Podcast
RA Podcast
Hosted by Resident Advisor · EN
Front left since 2001.
37episodes
Episodes
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EX.803 Two Shell
2d ago00:43:03Tap to summarizeThe masked duo go on the record to address criticisms, identity and their forthcoming album, Infinite Now. Anonymous DJ-and-producer duo Two Shell are both loved and reviled. They've spent the last few years making the question of their identity inseparable from their music, earning an enormous fanbase with their original, up-tempo productions, and then alienating much of it through relentless pranks. Some of their most illustrious capers have included selling albums embedded in rocks, sending decoys to give fake interviews and booking stand-ins to perform in their place at major gigs and festivals. But after their headline set on Glastonbury's IICON stage last summer—a proper, career-spanning 90 minutes that they actually turned up for—fans flooded their inbox with the same comment: "we know it wasn't you up there! classic!!" Their response was an Instagram post that broke the script. "Anonymity sometimes feels like a mistake," they wrote. And now, on the eve of a new album called Infinite Now, they've agreed to sit down for their first-ever video interview. In this RA Exchange, Two Shell directly address the criticisms that have been levelled against them over the years; discuss what they owe their fans; and unpack their creative process, embrace of AI and more. Listen to the episode in full.
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RA.1044 Love Injection
5d ago01:26:28Tap to summarizeA lesson in universal love, told via deep club grooves. When future heads look back at New York nightlife from the mid-2010s onwards, the name Love Injection will stand out. As historians, stewards and disciples of underground dance music, Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele live and breathe the culture's inclusive, anti-commercial and anti-egotistical ideals. Underlining their myriad pursuits–DJing, promoting, publishing, curation, the list goes on–are ironclad principles destined to cement their legacy. On RA.1044, the duo keep it real. Recorded spontaneously, it shows off their core palette: timeless Detroit house courtesy of Scott Grooves, leftfield 303 squelches from Magic Mountain High, the classic dub techno of Rhythm & Sound and plenty more besides. It's a living history of Love Injection, delivered with their signature level of passion and care. Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1063
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EX.802 Bladee
1w ago00:53:22Tap to summarizeThe Drain Gang cofounder talks about mysticism, Gen Z and his new album, Sulfur Surfer. Bladee's work as a founding member of the Swedish collective Drain Gang has shaped a new generation of underground music. The group's sound, which is rooted in cloud rap and Auto-Tune experimentation, and pulls from trance, noise, metal, goth and grunge, has earned them an enormous following of fans—AKA "drainers"—overwhelmingly under 30. Bladee has long been one of Drain Gang's most prominent voices, building a prolific solo career alongside the collective's output. His work engages with mysticism through vulnerable, diaristic lyrics about his state of mind. On his new album, Sulfur Surfer, he presents an autobiographical figure caught between "letting go and holding on"—a continuation of his longstanding interest in spirituality and the occult. He draws on the story of St. George, the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint and the occultism of British group Current 93, whose frontman David Tibet makes a guest appearance. In this RA Exchange, Bladee talks about making honest music, the role Drain Gang has played in pushing him to find his voice, his ambivalence about fame and his collaboration with Skrillex. Sulfur Surfer is out now on Trash Island. Listen to the episode in full.
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RA.1043 Pretty Girl
2w ago01:33:52Tap to summarize90 minutes of wistful house from a talented Steel City Dance Discs affiliate—perfect for easing into the night or winding down after the party. Since Resident Advisor dubbed Pretty Girl "a star in the making" in 2023, the Melbourne DJ has played Coachella, gone viral on Boiler Room, and remixed Romy and Fred Again.. But she’s taken stardom on her own terms. Instead of stadium-ready adrenaline, her sound is a balanced cocktail of UK garage, sugary vocals, and '90s electronica whimsy, finding the sweet spot between the charts and the club. Her RA Mix perfectly captures this depth of emotion. The lush, unhurried session moves nimbly through Donato Dozzy, Tin Man, and unreleased Pretty Girl goodies. Full of overcast chords and melancholy arpeggios, it’s an exquisite journey that will sound just as good in the club as it will in the taxi home. Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1062
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RA.1042 Soft Crash
3w ago07:20:26Tap to summarizeSeven hours of camp, chug and genre-hopping hedonism from techno's two princes of darkness, recorded live at Kyiv's ∄. Hear the names Hayden Payne, aka Phase Fatale, and Pablo Bozzi, and it might conjure visions of dark techno. As Berghain and KHIDI residents, both artists are synonymous with the heavier strands of misfit dance music. But Soft Crash, their lockdown-born joint venture, offers something different: making the world's darkest dance floors fun again. RA.1042 is a crash course through the campier ends of the spectrum, pulling from Italo, disco, and house for a mix full of vocals, ascending chords, and bouncy arpeggios. Clocking in at a gargantuan seven-hour runtime, the mix perfectly balances both of their styles without the energy ever dipping. Swinging for the fences with chuggy, oddball bangers and trance euphoria, the duo weaves tracks from Steffi and Virginia, Goldfrapp, and Junior Jack, alongside climactic Easter eggs from Moby, Madonna, and Underworld. It's the sound of a party you never want to end. Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1061
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RA.1041 Chlär
4w ago01:10:08Tap to summarizeEntirely unreleased, undeniably funky techno. Charles Accarisi, AKA Chlär, treats techno like a science. From his earliest days as an audio engineer, the Lisbon-via-Switzerland artist has approached techno with the precision of a seasoned experimentalist, dissecting our love of listening to kick drums in dark, sweaty clubs down to its very bones. Before launching his label, Primal Instinct, in 2023, he dug deep, building its foundation on neuroscience studies exploring syncopation and bass frequencies. Yet, for all its academic rigor, Accarisi's music remains incredibly funky. You can hear this endless pursuit of groove in his DJ sets. His productions flit across the techno continuum with similar versatility. One minute, as half of Funk Assault, he's flipping a Beastie Boys vocal into a 140-BPM weapon; the next, he aims straight for the head, trading peak-time bacchanalia for the haunted hypnotism of the afterhours. RA 1041 is all of this and more. Composed entirely of unreleased tracks, it delivers 70 minutes of heads-down techno in its purest form. It's heavy and dark, for sure, but undeniably swung, seamlessly bridging dub techno and sweat-inducing hardgroove throwbacks. This is contemporary techno synthesized by a master chemist. Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1060 @chlaer @primalinstinctrecords
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RA.1040 Clementaum
May 2501:02:19Tap to summarizeThe São Paulo-based artist tears through baile funk, ballroom, Latin club and techno in a turbo-charged showcase of global club music's cutting edge. Take one look at Clementaum behind the decks and she seems less like a DJ than a force of nature. Dressed to the nines and usually keeping time with a fan, she mixes impossibly chaotic drum patterns that ricochet from baile funk to ballroom, Baltimore club to kuduro. Her sets are packed with her own productions—deliciously chaotic collisions of two decades of Latin American club music, shaken hard with EDM and techno. Raised in Curitiba, Clementaum entered nightlife as a hostess before stepping behind the decks and beginning to produce in 2018. A Rinse FM residency followed in 2023, her first European tour in 2024 and now, fresh off her debut Oceania run, she has her sights set on the rest of the globe. RA.1040 is a turbo-charged introduction to Clementaum's sonic world. Loaded with unreleased tracks from herself as well as other rising figures in the Brazilian underground, it captures the bleeding edge of global club music: ecstatic horn lines, flubber-bounce kick drums, freewheeling vocal samples, stadium-sized breakdowns, video game arpeggios and basslines that seem to rearrange space-time itself. It's possible you haven't heard a Clementaum set before, but it's impossible to forget one when you have. Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1059 @clementaum
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EX.798 Suzanne Ciani
May 2000:29:53Tap to summarizeThe pioneering artist talks philosophy, Berghain and touring on the eve of her 80th birthday. Suzanne Ciani is a synth music legend. After establishing herself as one of the first virtuosos of Don Buchla's modular system in the 1960s, she went on to earn five Grammy nominations, score a Hollywood film and found her own sound design company—creating iconic commercial soundtracks for Coca-Cola, AT&T and Atari. In this RA Exchange recorded live at IMS Ibiza, Ciani traces her remarkable path to success. She breaks down the working philosophy that got her there: from walking away from opportunities that didn't align with her vision, to carving out her own lane in a male-dominated industry that refused to make room for her. Now, just weeks away from turning 80, she discusses life on the road, collaborating with a new generation of electronic musicians and her first impressions of Berghain. Listen to the episode in full.
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RA.1039 K Wata
May 1701:24:09Tap to summarizeSleek, sensual bass science from the NYC SLINK boss, sketching a new blueprint for dub in the 2020s. Kenzo Perron, AKA K Wata, uses bass the way a poet uses punctuation. Sub weight, subtle wobbles and snaking rhythms become commas, dashes and periods—tiny gestures that shape movement, tension and release. Perron's sound sits somewhere between the cavernous minimalism of Rhythm & Sound and the wiry precision of Livity Sound, pulling equally from sound system culture, contemporary minimalism and East Coast club music. His breakthrough 2021 EP, What Do U Wan, sounds like the photo negatives of a Fade to Mind record redesigned for sunrise at Sustain-Release (not to mention his work with Daytimers affiliate Enayet as E-Wata). More broadly, Perron belongs to a a growing American underground reshaping dub techno and bass music in adventurous ways. What sets his music apart, however, is the way it balances delicacy with kineticism and, as his RA Mix makes clear, a touch of sexiness and intimacy too. RA.1039 draws from that very sonic palette. RA.1039 is mainly composed of contemporary dub tracks released in the past decade (with a few choice exceptions). One minute we're wigging out to the krautrock-meets-Black Ark Studio of Eiger Drums Propaganda, the next we're slinking to the hi-fi club of Significant Other. In Perron's hand they melt into a molten liquid of sexy, sleek, bass science. Find the tracklist and read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1058 @kwatakwata
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EX.797 Ed O'Brien
May 1301:01:30Tap to summarizeThe Radiohead guitarist talks about finding spirituality, life inside one of the most mythologised (and occasionally polarising) bands of the last 40 years, and his second solo album, Blue Morpho. Ed O'Brien has been a guitarist in Radiohead since the band formed at Abingdon School in the mid '80s, playing a supporting role across a catalogue largely written by Thom Yorke. He comes from a guitar tradition that runs through Johnny Marr, John McGeoch and Will Sergeant—players who serve the music rather than themselves. His second solo record, Blue Morpho, is his most fully realised statement away from the band. The themes running through it are spiritual, in the broadest sense. With anything related to group dynamics or current affairs averted by request, in this RA Exchange, O'Brien speaks with RA’s Editor Gabe Szatan about a long period of depression during lockdown, the meditation practice that pulled him through it and his deepening interest in devotional music and sound as a physical force, which has fed his subsequent songwriting. He also discusses the wider arc of a life in music: his years at Parlophone, the early Radiohead webcasts, the move from OK Computer to Kid A and what it felt like to climb back on stage with the band last year. Blue Morpho is out May 22 on Transgressive Records. Listen to the episode in full.
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