RA Podcast Folgen

As part of RA2122, our ongoing celebration of 21 years of club culture, we'll be featuring some of our favourite DJs from around the world, highlighting the parties or clubs most important to their lives in dance music. First up we have Tama Sumo and Lakuti, both residents at Berlin's Panorama Bar, the house-focused room upstairs at Berghain. Panorama Bar has played host to thousands—if not millions—of people's most formative dance floor experiences, with an unparalleled vibe, near-perfect sound and window blinds that have taken their own place in dance music mythology. The duo's mix highlights the style that Tama Sumo and Lakuti have brought to the club and represents its anything-goes energy, mixing tracks from iconoclasts like Hieroglyphic Being (including one of his best-ever tracks) in with old-school favorites from Reel By Real, Larry Heard and even Ministry, moving from house to industrial to disco without batting an eyelid. Tama Sumo and Lakuti's loose but impeccable flow ties together house music history with a deep love and knowledge of all genres and, perhaps most importantly, the desire and know-how to just make people dance. We couldn't be more thrilled to feature Tama Sumo and Lakuti for the first mix in our birthday series, and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we do. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/853

This week's RA Podcast marks something of a debut for Infinity Division, the new solo project from Canadian artist Ash Luk, best known as one half of EBM-techno duo Minimal Violence. (Minimal Violence had itself been a solo project since last year, when cofounder Lida P left the group.) Getting his start in Vancouver's punk scene as part of the band Lié, Luk's approach to dance music is informed not only by those origins but by Western Canada's long history with industrial music and techno (spot Skinny Puppy and Tunnel Canary in the tracklist). 
 Minimal Violence first impressed us with their hardware-focused house and techno, a harder-edged version of the sound that was sweeping Vancouver at the time, before moving on to Ninja Tune sub-label Technicolour and then Tresor for a series of records that saw their sound become more expansive, sharper and more melodic, incorporating not just techno and punk influences but also trance, EBM and more. These are the genres that feed into Infinity Division, and Luk's RA Podcast hurtles through everything from old Prodigy, '90s German hard trance, Canadian breakcore and new tracks from his project. This is heavy dance music that's also heavy on melody, unafraid of huge crescendoes that hit that sweet spot between punishment and euphoria. Buckle up. Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/852

For some dance music fans, Hamish & Toby may be their new favourite DJs thanks to a recent US tour and excellent sets at festivals like Glastonbury, Dimensions, Houghton and Freerotation. 2022 was, after all, a breakthrough year for the UK duo. But in their own, close-knit world of Discogs fanatics and vinyl purists, Hamish Cole and Toby Wareham are admired and established names. They met while studying in Leeds, bonding over a shared love of wiggly bombs at countless clubs and hazy afterparties. They ran events (Butter Side Up, Dog Eat Dog), DJ’d tirelessly and continued to dig for obscure gems. Within a few years, they were both working full-time music jobs in London, booking Dimensions Festival (Hamish) and The Pickle Factory (Toby). (Hamish is now a director at Dimensions.) All in all, they’ve dedicated the past 15 years of their lives to dance music. For all their behind-the-scenes work, Hamish & Toby’s true love is DJing together. They’re known for their long, expressive sets that go, in their own words, “all over the map.” Their RA Podcast, which was recorded live at Philadelphia party Subsurface in May, is a four-hour odyssey through golden-era house, tech house and UK garage. Proper party music, in other words. According to the duo, they were “fully locked in, as comfortable as we’ve ever felt DJing.” It really shows. @hamishcole @tobynicholas Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/851