RA Podcast

An hour of Lagos street-pop from Nyege Nyege's mara trailblazer.

Of the many shades of Lagos street-pop, few speak as vividly to dancers as mara, whose lightning-fast, free-flowing and often comedic routines have gone viral around the world. Heady polyrhythms and chirpy synths gallop at footwork-like speeds, but it all feels blissful, as effortless as a prancing gazelle.

Azzi On The Beat wants to turn mara into a household sound around the world. His debut album Mara Gram, out now on Nyege Nyege Tapes, harnesses the intensity of his live sets, building beats on the fly to match the energy of his dancers. By weaving elements of indigenous Yoruba aesthetics into his work, he ensures mara won't just be the latest fad in a rapidly globalising dance music economy, but a powerful reminder of African innovation, creativity and energy.

He recorded RA.1065 in his living room, a paler backdrop than the dance floors where he's usually mobbed by ferocious dancers. The result is a mellower, more tender interpretation of mara that captures the "normal vibe of inspiration that I catch when I'm home looking at the ceiling."

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1084
@azzionthbeat

The Berghain resident on punk's ethos, choosing the difficult path and his new album, My Own Shadow.

Marcel Dettmann has become synonymous with Berghain and its primary cultural export: Berlin techno. He began DJing at Ostgut, Berghain's predecessor, in 1999. When Berghain opened its doors in 2004, he was one of its first residents, on a roster that grew to include luminaries like his longtime collaborator Ben Klock.

In this RA Exchange, Dettmann talks about the long road from bedroom DJ to one of techno's leading figures: first falling in love with '80s new wave records, running a record store out of his mother's house, sharing vinyl with neighbourhood friends like future Berghain resident Marcel Fengler, and eventually landing behind the counter at Hard Wax, which he calls his "school".

Dettmann has been a fixture on the techno circuit for more than 25 years, yet there are still sides of his artistry that fans may not know. My Own Shadow, an expanding project of EPs and visual work that now includes a full-length album, shows his creative world from another angle. He breaks down the album's cinematic imagery, reflects on the years it took to get where he is, and explains why the path that takes the most work is the one that pays off.

My Own Shadow is out November 13th on !K7. Listen to the full episode.

Sun-soaked house from the Circoloco favourite.

Want to know what life is like when the sun is always shining? Carlita might be able to tell you. The Istanbul-born DJ follows the summer around the world, and her calendar reads like a festival bucket list: Coachella, Sónar, Tomorrowland and, most often, Circoloco at DC-10. It's also a neat encapsulation of her DJing. One of the biggest names in big-room house, Carlita has a sound that's warm and melodic, often pairing house classics with pop hooks and the odd swell of strings.

It's a long way from where she started. Classically trained on the cello from the age of eight, Carlita only found dance music while studying in Boston, where a Turkish club owner taught her to mix and handed her a residency at Bijou. Since then she's become one of the scene's great crossover acts, mentored by DJ Tennis, blurring music, fashion and art at her Senza Fine parties, and making her pop ambitions plain across two albums for Ninja Tune: 2024's Sentimental and Telepathy, out today, with guests including Justine Skye and SOFI TUKKER.

Her RA Mix is a slower burn than her festival sets. Built track by track in Ableton, it's an intimate, detail-obsessed journey that moves from Omar S and a Todd Terry Freeze Mix to newer house from D Stone and Jasper James, with 'Pablo' and 'Rising Up' from the new album along the way. It's made for the couch, the car or an early morning party—wherever the sun happens to be.

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1083
@carla-frayman

The Manchester artist marches back into the club and cranks up the subs.

“You don’t need to study music, you need to study sounds.” That was the advice Andy Stott’s piano teacher, Alison Skidmore, gave him as a teenager. Around 2010, stuck in a creative rut and tired of his dub techno sound, Stott slowed things down, started sampling field recordings and brought Skidmore in as his vocalist. Records like Luxury Problems and Faith In Strangers added a pop twist to his cavernous sound and made him a critics’ darling.

His new album, Late Loop, out now, is his first in five years, is out this week. Skidmore returns alongside a new voice, Elaine Howley, and the aim, by his account, was to come away with songs rather than textures.

You'll find the word "pop" attached to Stott's name a lot these days., but his RA Mix is about as far from pop as it gets: 12 new, unreleased tracks written fast at home. RA.1063 opens with an even weightier echo of “Numb,” and from there it’s industrial steppers all the way, chugging sub bass cut through with the occasional sharp hi-hat, marching deeper into the dark.

Somewhere between the grain of Demdike Stare and the bass pressure of The Bug, it’s almost seductive in how reductive it is. Skidmore once told him to study sounds. All these years later, Stott is still doing his homework.

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1082
@andystott-music

A sonic diary from one of UK experimental music's brightest talents.

Loraine James doesn't like to sit still. She first made waves on Hyperdub, where 2019's For You and I and 2021's Reflection reimagined grime, IDM and dub with a mischievous touch. But calling her a club experimentalist has never fit the bill. The London-born artist has collaborated with everyone from Yaeji to TSVI, remixed Kelela and Tirzah, hosts an NTS show steeped in contemporary classical and turns out records at a staggering pace. She also makes some of the most evocative ambient around as Whatever the Weather.

What holds it all together is irreverence and intimacy, like tuning into the silly but heartfelt voice notes you might send a new lover. And that energy runs through her RA Mix. It opens in wistful territory with her own Tirzah collaboration, before shifting into the spectral jazz of African-American Sound Recordings. A third of the way in, it moves to the darker corners of her USB, as Aoki Takamasa's glitchy minimal gives way to Burial at his hardest-hitting. From there, things stay weird: deconstructed freestyle rapping, vintage Flying Lotus, post-club trance via Arca and plenty of James's own music.

Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1081
@lorainejames