RA Podcast

The Príncipe all stars transmit the future sound of batida, live from Waking Life.

In theory, a supergroup should be a carefree yet thrilling assembly of well-known talents, bound to multiply each other's creative output. But in practice, bringing out the best in every artist on stage, especially for electronic musicians, most of whom are used to working solo, is not an exact science. O Ghettão—the powerhouse trio of DJ Niggafox, DJ Danifox and Firmeza, all associated with Lisbon's Príncipe record label—however, prove it can live up to it's promise. Armed with a handful of small drum machines, hand-sized controllers, and laptops packed with drum kits, the three are one the most exhilarating live acts in the underground.

About 20 minutes into RA.1050, amid an intoxicating polyrhythmic hoodoo, a commanding voice sneaks in the repeated phrase in over wistful, semba-laced chords. "Each one dances as they like," claims the MC in Portuguese, and few phrases could be more evocative of the O Ghettão sound. The wonder team came together at the latest Waking Life in Portugal and recorded another woozy, freeform live PA—a gargantuan patchwork ranging from outlandish batida to slapping acid house.

RA.1050 is also an indisputable sign of how vivid the batida scene, one they all forged, has truly become. Príncipe Records, founded in 2011, has spurred the birth of artists and imprints, like Nídia and Tia Maria Produções, while also fueling a new, welcoming spirit in Lisbon's nightlife, from Rua Rosa to clubs like Lux Frágil. Following a path paved by acts such as Underground Resistance, O Ghettão can indeed be tagged as an electronic music group. More than that, however, they're an impressive showcase of the intense renewal of sonic palettes crossed by Afro-diasporic idioms on the dance floor.

Read more at ra.co/podcast/1069

The long-anonymous Peak Oil favourite breaks cover with two hours that run from post-punk and dub to vintage New York house.

Mystery is a powerful force. What stays unknown stays enticing—negative space the listener fills in for themselves. Minimalists may be its largest constituency, and few have held the line as long as Topdown Dialectic.

That changed with False LP A, which finally named him: Izaak Schlossman, a San Francisco photographer who spent years issuing untitled, identically timed tracks with no narrative attached.

Coming out of the shadows hasn't cost the music its haze. Working in the Basic Channel lineage, Schlossman lays tracing paper over house and dub techno and pulls through the faintest outline—a bassline's shadow, the memory of a chord. Tracks surface the way bodies emerge in a steam room.

He belongs to a North American underground that's been among dance music's most progressive forces this past decade—no surprise, then, that he credits Scott Zacharias of Detroit's No Way Back in the Q&A.

This isn't quite the end of the mystery. Only the second Topdown Dialectic mix to surface, RA.1049 wipes the condensation from the glass just long enough for a look inside: it opens with a cut from German label Workshop before drifting from atmospheric post-punk and dubbed-out house into cosmic electro and, by the close, vintage New York house. It moves at an unhurried, chugging pace, but never mistakes restraint for stasis—each track quietly recalibrating until another contour comes into view.

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1068

@peakoil

@falsearalia

@aught0101

The Peak Oil favourite and long-anonymous producer breaks cover with two hours that run from post-punk and dub to vintage New York house.

Mystery is a powerful force. What stays unknown stays enticing—negative space the listener fills in for themselves. Minimalists may be its largest constituency, and few have held the line as long as Topdown Dialectic.

That changed with False LP A, which finally named him: Izaak Schlossman, a San Francisco photographer who spent years issuing untitled, identically timed tracks with no narrative attached.

Coming out of the shadows hasn't cost the music its haze. Working in the Basic Channel lineage, Schlossman lays tracing paper over house and dub techno and pulls through the faintest outline—a bassline's shadow, the memory of a chord. Tracks surface the way bodies emerge in a steam room.

He belongs to a North American underground that's been among dance music's most progressive forces this past decade—no surprise, then, that he credits Scott Zacharias of Detroit's No Way Back in the Q&A.

This isn't quite the end of the mystery. Only the second Topdown Dialectic mix to surface, RA.1049 wipes the condensation from the glass just long enough for a look inside: it opens with a cut from German label Workshop before drifting from atmospheric post-punk and dubbed-out house into cosmic electro and, by the close, vintage New York house. It moves at an unhurried, chugging pace, but never mistakes restraint for stasis—each track quietly recalibrating until another contour comes into view.

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1068

@peakoil

@falsearalia

@aught0101

A masterclass in the art of the all-nighter, as one of France's finest purveyors of funk delivers six hours live from Robert Johnson.

What does minimal sound like in 2026? Ask five DJs and you'll get five answers, from the acidic electro and techno of Montevideo to the dubby loops of Montreal. A real contender for the face of contemporary minimal, though, is Romain Poncet, AKA Traumer.

Poncet is, in many ways, old school. As a DJ, he offers a French twist on Rominimal: long, drawn-out loops mixed with imperceptible precision. In the studio, he turns out the kind of records you'd find in Raresh's bag. He didn't start out a minimal head, though. His early-'10s releases were driving techno and tech house, but around 2016 the Parisian changed tack, launching GET TRAUM — a label steeped in both Bucharest's ar:pia:r and France's own history of deep, stripped-back house.

Whatever the genre, his music is understated, never showy: DJ tools in the truest sense, designed for dancers and for DJs who want to tell a story over a long set. Case in point is RA.1048, a six-hour recording from Robert Johnson. The drums skip like kids let out for summer; the melodies sit between euphoria and melancholy. Swallow it whole or savour it course by course — RA.1048 is a Traumer tasting menu.

Read more at ra.co/podcast/1067

@traumer

The genre-fluid multihyphenate on motherhood, songwriting with FKA Twigs and her new album, Heavenly Body: If I'm the Bottle You're the Message.

American singer-songwriter Alexandra Drewchin (AKA Eartheater) is hard to pin down by design. In her music, acoustic instruments like harp and guitar collide with heavy digital manipulation, processed beats and classical technique. Her three-octave vocal range has carried her from operatic folk singing to literally shattering wine glasses on stage. Most recently, she co-wrote and sang on the title track of FKA Twigs' Grammy-winning Eusexua, and has since joined Twigs on tour in support of the album.

In this week's RA Exchange, Drewchin talks about her songwriting practice and her new LP, Heavenly Body: If I'm the Bottle You're the Message. The album arrives at a pivotal moment for the artist: she's recently become a mother and bought back the Pennsylvania farm her family lost when she was fifteen—a place she vowed, even then, that she would one day reclaim.

She reflects on that homecoming, and on how pregnancy, birth and motherhood shaped the record. She also discusses what she learned about songwriting from collaborating with Twigs, and her early mentorship under the late R&B legend Roberta Flack. Heavenly Body: If I'm the Bottle You're the Message is out now on Eartheater's label, Chemical X. Listen to the episode in full.

77 minutes of wickedly twitchy grooves from the belly of the New York underground.

"Music is meant to be shared. Music is meant to be shared. Music is meant to be shared."

This phrase is written again and again in the About section for the mix series and label pi pi pi. For deep creep, the force behind the popular platform, it serves as a radical promise: music is, and must always be, collective and communal.

On RA.1047, deep creep digs appropriately deep into her bag with a mix of minimal, tech house and dub, as well as flashes of techno and even a little flirt with electroclash. Pulses of sub weight, dubby melodies, introspective synths and quirky minimal funk make for a mix both dark yet euphoric, claustrophobic yet spacious. Dive in.

Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1066

The Dutch producer on flow state, communal music-making and his new album, Music for Existing.

Martijn Deijkers, AKA Martyn, has spent close to three decades resisting labels. He grew up in a small Dutch village as a vinyl obsessive, buying his first 7-inch from a store that doubled as a sweet shop, before travelling to London in the mid-'90s to chase jungle and drum & bass. He later became one of the first artists from outside the UK to shape the capital's dubstep scene, fusing it with the Detroit techno and hip-hop of his youth. Since then, he has held a residency at Panorama Bar, started a successful label, 3024, and hosted a long-running monthly jazz show on NTS, Darkest Light.

In this Exchange with RA's Performance Content Lead, Tom Gledhill, Deijkers talks about dubplate culture in '90s London, the mentoring programme that's shaped his approach to creativity and his new album, Music for Existing, a collection of jazz-inflected electronics that explores the powerful, communal act of making music together. The LP is out now on 3024. Listen to the episode in full.

90 minutes of scintillating house and techno, primed for the heart of summer.

There's something delightfully paradoxical about Jennifer Loveless. Her productions skew hedonistic yet minimal; her DJing feels both spacey and oceanic. Hell, even her artist bio underlines her taste for opposites: "Jennifer Loveless is contrary to her name, all heart."

This yin and yang runs through RA.1046. Built around swung percussion, the 97-minute mix wanders across genre and time with an aquatic sensibility. She mixes her own tunes with early '00s tech house to craft a seaside mise en scène where new-school heroes like Pancratio and Ladymonix share fruity cocktails with certified legends (K-HAND, Jay Tripwire). Strap in for deep cuts that sound simultaneously galactic and like they floated up from the ocean floor.

Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1064

The UK pirate radio crew and cult TV stars discuss their rebirth and forthcoming EP, Grindah's Decided We're Doing Music Again.

Many UK natives will be familiar with the show People Just Do Nothing, a mid-2010s comedy about pirate radio crew Kurupt FM, who ride the UK garage wave, broadcasting from the outer boroughs of London.

Kurupt FM's core members—MC Grindah, DJ Beats, DJ Steves and DJ Decoy—went quiet for more than a decade after the last episode aired in 2014. After a stretch of solo ventures—books, stand-up, Grindah's domestic upheaval following his split with long-time partner Miche, as depicted in People Just Do Nothing—the crew has reconvened for a new EP, Grindah's Decided We're Doing Music Again.

In this RA Exchange, Grindah, Beats and Steves meet for a rare interview to talk about their rebirth and what's happened in the years that have elapsed since the world last heard from them. They also reflect on Grindah's early run-in with Skepta, their case for the ongoing power of pirate radio in the age of AI and the current UKG revival. They engage in a familiar argument about who owns the lineage of the genre, and for Kurupt FM, the answer isn't complicated: if you weren't there the first time around, you just don't get it. Their new EP will be out on August 21st. Listen to the episode in full.

Two sublime hours of house and techno from the Berlin-based DJ and producer, making his long-awaited RA Mix debut.

Before clubs shut down in 2020, Christian AB was one of the underground's best-kept secrets. The London-born DJ built a cult following through sets that fused deep house, techno and impossibly rare records, earning a reputation as an IYKYK selector with encyclopaedic taste. Now based in Berlin, Christian Browne has stepped into the spotlight, releasing on Francesco Del Garda's Timeless and Ryan Elliott's Faith Beat, while touring alongside Jeff Mills in support of Live at Liquid Room.

Browne describes his sound as "dark elegance," and RA.1045 captures it perfectly. Across two hours, driving grooves, acid lines, hazy chords and moments of tension unfold with remarkable patience.

The first half-hour drifts through IDM and ambient house before the mix gradually tightens its grip, but every apparent peak is met with an unexpected left turn. It's a masterclass in pacing that rewards repeat listens. Forget the track IDs—just press play.

Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1065

@christian_ab