RA Exchange

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.

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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"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.

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"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.

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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.

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"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.

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"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.

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