Miami-bred and now Berlin-based artist has a heady, ultra-rhythmic sound that feels made for sweltering summer nights and feral fantasies. Combining pan-Latin styles with hard drum and industrial touches, she's crafted a singular mood that defines her DJing and production: hazy, high-energy and sensual. Bitter Babe's ascent on the international circuit has been tied to ...
Feb 19, 2024•1 hr 25 min
Detroit might be synonymous with techno, but it also has a rich house tradition. And Rick Wade—FKA Big Daddy Rick—is one of Detroit house's key players. Along with the likes of Keith Worthy, Theo Parrish and the late Mike Huckaby (who Wade had a lifelong friendship and friendly rivalry with), he created a hybrid sound that is both techno and house, effortlessly soulful, sculpted and glowing—and Midwest to the core. As Tajh Morris said in a retrospective review of one of his classic records, "gro...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr 34 min
Mogwaa is a Seoul-based DJ, producer and multi-instrumentalist who can seemingly do no wrong. Since his debut EP in 2017, he's developed a stellar track record of releases and live performances that have made him an in-demand name across East Asia and beyond. And he's only just getting started. The South Korean artist's multi-genre palette and hardware expertise have earned him the description of boy wonder from peers and collaborators. His work is awash in bright textures and dreamy moods, whet...
Feb 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min
In the music video for her new single with Manni Dee, Manuka Honey embarks on a money heist, robbing a venue with a comically tiny Louis Vuitton bag. Wearing a barely-there outfit, her cutesy goth girl demeanour and memeworthy one-liners capture many facets of modern-day pop culture. Whether through her music, fashion or astrology practice, the artist, born Marissa Malik, speaks to a large demographic of fans. Her sound is a composite of club genres from across the globe—everything from baile fu...
Jan 29, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Whoever Client_03 is—their official bio says "neither human nor machine"—they certainly love electro. In the interview below, they say making it is "all I do." The stubbornly anonymous project has been making waves across continents and scenes, introducing audiences used to dubstep, drum & bass and trap to the distinctive joys of electro. Through a series of self-releases dating back to 2019, Client_03 has earned a fanbase with simple graphics and wonderfully jargon-y titles—"Prosperity Stre...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Ariel Zetina is as charming as she is talented—one of the many reasons she was named "Chicagoan of the Year for Pop Music" by the Chicago Tribune last month. A straight shooter with strong principles, her witty personality shines through on social media and in person. She radiates both best friend and boss energy. Musically, she wears her heart on her sleeve, infusing her personality into her DJing and production. Her sets and mixes are adventurous, moving from hard to soft to playful with preci...
Jan 15, 2024•1 hr 22 min
Soul Summit is a New York institution. The DJ trio have been putting on a summer festival in Brooklyn's Fort Greene park for well over a decade now, and those gatherings have become a yearly house music pilgrimage for fans from all over the Five Boroughs. The party embodies the ethos of house music: free for everyone, open to families both blood and chosen, a place where everyone is welcome to groove (or just relax) to uplifting, old-school dance music with inspiring lyrics and bumping basslines...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Purelink have been described more than once as an "ambient boy band." (They themselves say "jam band.") It's not meant dismissively—the American trio purposefully mean to function as a band, even if their main instruments are laptops. Ambient might not quite cut it as a descriptor, though. The group's music crosses eras and scenes, touching on the late '90s clicks & cuts boom as well as the billowy ambient techno put out by labels like 3XL, West Mineral Ltd. and NAFF. Their most recent LP, S...
Jan 01, 2024•1 hr 34 min
Dr Banana is a name that commands a lot of respect in certain corners of the dance music world. The man has his Ph.D in record digging—not literally, mind you, but play along—and key to his success is the sense of fun, joy and ecstasy he brings to his DJing. UK garage historian? Sure. Blinding DJ? Definitely. He likes to play records you've never heard before, records that not only make you dance but might remind you of some of your favourite, formative records of yore. The UK artist started out...
Dec 24, 2023•1 hr 13 min
Quest's RA Podcast starts slowly, with a thrum of synths that feels like watching a rocket take off in slow motion. Before you know it, you're in outer space, floating through zero gravity with waves of synths and gentle breakbeats. The Italian DJ is a premiere selector in the world of digging for rare records, but his outré taste shouldn't be confused with willful obscurity. He's a beloved DJ partly because of his approachability. There's a serene, early '90s feel to RA.915 that's reminiscent o...
Dec 17, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Detroit dance music thrives on intergenerational connections. In the late '70s and early '80s, the late Ken Collier mixed disco, soul and early electronic dance music in eye-opening DJ sets that left a mark on up-and-coming artists like Delano Smith. Once Smith established himself in the city's explosive techno community, he, in turn, influenced soon-to-be legends like Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Jeff Mills, Norm Talley, Mike "Agent X" Clarke and others. Now an elder statesman, Smith is etched i...
Dec 10, 2023•1 hr 43 min
It would be no exaggeration to say that 33EMYBW is one of the most original club music producers we've heard in recent years. In addition to being a talented visual artist and a bass player in the experimental band Duck Fight Goose, her solo productions are a highlight of Shanghai’s bustling underground scene—home to forward-thinking artists like Tzusing, Osheyack, Swimful and Hyph11e—moving with their own rhythmic language. She has a lexicon of drum sounds borrowed from all over the world, incl...
Dec 03, 2023•51 min
