Party-starting stompers from a crossover star.

Even if you've never met Adam Longman Parker, AKA Afriqua, you can get to know him pretty well through his music. His lyrics ("Would you house me in a house, would you house right in my mouth?" from "Dr. House"), track titles ("Wagwan Bhagwan?") and cover art exude a charmingly cheeky demeanour that makes his music personable. It helps that his latest records are absolute smashers–funk bombs with jacked beats and bouncy grooves.

Once ensconced in the minimal world, the Virginia-born artist gravitated towards Miami bass, Midwest house and zesty techno before the pandemic. Thankfully so: his recent discography combines Moodymann's slinky swagger with The Neptunes' killer sense of rhythm. Just like those legendary acts, Parker carries weight in both the underground and mainstream—he's released with Tomorrowland label CORE Records and DJ'd at Ibiza superclubs, while still appealing to more headsy crowds.

His career expansion hasn't cost him his principles, either. A champion of Black history and culture, the classically-trained pianist infuses overlooked Black musical traditions like psyfunk into his work. Coloured, his debut full-length, was a tribute to what he called the "Black musical tree."

"Genre is just temporary housing," the now Berlin-based producer noted in a recent Instagram post. That mentality informs his RA Podcast. From '90s-inspired house and luxurious harp melodies to some of his originals and even a "Satisfaction" remix, it's a celebration of unpretentious, feel-good music. Put simply, it slaps—hard.

@afriqua

Read more at ra.co/podcast/972

"We put all of these philosophical concepts into our lyrics." Sister Bliss talks about the band after Maxi Jazz, weaving politics into rave anthems and the dance floor as salvation.

Even if you're not into electronic music, chances are you've heard tracks like "Insomnia" or "God Is A DJ" on the radio or in a film. These '90s rave anthems were written by Faithless, a British electronic band that received huge acclaim in the UK especially. Its original members, who launched the project in 1995, were Sister Bliss, Rollo and charismatic lead singer Maxi Jazz, who died in 2022. At their peak, they sold millions of records, performed all over the world and played giant festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury to hundreds of thousands of people.

Faithless is now toured solely by Sister Bliss, the keyboardist and songwriter. She speaks with Chloe Lula about the band's trajectory and the legacy left behind by Maxi Jazz. In her words, Faithless appeals to such a wide audience because its output isn't dance floor music in a traditional sense. Instead, it occupies a space where poetry, beats and melodies meet. With Maxi Jazz as their frontman, the group spoke to themes around human rights, politics, protest, equity, collapse, spirituality and the notion of dance music as a secular religion. Their transcendent live shows—which Sister Bliss will revive in 2025—have even been called a "church for the unchurched." Maxi Jazz was a practicing Buddhist monk whose lyrics and message of connection and compassion touched legions of fans over the years.

In this Exchange, Sister Bliss reflects on Maxi Jazz's death, being a mother on the road, continuing to release music under the Faithless banner and what it ultimately means to find salvation in faith, music, community and life at large. Listen to the episode in full.

Enter the wormhole with one of the techno artists we're most excited about in 2025.

Born in Osaka and now based in Tokyo, DJ MARIA. joins a decorated lineage of Japan's psychedelic elite, cut from a similarly explorative cloth as Wata Igarashi, Haruka and esoteric icons ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U and DJ Nobu. This nerdy sanctum of deep techno is a notoriously hard world to break into: only the very best make the grade. DJ MARIA.'s head-spinning sets emphasise why she's already part of the club firmament at home, and is now in the midst of a global breakthrough.

Her trademark is tapestries of acid, trance and techno that strike a perfect balance between vibrancy, impact and restraint. She bit the bug through a teenage discovery of DVDs showing legendary psytrance raves like Solstice and Vision Quest, yet it wasn't until 2014 that she started DJing, balancing gigs with shifts at Tokyo's Face Records and, as of late, motherhood.

Today, as well as producing and touring venues such as FOLD and Bassiani, she helps run two boutique forest festivals—Moment and Transcendence—both of which play a big part in upholding Japan's storied techno tradition. DJ MARIA. has reached these heights principally because of her exceptional talent as a DJ, which is on full display on this week's RA Podcast.

The two-hour mix is pure manna for psychedelic techno heads, though we're confident the depth of feeling, subtle pacing and seamless stitching will lure in fans from across the electronic spectrum. RA.971 is a total treasure—the latest wow moment from an artist destined to have a career littered with them.

@djmaria-jp

Read more at ra.co/podcast/971

"Why would you care about anyone else's opinion?" The DJ and dancer talks about work ethic, living authentically and the power of lifting each other up.

DJ and dancer Patrick Mason emits high vibrations and high-energy dance music. But that wasn't always the case. Before he was playing the world's biggest techno festivals, he grew up in conservative Bavaria, where he claims that he "suppressed his truest self" as a closeted gay Black man. Born to an American GI father and a German mother, he learned the power of visualisation and hard work in order to launch himself to Berlin and the freedom of expression it represented. It was in the capital that he had his first sexual experiences and climbed the ranks of fashion and modelling, spending weekend stints at Berghain and immersing himself in the new world of techno.

Career burnout and the Covid-19 lockdowns set Mason down the path of DJing in 2020, and he's since carved out a niche as a party-starter known for flamboyant selections that accompany his elaborate dance routines behind (and even on top of) the decks. In this interview recorded live at ADE 2024, he speaks with Chloe Lula about the obstacles he's overcome to get to the top, personal trauma and struggles with self-acceptance, body dysmorphia, depression, and gay male culture's sometimes unrealistic physical ideals. He also discusses his ambitions to marry the worlds of fashion and music, and his vision for a more authentic music industry. Listen to the episode in full.

The Dekmantel favourite kicks off 2025 in an exploratory mood.

Since her breakout in 2017, Thessa Thorsing has built an enviable CV: a debut release on Nous'klaer Audio, an album on Dekmantel and a residency at former Amsterdam clubbing institution De School. Over these years, she's honed a singular sound, navigating wild variations in tempo and mood that dance along the edges of techno, IDM and drum & bass (we could list many more, but you know the drill).

Her creative arc has seen her delve into ever more abstract concepts, such as 2024's ambient-leaning album, Strange Meridians, exploring the interplay between synthetic and natural textures through drumless experimentations. As she explained in her 2018 RA Breaking Through profile, "I just want to hear the weirdness in the music."

Thorsing's RA Podcast showcases exactly why she's one of the most consistently adventurous names in dance music. Describing it as "a mix with a narrative," the former landscape architecture student flexes her ability to build sonic environments, beginning in a landscape more akin to a swamp than a club.

Across 90 minutes, she moves through numerous layered terrains, exploring everything from Skee Mask's lucid, beatless techno to the piercing acid of Mike Parker. Unfolding with a restless sense of curiosity, RA.970 captures an artist challenging the boundaries of electronic music, ever upward.

@upsammy

Read more at ra.co/podcast/970

Ring in 2025 with a three-hour flex from a hero of UK club culture.

They don't make DJs like Lukas Wigflex anymore. The Nottingham DJ and promoter has a love for UK club culture that borders on the unfathomable—and he does it all with a gusto that is unmistakably, one hundred percent pure Lukas.

Wigflex started out as a "Wigflex Wednesdays," a free bar night in Nottingham with two-for-one pizzas to hook punters in. In the 19 years since, it has grown into one of the UK's most established party series, welcoming dance music giants while still championing homegrown talent. Recalling its journey from a modest bar night to powerhouse party, he told Stamp The Wax: "I created a mixtape and called it Wigflex 2000. It all just evolved naturally from that."

"Evolved naturally" is, perhaps, too modest. In an increasingly hostile operating environment, it's hard to overstate the achievement of Wigflex's longevity, a testament to his tenacity and distinctive spirit. Who else, let's be honest, could get away with taglining their event, "Survival of the Wrongest." But don't let the tongue-and-cheek persona fool you, mind—he's deadly serious about tunes.

His RA Podcast is a window into what Wigflex is all about: electro in all its shades, from the Hauffian to the Drexciyan, alongside wigged-out EBM and a healthy amount of Wigflex classics.

Even if you didn't know it was coming from him, you would certainly get the impression it sounds a lot like somebody who adores dance music. What better way to ring in the New Year?

@wigflex

Read more at ra.co/podcast/969

The RA Exchange wraps up 2024 with an episode dedicated solely to vinyl culture, from dubplate production to record store culture, all-vinyl DJing and running labels that release records.

In the first part of this episode, which was recorded live at Wire Festival, panelists and vinyl DJs Mary Yuzovskaya, Clarisa Kimskii and Devoye Folkes discuss the benefits and drawbacks of playing records in the digital era with RA editor Gabriel Szatan.

According to the panelists, playing vinyl could be seen as a skill analogous to driving stick shift: while it's not always necessary, it gives new artists a better understanding of a DJ set's underlying machinery. They also talk about how a DJ's identity used to be intertwined with their personal collection of records, and how the digital paradigm shift presents today's DJs with infinite choices.

The Exchange's second half takes listeners behind the scenes, investigating the challenges and opportunities inherent in running a business based on vinyl sales. Live from Wall to Wall Festival at RSO, HHV Records, Bandcamp Berlin, Objects Manufacturing and Elevate Record Store speak to the overhead investment, production time and ecological considerations they take into account in their day-to-day operations.

They also shed light on the statistics behind the enormous sales of vinyl records in the past few years and the breakdown of which artists are making money from digital versus physical music sales and why.

Listen to the episode in full.

A wintry collage from one of 2024's breakout stars.

As far as crossover electronic success goes, Barry Can't Swim's 2024 scorecard would take some beating. His singles have racked up hundreds of millions of streams, he bagged a Mercury Prize nomination and has the range to both pack out festivals as a DJ and sell out tours worldwide with a string-accented live show.

Barely 12 months on from the release of debut album "When Will We Land?", it's fair to say Josh Mannie is one of the most in-demand artists working in dance and electronic music right now, with a follow-up LP nearly done, he says.

For RA.968, he pulls in the complete opposite direction from any of that. Sure, there are nods to Mark Leckey and late-night jazz haunts throughout his catalogue, and the ruminative clouds drifting across his signature golden-hour glow do suggest an artist with a sharp grasp on meteorological melancholy. But a beatless collage featuring Suso Sáiz, Slow Attack Ensemble and Lorenzo Senni? It's a surprise, and a welcome one at that.

Speckled with exclusive airings of brand-new ambient material, Barry Can't Swim's RA Podcast charts a path from This Mortal Coil to Ryuichi Sakamoto, with a detour through some Linkwood and Anthony Naples deep cuts we've not heard for a good while. (He even includes a Stars of the Lid favourite which namechecks Fulham's home ground, an act of mid-table grace for the diehard Everton fan).

RA.968 has the crackle of a frosty night walk set to tape—a holiday gift from one of the most popular acts in the game. 'Tis the season.

@barrycantswim

Read more at ra.co/podcast/968

"You go through this feeling to then be in freedom." The notorious photographer and bouncer talks about the ethos behind selecting the world's hardest door, early life in East Berlin and Berghain's 20th anniversary.

Today's Exchange guest is Berghain's infamous figurehead and doorman Sven Marquardt, who was born and raised in German Democratic Republic (GDR)-era East Berlin. He lived a rebellious life as a queer punk in Prenzlauer Berg, which banned him from entering Berlin's central districts because of how he looked. It was during these years that he congregated with fellow East Berlin new wave kids and began documenting their relationships and his own life through photography. When the wall fell, electronic music and the exciting scene that arose in the DDR's vacuum became Marquardt's focus. He started partying at gay fetish parties and bouncing doors at new clubs alongside his brother.

In this interview, he talks to RA Exchange producer Chloe Lula about how Berlin has evolved from his adolescence in the post-war years and his thoughts on the changes erasing institutions in the city's clubbing landscape today. He also reflects on the contemporary nightlife industry and how Berghain's policies have shifted with the times, initially catering to an almost exclusively gay male crowd but now welcoming a demographic more representative of the diversity of people who make up club culture. While German politics and the rise of the right wing have deeply affected him, he says, he recognizes the opportunities it enables for his community to use art and culture as a reactionary, countercultural force. Listen to the episode in full.

Photo by Torsten Ingvaldsen.

A lesson in rhythm from a former De School resident.

When it comes to minimalist dance music, Ruben Üvez, AKA Konduku, is one of the best in the game right now. With a masterful and ever-shapeshifting understanding of rhythm, the Berlin-based artist crafts sublime dance music with a staunchly leftfield bent. Don't just take our word for it: how many DJs, after all, can claim to have moved De School to a puddle of tears?

Musically, Üvez is hard to pin down. He's often billed as a techno artist, but actually you'll find his sound sits outside of the genre's many conventions. With an outsider's curiosity, he leans into diverse moods, tempos and genres, though one throughline is always how he arranges his drums. Whether it be deep, Nobu-core techno such as 2023's Hayal EP or UK beat science á la Peverelist on 2019's Gegek, he leads with rhythm across his DJing and production. The end product is a hypnotic, one-of-a-kind sound that hits the body before the brain has time to catch up. In short, it slaps.

As Üvez's RA Podcast demonstrates, he's got a serious knack for crafting and selecting tunes that can deeply captivate a dance floor. Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, RA.967 is an excursion through a timeless sound, packed with long, layered blends, flick-of-the-wrist transitions, locked grooves and spine-tingling atmospherics. In 2020, we called Ruben Üvez one of techno's brightest new talents. This mix sees him ascending to a seat at the top table.

@kondukukonduku

Read more at ra.co/podcast/967