UN SET DE NUEVE HORAS!!!

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=530

Nine hours, back-to-back, live from Robert Johnson

As a duo, Danilo Plessow (Motor City Drum Ensemble) and Jeremy Fichon (Jeremy Underground) make total sense together. They both got their break as house DJs, fond of classic and rare grooves, before their styles broadened significantly to include jazz, soul, disco, funk and boogie from around the world. They both find plenty of this music through obsessive digging, going to great lengths to source unheard and underappreciated records. As part of this ongoing pursuit, they both belong to a loose community of like-minded "digger DJs" that also includes Floating Points, Sadar Bahar, Red Greg and Hunee, among others. Needless to say, Plessow and Fichon both cherish vinyl. They prefer to play on rotary mixers, and both practice a type of modern disco DJing that's as much about technique as it is attitude. And, as Plessow explains below, they both have plenty in common when it comes to "life and experiences." 

Despite the obvious chemistry, Plessow and Fichon have only become friends and collaborators recently. They played together for the first time last year at Dimensions festival, an impromptu back-to-back closing set. (Fichon is returning to Dimensions this year, and will be joining Suzanne Kraft for RA's boat party.) They've DJ'd together since, but as part of RA's ongoing In Residence series we were excited to give them the canvas of an entire night—Offenbach's Robert Johnson from opening to close. If we can say this ourselves, the night wound up being pretty legendary. The club was packed throughout, with everyone hanging off the pair's every beat. RA.530 is a full recording of the party, an unprecedented (almost) nine-hour podcast that's something of a DJing master class. 

Real Scenes: Johannesburg

RA tells the remarkable story of the South African city's thriving house scene.
South Africans are the biggest consumers of house music in the world, and Johannesburg is the beating heart of their scene. If you're looking for proof, there is no need to visit a nightclub. In turning on a television, listening to the radio or walking down the street, it's clear that a 4/4 pulse is the metronome of everyday life. The city's preferred sound—vocal-led, percussive, melodic—is largely at odds with what's popular in other international markets; this coupled with cripplingly slow internet speeds goes someway to explaining SA's absence from the global house music conversation.

Visit the feature page on RA:
http://www.residentadvisor.net/featur...

Subscribe to the RA channel on YouTube: 
http://www.youtube.com/residentadvisor

Music in order of appearance: 
Culoe De Song- Webaba [Soulistic Music] 2010
Black Motion- The Documentary [Kalawa Jazmee] 2013
TKZee- Palafala (Midnight Lover Mix) [BMG Records Africa] 1998
Vinny da Vinci- We Love House Music [House Afrika Records] 2004
Culoe de Song- Ambush (Culoe De Song's Voyage Dub) [Soulistic Music] 2010
TKZee- Dlala Mapantsula [BMG Records Africa] 2012
Black Motion- Manghoro [Kalawa Jazzmee] 2013
Infinite Boys ft Coco- Teka Teka [Kalawa Jazmee] 2012
Black Coffee- Trip To Lyon [Soulistic Music] 2010
Black Motion- Thrills [Kalawa Jazzmee] 2013
Jullian Gomes ft Bobby- Love Song 28 [Soul Candi Records]2011
DJ Shimza- Never Loved Anyone [Soul Candi Records] 2012

Marquis Hawkes

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=532

It’s possible that Mark Hawkins has several different groups of fans. If you were buying tough, jacking techno in the early-to-mid 2000s, you might have picked up his 12-inches for the iconic Dutch label Djax-Up-Beats, among others. Hawkins explored techno’s extremities, with grinding, fast-paced tracks that folded in influences from ghetto house. More recently, you may have enjoyed Hawkins’ dusky releases as Juxta Position. It hasn’t been his most prolific alias, with three releases since 2013, but the music has made an impact, particularly Juxta Position Vol.1, which came out on DVS1’s Mistress Recordings. You might even know him as ###, a pseudonym he used in the late ‘00s for a couple of minimal outings.

Then, of course, there’s Marquis Hawkes, the name he’s best know for. This is Hawkins’ outlet for interpreting classic house blueprints—in a string of releases since 2012, he’s tipped his hat to the sounds of Chicago, New York and New Jersey. Respected labels like Dixon Avenue Basement Jams, Clone, Aus Music and Crème Organization have signed his tracks, and Social Housing, his recent album, was the result of his ongoing relationship with fabric’s in-house label Houndstooth. (The album also reopened a debate surrounding appropriation, which Hawkins comments on below.) It featured some of the brightest and most celebratory music of Hawkins’ career, an approach that worked nicely for the transition to the album format.

- Resident Advisor

Red Greg: Obscure soul, disco and boogie from a highly regarded selector

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=527

Darren Griffiths, AKA Red Greg, is not a widely known DJ, but among disco and soul aficionados he's one of the most highly regarded. He's been collecting records since the late '80s, cultivating an outrageously deep collection of dance floor-focussed disco, boogie and soul. His compilation Under The Influence, released on Z records in 2011, is a great example of his style. The release featured a slew of mega obscure, independently released music. Perhaps the pick of the release was Aged In Harmony's "You're A Melody," an incredibly funky and rare mid-tempo soul track. When Floating Points tried to track down a vinyl copy, he was pointed in the direction of Griffiths. A friendship blossomed that lead to him playing Floating Points' You're A Melody party at Plastic People. Jeremy Underground also played that night, and the recording introduced Griffiths to a much wider audience, the mix being voted in the top mixes of 2013 on RA. 

Since then Griffiths has continued to deliver his blend of soulful dance music to increasingly international audiences, with gigs across Europe as well as further appearances at You're A Melody. His RA mix shows why he's held in such high esteem. It's fanatically obscure selection of music delivered with the skill to get any dance floor moving. 

Bjørn Torske

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=466

The revered Norwegian artist takes us higher

"It's interesting to consider the ways in which different countries have consumed and interpreted house and techno since it sprang from the US all those years ago. It's a generalisation, sure, but Norwegian producers are often associated with a particularly distinct take on those styles. Tromsø's Bjørn Torske is the largely responsible for this fact. He started releasing music in the '90s, and developed a sound that draws as much from disco, dub and psychedelic rock as it does house and techno. He's released four albums since 1998—two of which, the excellent Nedi Myra and Trøbbel, were recently reissued by Smalltown Supersound—and has worked with key labels like Tellé, Svek and Sex Tags Mania. This has made him a cult favourite in Norway, and an enormous inspiration to guys like Todd Terje, Prins Thomas and Lindstrøm, artists who would go on to spread variations of the Norwegian style around the world. ("Nedi Myra was one of the first house albums I bought, or at least that's what I thought it was," Terje said recently. "Weird futuro-bossa and foggy disco-not-really-disco was more like it.") Torske himself has been more of a low-key presence over the years, but he's kept up a steady flow of releases and DJs regularly in and around Norway—"my highest priority definitely is to be a DJ and select music for people," he says below."

The Range

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=521

“Can you think of many current dance music artists whose music you’d call “earnest”? Not earnest in the sense of solemnity or seriousness, more like honest-to-god, heart-on-the-sleeve emotion? Dance music often seems most comfortable in obfuscation, its emotions held back a little, but as The Range, James Hinton writes songs that go against this grain. His sound, a kind of home listening style made from bits of club music, is pretty and incredibly sincere. In his review of Potential, Hinton’s recent album on Domino, Andrew Ryce used words like “poignancy,” “vulnerable,” “bittersweet,” and “heart-tugging melodrama” to describe its 11 tracks. In particular, Hinton loves to draw sentiment from the human voice. On Nonfiction, his 2013 breakthrough album, he sampled speech and singing from YouTube videos with barely any views; on Potential he put this concept at the heart of the record, going as far as to make a documentary about the stories behind the people he sampled. “Right now I don’t have a backup plan for if I don’t make it,” says a wannabe artist on “Regular,” a line soaked in hope and vulnerability in a way that defines the album.”

Francesco Del Garda: The highly-rated Italian selector steps up

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=518

Francesco Del Garda is one of the happiest-looking DJs you're ever likely to see. Grinning while moving from turntable to mixer to record bag, it usually looks like he's having as much as anyone in the crowd. Beneath Del Garda's cheery demeanour, though, is a highly skilled selector with an impressive record collection. He's been honing his technique since the '90s, developing an on-point style that allows him to smoothly blend UK garage, '90s house, oddball techno and electro. Based in Italy, Del Garda is a key player in a loosely defined scene that also includes DJs like the Berlin-based Binh, Nicolas Lutz and the recently-profiled Onur Özer (you can occasionally catch them all playing at the same party). These DJs take as much pride in their rare finds as they do in their technique. Their style and attitude is obviously infectious: Del Garda and co. are currently among the busiest and best-loved DJs on the scene. 

We get the real Francesco Del Garda experience on this week's podcast. The same bounce and warmth you hear in the Italian's club sets underlies the house, garage and electro, all of it deftly spliced together. 

- Resident Advisor

Awesome Tapes From Africa

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=517

Thrilling music from the cassette deck of Brian Shimkovitz

There are worse ways to wile away an afternoon than scrolling through the Awesome Tapes From Africa blog. It was started ten years ago by Brian Shimkovitz, an ethnomusicologist whose obsession with collecting African tapes began after a trip to Ghana. Since then he's been travelling regularly to Africa, hitting up market stalls and secondhand shops to dig up cassette curios. The blog's simple layout makes it easy to admire the cover art—the sleeves are usually beautiful and evocative, like this or this orthis. Every post is a glimpse into a different corner of the vast African musical diaspora, be it South African synth pop, praise music from Northern Ghana or vocal and string music from Ethiopia. 

The Awesome Tapes From Africa record label was launched in 2011, with Shimkovitz often going to great lengths to track down musicians. Importantly, these releases have sparked newfound interest in many artists—the likes of Hailu Mergia, Nahawa Doumbia and SK Kakraba have all toured Europe following ATFA releases. Shimkovitz himself has become a festival regular as a DJ, mixing his cassettes using a tape deck and a mixer. Tape-mixing may just seem like a cute USP in 2016, but you can see it's born from a deep passion. It's a passion that's apparent on Shimkovitz's RA podcast, which showcases the African music that's currently exciting him the most. 

Leafar Legov: Soothing rhythms from a Giegling mainstay

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=514

Leafar Legov is a quiet but essential member of the Giegling family. He and Konstantin were making music together in Hannover before the label formed—today, they are Kettenkarussell, a live act and production outfit whose bittersweet sound embodies Giegling's ineffable ethos. Perhaps even more than his label-mates, Legov's relationship with club music seems purely conditional—he'll follow its guidelines only when they happen to suit his creative impulses. With Kettenkarussell, he makes what could loosely be described as downtempo house. On his solo records, he offsets ambient sketches with somber hip-hop instrumentals. But his personal musical universe is still, for the most part, a mystery—aside from "Blush," an excellent one-off from 2009 he made as Robert Oh, his first solo release was Giegling's latest EP, Talk, which came out in February. Abstract and subdued, it's a record that points to Giegling's emotional depth and stylistic open-endedness.

Legov's RA Podcast is more committed to a 4/4 pulse, but it's still extraordinarily serene, ghosting through a sequence of vague and lovely cinematic images. Composed entirely of unreleased productions, it's a titillating glimpse of what Legov's got up his sleeve.

DJ Bone: A lesson in keeping it real from a Detroit favourite

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=295

DJ Bone, AKA Eric Dulan, has been releasing music and DJing for over two decades, but ever since the Differ-ent EP arrived on Don't Be Afraid last year, the Detroit veteran has burst back onto the dance music scene—though the truth is, he's never been away. 

His DJing skills are superlative. Dulan uses three decks to turn loop-driven techno into startling new compounds, and no matter the functionality of his selections, he cuts linear drum tracks into unique and exciting shapes. He's been equally impressive behind the production desk. Riding The Thin Line from 1999 is an early example of a charging, funky style that's a joy to mix and dance to. But it wasn't until 2004 that Dulan kicked into gear by releasing a relentless string of EPs that have recently been reappearing in many DJs' bags. Over the years he's released more than 30 12-inches, but he's always careful to imbue his work with a sense of purpose, dealing with, among others, themes of death and racial equality. Talking to Carlos Hawthorn at Bloc. Festival, Dulan gave an insight into his mentality in the booth and the studio, and spoke out against the idea that he's on a comeback—Dulan has, after all, always been among Detroit's finest. 

DJ Deeon: The ghetto house pioneer lets loose

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=510

Last year, Numbers released Deeon Doez Deeon!, a compilation EP that reissued some of the Chicago producer's best work. The selection was incredibly on-point, emphasizing the qualities that make ghetto house, the genre Deeon helped create, so good. "House-O-Matic," "Freak Like Me," "2 B Free"—these are fast, funky, sample-heavy party jams that sound as slamming now as they did in the mid-'90s. The style's longevity could be due to its feeling of authenticity. The vast number of tracks scene leaders like Deeon, DJ Funk, Jammin' Gerald, DJ Slugo, DJ Milton and Paul Johnson pumped out were a representation of—or a response to—the raw and chaotic surroundings of parties in Chicago's South Side. "I got a hold of a Roland 606 drum machine and a 303 and started just customizing the tracks with the different projects where people were from, different areas... cause everybody came from every area of the South Side to the parties," Deeon said in our profile on Dance Mania, the label that's known as the home of ghetto house. 

Deeon got his start playing sweaty house parties in the projects and selling mixtapes in a parking lot. Eventually he started making music. According to Deeon, ghetto house's infamously erotic lyrics and track titles ("Let Me Bang," "Freak Like Me" and "Shake What Your Mama Gave Ya" are just a few from Deeon's catalogue) made it OK for local guys to like house music. "You had regular guys, in gangs and stuff, they would dance just to dance with the females," Deeon told us. "That crossed it over... because once it got to the ghetto house with profanity in it... it bridged the gap." Deeon wound up releasing around 30 singles in four years for Dance Mania, and has continued to build upon his classic recordings with tracks and DJ sets that carry on the raw spirit of ghetto house. 

On RA.510 Deeon draws links between classic ghetto house and newer unruly strains of house and techno. But whatever the era, these tracks are bound by a swinging sense of abandon. There's been plenty of talk about Deeon making his UK debut at XOYO in London this weekend (it actually turns out he played the country back in '94), and through a combination of a Crowd Funder campaign and the festival organisers themselves, he'll also been banging it out at Bloc in Minehead. 

Soichi Terada: Sounds from the Far East

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=511

In the 1999 PlayStation game Ape Escape, the main character, Spike, begins his journey in The Time Station, a hub where he accesses the game's different stages. As he shuffles through the area, which has a space-age-M&M-store feel, a jungle track with melancholic whistles, warm subs and meditative keys is the soundtrack. The music was composed by Soichi Terada, and if you heard Sounds From The Far East, RA's favourite compilation of 2015, such moments of crystalline beauty will be familiar to you. When Hunee, the compilation's curator, came to choose the tracks, he was assessing an artist and label that both started out in the late '80s. Leaving to one side Terada's work in soundtracks, video games and as one half of the group Omodaka, Hunee focussed on the early '90s, a period when Terada released an exquisite string of tracks on his own Far East Recording that were inspired by the first wave of US deep house. Terada's style fizzed with musicality—he studied electric organ, an instrument his father introduced him to, and on classic tracks like "Sun Shower" and "Saturday Love Sunday" his melodic proficiency was dazzling.

Skip forward to 2016 and Terada is an artist reborn. Sounds From The Far East caused a fresh surge of interest in his music, which has led to him touring extensively and releasing new music. His live show has also become a talking point: Terada is a whirlwind of good vibes behind his keyboards, and if he isn't smiling when he plays RA's stage at this year's Sónar festival you'll know that something is very wrong.

Terada's RA podcast makes for a great companion to Sounds From The Far East, in that it exclusively features Japanese house music. Shinichiro Yokota—whose track "Do It Again," a bona fide classic, was included on the compilation—is well represented here along with artists like Sloper and SEKITOVA. There's an alluring outsider quality to these tracks, as though the classic deep house template had been subtly but noticeably refracted.

- Resident Advisor

Ruby My Dear: Breakcore with a melodic twist

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=509

If you thought breakcore had withered and died, then you'd be mistaken. The catch-all sub-genre, which has been deemed more of a strategy than a sound, may not be as abundant as it used to be, but it is still quietly bubbling. Rising out of the squat scene of the 1990s in pockets of Europe, Australia, Canada and the US, this maniacal mashup of dance styles (jungle, ragga, breakbeat, hardcore, gabber and so on) has since mutated, spread and retreated back underground. There are a few bastions plugging away—PRSPCT in Holland, Bangface in the UK—but it's mostly a cloistered scene. Nevertheless, the Toulouse-based Ruby My Dear is an artist who's been getting props beyond the breakcore sphere. 

Naming himself after a 1947 ballad by Thelonious Monk, jazz, opera, funk, rock and French and Asian folk sit among the gamut of dance styles he's experimented with over the last six years, releasing on labels like Peace Off, Acroplane Recordings and Ad Noiseam. But it's his grasp for melodies that's made Ruby My Dear stand apart. His 2012 breakout album, Remains Of Shapes To Come, used the ingenuity and punk ethics of breakcore but left all the silliness behind. It was a mature and serious listen, with enough sass to be both highbrow and fun. It's a balance he also achieved on Form, its follow up. Ruby My Dear has a tendency to pack plenty into his compositions—and his RA podcast is no different. If this is your first encounter with breakcore, don't panic, you are in safe hands, but be prepared for a white-knuckle ride. 

Sadar Bahar: A Chicago favourite keeps the soul in the hole

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=507

Sadar Bahar jokingly describes his vinyl-buying habit as a "30-year disease, a sickness." Driven by an "unquenchable desire to create one of the best collections ever," he filled his home with records, and once his home was full, he began storing them in his mother's basement. Speaking to Rush Hour last year, Bahar admitted to owning as many as nine copies of a single record. His collection includes plenty of exceedingly rare wax—he once told CDR of a ten-year quest to find a copy of Open Soul by Tomorrow's People. There's also no shortage of other DJs playing music they first heard in a Sadar Bahar set. Theo Parrish, who describes Bahar's DJing as "sick, sick, sick," freely admits to "biting" his selections, while Dego simply calls his sets "ridiculous." 

Bahar's schooling, like many Chicago DJs of his generation, came from watching Ron Hardy in action at the Music Box. "Every time you went to see Ron Hardy, you'd come away with knowledge and having had a good time," he said to CDR. Years later, he noticed that standards had slipped: many of the city's DJs were shopping at the same record stores and playing the same music. This spurred him to go the opposite route, digging harder and deeper than his contemporaries. It's an approach that has come to define him, and it feeds into Soul In The Hole, the party he runs with Lee Collins. The music played at those vinyl-only parties is a joyous blend of disco, soul and gospel. In 2012, the UK label BBE issued a Soul In The Hole compilation, a killer selection that brought Collins and Bahar's sound to the world. 

Bahar's RA podcast contains a few rare cuts, but that's not the focus—he plays a Blondie track that you can buy for spare change at secondhand shops. He also includes Martin L. Dumas, Jr.'s holy grail soul burner, whose lyrics go: "Positive attitude, belief and determination are the elements that make diamonds of us all." Anyone who's seen Bahar's smile beaming from behind the decks will agree that it's those qualities that make him such an inspiring DJ. 

Andy Hart

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=503

One of Australia’s best selectors brings the party

Around five or six years ago, Melbourne was entering a golden age of house music, led by a crew of now-globally recognised artists like Tornado Wallace, Francis Inferno Orchestra and Fantastic Man, AKA Mic Newman. Andy Hart, although a little further from the limelight, played a pivotal role in the development of the city’s signature deep, groovy sound. In particular, this was thanks to his Melbourne Deepcast podcast-cum-label (co-run with Myles Mac), which showcased the city’s new wave of talent in its early releases. While plenty has changed since those records, Hart has continued to support Melbourne’s emerging artists. His current label, Voyage, launched in 2014 and has championed acts like M5K and Harvey Sutherland, whoseBrothers EP was a breakthrough for the Victoria synth wizard.

Hart moved to Berlin 18 months ago, following a migration trend that’s seen a number of his peers setting up in the German capital, as well as London. Aside from working on Voyage and dropping solo EPs on Heist and Sleazy Beats Black Ops, he’s spent time among the OYE Records family, particularly with frequent studio collaborator Max Graef. The likeminded pair have been releasing music together since 2012 on Melbourne Deepcast and Box Aus Holz, complementing one another’s love of jazz-infused dance music. Those influences and more are laid out in Hart’s inviting two-hour RA podcast, which spans smooth soul and funk, bright disco and classic ‘90s house. 

Youngsta

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=495

Daniel Lockhart is the workhorse of the dubstep scene. A DJ since the age of 12, he spent his teenage years working at the influential Black Market Records as well as putting out some of the dubstep's earliest records. Lockhart dropped out of school to focus on his career in the genre. His dedication paid off: look through the annals of dubstep history and Lockhart's Youngsta alias is one of the most common names you'll see. He played at the earliest FWD>> nights and mixed the foundational entries in the Dubstep Allstars series. He lived dubstep, and as others in the scene drifted towards house and techno, Lockhart remained loyal to a traditional idea of the genre—a dark, brooding strain once dubbed the "dungeon sound." As a result, Lockhart is a leading figure, inspiring both veterans sticking to their guns and a new generation pumping out classic dubstep beats. But he's far from a navel-gazer trying to relive glory days, nor is he a purist. 

Lockhart is a noted perfectionist, known for asking artists to adjust the sounds of hi-hats and other minute details before he'll play their tracks. That careful style bleeds into his DJing, too. He's not the kind of DJ who cuts quickly between tracks and races to the drop. Instead, he lets the tunes breathe, which makes his sets feel more dynamic. His RA podcast is a great example, moving through cuts from Addison Groove, Boddika and Paleman before diving into a deep dubstep session marked by his steady hand and impeccable taste. 

Eclair Fifi: The Scottish DJ drops a wild 60 minutes

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=497

Clair Stirling is a radio host, artist and designer who is best known as an in-house DJ for the Glasgow label/collective LuckyMe. She's played a large role in defining LuckyMe's multidisciplinary flair, contributing artwork—including sleeves for Machinedrum and Baauer—styling for music videos and general visual direction. Through her regular appearances on Rinse FM, she showcases the sound of LuckyMe, a broad church that's rooted in electronic music but throws mutated forms of hip-hop and pop into the blender. Stirling got her start in radio aged 16, although her roots in dance music go back to her childhood, which is when her parents introduced her to house and techno. She hosted a show on interFACE, the world's first online pirate radio station, and went on to present on BBC Radio 1 as part of the station's In New DJs We Trust series. These experiences have shaped Stirling into an adventurous selector who casually and confidently joins the dots between disparate club styles. 

On her RA podcast, it takes Stirling all of two minutes to demonstrate this knack: she opens with a Shackleton-esque new track by the footwork artist Jlin before easing into a breezy '80s freestyle cut by Cynthia Roundtree. What follows is a gripping collision between classic and contemporary, with raw house and techno rhythms bumping against fresh beats from talents like Blacksea Não Maya, Shanti Celeste and Inkke. 

Resident Advisor entrevista a Morton Subotnick, genio y pionero de la música electrónica

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?exchange=278

When Morton Subotnick started his career in electronic music at the dawn of the 1960s, the genre barely existed. The primary "instrument" was the reel-to-reel tape machine, and although there were oscillators, they were part of laboratories, not synthesizers. Subotnick, who'd grown up as a clarinet prodigy and was by this point a member of San Francisco's avant-garde, seemed to have a near-psychic understanding of what advancements in electronics could mean for music, and he set about building the instrument of the future. He found a collaborator in Don Buchla, and with their Buchla Series 100 synthesizer, Subotnick composed the 1968 classic Silver Apples Of The Moon. The piece is notable both for being the first electronic composition commissioned by a record label, but more importantly, it was a piece that could only be electronic music. Subotnick has remained active as a composer, performer and educator ever since, and he's amassed innumerable stories over his half-century-long career. Jordan Rothlein met him in New York to commit an hour's worth of them to tape.

Sasha

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=491

SASHA: A mix legend shows his skills

When it comes to recording mixes, Sasha has some of the best credentials in dance music. In 2013 he released Invol<3r, a two-CD missive made up entirely of his own remixes, and the latest chapter in a story that dates back to 1994. That was the year Sasha and John Digweed, his long-time sparring partner, recorded The Renaissance Mix Collection, one of the first-ever fully mixed compilations. This wasn’t merely a format advancement, though: the mix is considered one of the greatest there is—although it had a rival in Northern Exposure, the double mix the pair delivered in 1996. During the ‘90s, through his mix CDs and club sets (both of which took on a mythical status) Sasha helped create the blueprint for progressive house, a style that favoured emotive synthesis, driving basslines and long, seamless mixing. He had an almost samurai-like approach to DJing, with an emphasis on technique and a studied attention to detail.

The core of Sasha’s MO is still in place. His productions and remixes are released at a considered pace, and his label, Last Night On Earth, is meticulously curated. We no longer refer to what Sasha plays and produces as progressive house, but he’s still fascinated with melody and the art of narration through music, something that’s clear on his RA podcast. It would be inaccurate to describe this as a home-listening session (there are plenty of robust beats here, after all) but he’s chosen tracks that feel song-like, with strong melodic lines and vocals drifting in and out of focus… the mix also features the sort of innovative little tricks that have kept Sasha at the top of his game for more than 20 years.

Real Scenes: Mexico City

Sep 16, 2015

Life in the Mexican capital throws up many obstacles, but as we found out in the return of our long-running film series, a small number of dedicated people are trying to build an electronic music scene in one of the world's most chaotic cities.

Mexico City is one of the largest and most vibrant metropolises in the world, but its electronic music scene has yet to truly flourish. It's a city where vast inequality, crime and widespread corruption are everyday realities, and where nightclubs are largely reserved for the moneyed elites. For those who put music first, there are many obstacles—a lack of venues, a limited audience, very little financial gain. Whether you're putting on parties, releasing music or hustling for gigs, making ends meet is a constant struggle.

But the issue also runs deeper. Malinchismo, which means a preference for the foreign over the local, is a term you hear a lot in Mexico City, and it spills over into all aspects of life. In dance music, Mexican fans and DJs will avidly follow artists from Berlin or London but pay little attention to national talent. The domestic scene therefore suffers, unable to develop an identity of its own.

In our latest Real Scenes film we travelled to the colourful, chaotic capital to meet the people who are trying to make dance music work in Mexico City. We found a core community as dedicated, talented and passionate as any in the world.

Visit the RA feature page: http://www.residentadvisor.net/featur...

Subscribe to the RA YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/1x7PeGy