The weekly Resident Advisor Podcast featuring electronic music - https://ra.co
RA.920 Client_03
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 waking 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 Stream Divider," "Interpersonal Relationship Assessment"—that more than live up to the genre pastiche with genuinely funky electro grooves. Pitched between loose and robotic, their tracks are what we call rollers: stackable, interlockable and reliable. This RA Podcast was recorded live at last year's Bass Coast Festival, where the masked producer's set was among the most anticipated. They—or it—didn't disappoint, and here we've got 60 minutes-plus of smooth and occasionally raucous electro that eventually mutates into dubstep, jungle and beyond. There are several spinbacks, tons of Client_03 material new and old and a few select tracks from artists like Sam Binga, Nikki Nair and Fixate. It's the sound of a certain kind of future, as refracted through its past. @Client_03 Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/920
RA.919 Ariel Zetina
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 precision. From producing theatre shows and opening for Beyoncé to releasing her RA-recommended debut album on Local Action in 2022, the smartbar resident approaches each venture with meaning and depth. That LP explored the complex experience of being a Belizean trans woman, using fiery house and techno to express vulnerability and triumph. Ariel Zetina's multifaceted personality is on full display in her RA podcast. There's baile funk-infused techno, crisp drum & bass and plenty of tracks from queer producers from all sorts of scenes, including Michael Cignarale, StrikeStone! and Perfect Lovers. It's a grand statement of power, flow and seriously good taste. @arielzetina Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/921
RA.918 Soul Summit
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. Sadiq Bellamy, Tabu and Jeff Mendoza have created something truly special, and more and more lately, they've been spreading their gospel outside the park, too. They've become residents at Nowadays, where this RA Podcast was recorded as part of a Mister Sunday party. It was also released as part of the Mister Saturday Night's cassette box set to celebrate the party's 15th birthday. This one features an hour of the cassette's 90-minute runtime, plus an additional 20 minutes only available here. It captures this trio at their soulful best, letting vocal tracks play out long and leisurely with expert blends and gentle transitions. The feelings of warmth, love and welcome land with every kick drum and flow through every bassline. @soul-summit-music Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/918
RA.917 Purelink
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, Signs, released on enigmatic imprint Peak Oil (and one of our favourite albums of 2023), is especially impressive, made of stuttering rhythms and glassy textures. In other words, it's ambient-not-ambient. While members Concave Reflection, kindtree and Millia have all made excellent music on their own, something special happens when they come together. Purelink's RA Podcast is another stellar contribution to our post-New Year's tradition, where we highlight a more laid-back sound to soothe weary minds and frazzled brain cells after the heavy holiday celebrations. This is 90-plus minutes of intricately textured downtempo, dub techno and even UK garage, all cut through with a floaty, almost drowsy quality, with plenty of exclusives and unreleased cuts from the likes of Nick León, James K, Downstairs J and more. It highlights Purelink's position as a bridger of worlds, sounds and tempos. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/917
RA.916 Dr Banana
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 with a fashion line and some records and ended up an influential label boss, collector and DJ. He made his name with skippy, retro UK garage—sometimes from new producers and sometimes unearthed from the archives—and nicely coincided with the genre's explosion in popularity. Since then, he's highlighted everything from old-school German garage to new-school producers like K-LONE. His DJ sets have only become more adventurous and, crucially, even more bumping. Jungle, R&B, tech house, you name it. His RA Podcast zeroes in on a vintage-sounding, rollicking kind of house music, full of seismic disco basslines and quirky vocal samples. It's as celebratory as it is mysterious. Once, Dr Banana was a not so well-kept secret for the heads—the kids in Berlin and London who were starting to realize the similarities between UK garage, minimal and tech house. Now, he's for everyone, and starting to earn the wider recognition he deserves. @dr-banana Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/916
RA.915 Quest
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 of some of the earliest and best ambient techno. When he's not DJing, Quest runs the label La Nota Del Diablo. He's only put out two records, including this year's Red Tears EP from his dear friend (and fellow esteemed DJ) Christian AB, which RA's Henry Ivry described as "a careful balance of late-night tension and early morning twilight." That's not a bad way to describe Quest's RA Podcast—if it's not a soundtrack for an astral journey, then it's perfect for an afterhours, for when the laid-back vibes come to a simmer for one last stretch of dancing. @questwax Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/915
RA Community Connections Joburg - Kaddy via Lilies Radio
Listen back to the DJ set recordings from the RA CC event in Joburg in collaboration with Lilies Radio and P_ssy Party. In addition to a panel discussion hosted by P_ssy Party, we hosted a mixer at Melville’s vibrant creative hub, The Plug. The mixer was be soundtracked by residents from local station Lilies Radio, a community-focussed organisation that also operates as a record label and events platform. This collaboration explored Johannesburg’s thriving scene, bridging connections between various local communities and celebrating the unique nightlife the city has to offer. https://soundcloud.com/user-123672995 https://www.instagram.com/wearelilies/ https://www.instagram.com/p_ssyparty/ https://www.instagram.com/theplugmelville/ https://ra.co/promoters/88700
RA Community Connections Joburg - Aureli via Lilies Radio
Listen back to the DJ set recordings from the RA CC event in Joburg in collaboration with Lilies Radio and P_ssy Party. In addition to a panel discussion hosted by P_ssy Party, we hosted a mixer at Melville’s vibrant creative hub, The Plug. The mixer was be soundtracked by residents from local station Lilies Radio, a community-focussed organisation that also operates as a record label and events platform. This collaboration explored Johannesburg’s thriving scene, bridging connections between various local communities and celebrating the unique nightlife the city has to offer. https://soundcloud.com/ftmzhr https://www.instagram.com/wearelilies/ https://www.instagram.com/p_ssyparty/ https://www.instagram.com/theplugmelville/ https://ra.co/promoters/88700
RA Community Connections Joburg - Buhle Mbongwa via Lilies Radio
Listen back to the DJ set recordings from the RA CC event in Joburg in collaboration with Lilies Radio and P_ssy Party. In addition to a panel discussion hosted by P_ssy Party, we hosted a mixer at Melville’s vibrant creative hub, The Plug. The mixer was be soundtracked by residents from local station Lilies Radio, a community-focussed organisation that also operates as a record label and events platform. This collaboration explored Johannesburg’s thriving scene, bridging connections between various local communities and celebrating the unique nightlife the city has to offer. https://soundcloud.com/buhle-mbongwa https://www.instagram.com/wearelilies/ https://www.instagram.com/p_ssyparty/ https://www.instagram.com/theplugmelville/ https://ra.co/promoters/88700
RA Community Connections Joburg - Deniece Marz via Lilies Radio
Listen back to the DJ set recordings from the RA CC event in Joburg in collaboration with Lilies Radio and P_ssy Party. In addition to a panel discussion hosted by P_ssy Party, we hosted a mixer at Melville’s vibrant creative hub, The Plug. The mixer was be soundtracked by residents from local station Lilies Radio, a community-focussed organisation that also operates as a record label and events platform. This collaboration explored Johannesburg’s thriving scene, bridging connections between various local communities and celebrating the unique nightlife the city has to offer. https://soundcloud.com/deniece_hob https://www.instagram.com/wearelilies/ https://www.instagram.com/p_ssyparty/ https://www.instagram.com/theplugmelville/ https://ra.co/promoters/88700
RA.914 Delano Smith
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 into our history books as a crucial contributor to Detroit dance music, both house and techno. He's known especially for the Detroit beatdown sound he pioneered alongside Talley and Clark—slower, sexier records than what Detroit techno is generally associated for. (The trio even put out an RA Podcast under the name in 2010.) It's more recently that Smith has become known as a producer. He started his own label, Mixmode Recordings, and became a regular on Berlin imprint Sushitech, where he released many of his albums, including the jazzy deep house masterclass An Odyssey. His style has evolved over the years to incorporate ambient, dub and more contemporary techno influences. More recently, Smith's career has been sidelined by an ongoing battle with a rare and untreatable form of cancer. He's hosted livestreams throughout his ordeal to keep in touch with his fans. His RA Podcast, which he calls his "Legacy Mix," is a celebration of his favourite sounds: euphoric chords, jacking drums and deep-space melodies, the elements that have and will continue to reverberate through Detroit and beyond. It also marks the beginning of a more hopeful period for Smith, as he gets ready to travel again, especially with his Legacy Detroit series, which celebrates the lineage he's an indelible part of, and always will be. @delano_smith Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/914
RA.913 33EMYBW
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, including tablas, bongos and mallets. As 33EMYBW, she puts together strange, multi-limbed rhythms that bring to mind images of dancing spiders and insects, something she addressed directly on 2019's showstopping Arthropods LP, released on the influential SVBKVLT label. As she says in the interview below, you basically need more than two legs to dance to her music. Maybe even eight. Her music deals with creatures that vary from the mythical to the everyday (her first album was called Golem). On her latest record Holes Of Sinian, also out on SVBKVLT, she imagines the mostly-unknown organisms from the recently discovered Ediacaran period. It's more esoteric, atmospheric and arguably even funkier than her previous work, with Marina Herlop on one hair-raising track that you can hear in a demo version on her RA Podcast. This mix is actually a version of her live set—a favourite at influential festivals like Unsound and CTM—featuring plenty of productions from across her career in mutated and improvisational forms. It's creepy, crawly and undeniably danceable. If you can keep up with it. @33emybw Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/912
RA.912 Florentino
What some refer to broadly as "Latin club music"—from dembow to raptor house—is having a moment on dance floors around the world. Since making his mark at Manchester's legendary Swing Ting parties in the 2010s, Florentino, who is of Colombian heritage, has melded high-pressure perreo, cumbia and other styles with high BPMs and fat-bottomed bass in his DJ sets and productions. The result is an ultra-kinetic, cross-cultural sound that's influenced by UK soundsystem culture as much as the sounds of the massive, diverse scenes across Latin America. The pan-Latin influences are a big part of Florentino's sound palette, but they by no means define him. Interspersed with dancehall and soca are dubstep, pummelling techno, house, UK funky, grime and more. Over the years, his experimental side has also crystallized, whether it's through the deep, sometimes trippy, reggaeton of Sangre Nueva, his collaborative project with Kelman Duran and DJ Python, his sought-after bootlegs of deconstructed guaracha, or the releases on his Club Romantico label. Most recently, he's signed with UK giant XL Recordings, including for his latest EP, Kilometro Quinze. His dizzying range and propensity for rhythmic contortions is on full display in his RA Podcast. This is a riotous mix with big drops, bouncy basslines and crispy textures, showcasing Florentino's talent as a proper party-starter. @deejayflorentino Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/912
RA.911 Shy One
At this point, Shy One might be familiar to most music fans as one of the hosts of NTS's daily breakfast show, Soup To Nuts, where she helps listeners across the UK and Europe settle into their morning routines with an eclectic and soulful selection of dance music and downtempo. But the London artist has been around a lot longer than that, with a discography that goes back well over a decade. She started releasing music as a regular on Scratcha DVA's label, and it was there that she sketched out a recognizable but impressively varied approach rooted in her home base of London. On her records, Shy One sometimes feels like London incarnate, synthesizing the histories of Black British dance music—drum & bass, grime, UK funky, broken beat, jazz, you name it—into one syncretic and immensely appealing sound. But her music glows with the warmth of American deep house, too, which lends it a timeless, ageless quality that has proven immensely appealing. She furthers this mission with Private World, a party she started with Ruby Savage. The name kind of says it all: she's inviting you to her own personal space, but what awaits is a whole wide world of music and culture. Her RA Podcast feels like a hybrid between a club DJ set and her morning show, and here, she zeroes in on a the lineage of American house music from the '90s and beyond, featuring tracks from the likes of Green Velvet, Marcellus Pittman, Roy Davis Jr., Wbeeza, Jay Daniel and more, plus a spotlight from Baltimore club king DJ Technics. It's patient and easygoing but perfect for a small dance floor (or a livingroom party), focused but stylistically diverse. It's everything we've come to expect from an artist like Shy One, who weaves stories and histories with her DJ sets, and does it effortlessly, too. @shyonebeats Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/911
RA.910 Kasra
Last month, with Goldie's guest curatorship of Resident Advisor, we focused on the history of one of the most important music genres and scenes to come out of the UK: drum & bass. With this RA Podcast from Kasra, we switch over to the style's cutting edge. He's probably best known for his long-running Critical Music label, whose name is instructive. You'll find some of the most essential, crucial drum & bass of the last two decades through its 20-plus year-old back catalogue. As a DJ and producer, Kasra embodies everything great about Critical and its approach: drum & bass with flair and personality, forward-thinking while staying true to the roots of the sound. The kind of music he plays is wide-ranging, but it usually leans towards the tight and minimalist. The basslines stop and start like stuck engines, drums hit with the mechanical precision of a Swiss-made watch, the MCs move with a tactical flow. Kasra's RA Podcast is a blend of new and old cuts from the likes of Skeptical, Halogenix, Break and the boundary-breaking Ivy Lab, plus a few cuts from the man himself. @kasra-critical Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/910