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RA.1003 XDB
The German minimal DJ returns to the spotlight with two hours of artfully subtle house and techno. There's an old German proverb that goes "Der stete Tropfen höhlt den Stein." Literally, it means a constant dripping wears away the stone, but the point isn't about force but patience: slow, steady repetition can leave the deepest mark. It's an apt metaphor for the career of Kosta Athanassiadis, better known as XDB. Active since the early '90s, first as a DJ and then producer by the decade's end, Athanassiadis has built a career less on hype than persistence. His catalogue spans labels like Dial, Metrolux and Echocord, alongside a steady trickle of EPs and remixes that have quietly cemented his reputation as one of minimal house and techno's undersung heroes. That patience carries into his sound and production ethos. Where many of his peers embraced software upgrades and new workflows, Athanassiadis has long stuck to Cubase, a handful of trusty instruments and 30-year-old speakers he claims to have run "hundreds of thousands of tunes" through. He also still prefers to use inexpensive, straightforward gear—what matters, he insists, is not the tools but the feel. The result is a sound that’s stripped back, direct and enduring. Lately, Athanassiadis has found himself back in focus. With minimal enjoying fresh attention, his calendar has filled, and with it a run of back-to-back sets—most often alongside PLO Man, a regular sparring partner this year. True to form, though, you won't find that his style has changed much. Over 30 years after his first gig, you can rest assured you'll still find him playing with patience, carving out long arcs rather than sharp peaks. His RA Mix captures him in a reflective mood. Running just over two hours, RA.1003 is a hushed yet absorbing affair, moving seamlessly from the delicate atmospherics of Valentino Mora and Caldera to the machine funk of Robert Hood, Solid Gold Playaz and Marcellus Pittman. There are left turns folded into XDB's patient narrative arc, too: John Carpenter's brooding scores here, DJ Sprinkles' melancholic work with Will Long on "Acid Trax N (Acid Dog)" there. It's the sound of a DJ who has been quietly chiseling away for three decades, and who understands the value of persistence as much as restraint. @xdb Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1021
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RA.1002 Nooriyah
From speed garage to Arabic pop, one hour of borderless club energy from the Saudi DJ and curator. "We're making history tonight," hollered the MC at the start of Nooriyah's London Boiler Room in 2022. Sat next to the decks was her baba (Arabic for father), dressed in traditional Saudi garb. He opened the one-hour performance by playing the oud, a Middle Eastern instrument similar to a lute. Surrounded by smiling faces and pumping arms, it's a picture of joy. The set was a turning point—and not just for Nooriyah's career. Scroll through the comments on YouTube and you'll find notes of endearment, gratitude and teary appreciation, proof of how powerful it was for people to see Middle Eastern music placed at the centre of contemporary club culture. This speaks to Nooriyah's MO. Born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Japan and now based in the UK, her musical vision reflects her global upbringing. But her style isn't eclecticism for eclecticism's sake—she's spoken about the importance of carving out space for underrepresented voices in dance music. Her RA Mix makes that mission audible. The result is a breathless hour: 47 tracks darting between speed garage, amapiano, Jersey club, Arabic pop edits and percussion-heavy workouts from Cairo to Accra. But don't mistake pace for carelessness: RA.1002 never feels rushed. Each switch is considered, revealing a knowledge of how global dance traditions can speak to one another. All in all, it's not only a celebration of her own heritage, but an invitation to imagine dance floors unconstrained by borders. @nooriyah Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1020.
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RA.1001 Adrian Sherwood
Expansive dub vibrations from the On-U Sound maestro. Adrian Sherwood has spent nearly five decades reshaping how dub is heard and felt. From absorbing reggae and funk as a teenager at the Newlands Club in High Wycombe to cofounding On-U Sound in 1979, he’s been a restless force in British sound system culture. His debut production, Dub From Creation, signalled his instinct to twist the Jamaican form into bold, experimental directions. That spirit defined On-U Sound, where reggae collided with post-punk, industrial and synth pop to forge a catalogue still unlike anything else. Sherwood became a crucial bridge, producing for legends like Prince Far I, Bim Sherman and Lee “Scratch” Perry, while also working with Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and Sinéad O’Connor. His RA Mix (yes, you read that right) arrives at a moment of renewal—RA.1001 is the first in a new era for the series. (After 1,000 editions of the RA Podcast, we're updating the name to better reflect what it's become.) Recorded at his Ramsgate studio, the 76-minute mix folds in cuts from The Collapse Of Everything alongside material from across the On-U Sound universe, plus collaborations with Panda Bear, Sonic Boom, Coldcut and Spoon. It's Sherwood doing what he's always done: stretching dub into endless new shapes. Find the interview and tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1019
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RA.1000 DJ Harvey & Andrew Weatherall
Andrew Weatherall's first official posthumous mix. The only b2b DJ Harvey ever agreed to. Six hours at Trouw. This one's special. When mulling which direction to go in for RA's 1000th mix celebrations, many options came to mind. Some shadowy character 2-stepping around the fringe of our collective consciousness? An impossible-level IDM icon? All tempting. But, ultimately, we are a DJ-forward publication and this is a DJ mix series. It felt truer to the history of the RA Podcast to release deep vault material from a time when the world of niche records felt different, tighter, more discrete. The fourth-longest mix in the series' history is an unrepeatable marathon set recorded in 2012 at a superclub that no longer exists. 2012, incidentally, is farther away from 2025 than 2012 was from 2000... if we have to clock it, so do you. It's the coming together of one British icon who passed away in 2020, and another whose time on the road has scaled back considerably as of late. DJ Harvey agreed to exactly one b2b set in his life: this one, with Andrew Weatherall. The night took place at Trouw, an Amsterdam club already considered legendary before it shuttered its doors in the opening hours of 2015, as part of an RA series anchored around start-to-close combinations. Harvey was at the peak of an irresistible career second act, which dovetailed with a disco revival that dominated clubs for years. Weatherall, with infinite brownie points stockpiled from the '90s, remained everyone's favourite debonair psychonaut. What follows is 385 scintillating minutes of arpeggiated chug and slow-cresting climaxes: a moment when the resting heart rate of dance floors plunged lower than any comparable point in the 21st century. A masterclass, entirely self-contained in audio form. If you've got time to spare, a fun side game is sussing out who plays what. A disco-dub cover of Echo & the Bunnymen? Smart money's on Weatherall. Exuberant EQ'ing of The Isley Brothers? Gotta be Harvey. As for the low 'n slow, lightly spangled house that was all the rage in the early 2010s (think Maxxi Soundsystem, Disco Bloodbath, Rub & Tug, C.O.M.B.I. and Full Pupp), it's anyone's guess. 127 BPM feels practically like an F1 car. When we kicked off our RA.1000 campaign, we outlined a few goals: tick off a handful of long-awaited dream guests, honour architects who shaped the world around us and deliver recordings you truly can't hear anywhere else. Full send. DJing and the mythmaking around it has undergone a quantum leap since 2012, let alone 2006, 1996 or 1989. For those of us who were kicking around in the former, there's a creeping melancholy that our prime is fast becoming a matter of historical record. The killing moon really did come too soon. Where will electronic music, DJ sets or any of this be in 2044? Hard to say. Best not to overthink that one. Instead, we want to say thanks to all contributors on the series so far. Now enjoy luxuriating in the company of two of the greatest to ever do it, together, for the first and last time.⁠ – Gabriel Szatan (Editor, RA) @andrew-weatherall Read the interview with DJ Harvey and Andrew Weatherall's family at https://ra.co/podcast/1016. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co
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6:25:12
RA.1000 Terre Thaemlitz / DJ Sprinkles
For RA.1000, DJ Sprinkles' first mix in over a decade is a powerful meditation on the genocide in Gaza. Dance music often relies on simple narratives: release, escape, unity. But those narratives can often feel inadequate, and even at times, hollow. Or, as Terre Thaemlitz might bluntly put it, just "shitty." For her first mix in around 15 years, Terre Thaemlitz AKA DJ Sprinkles, challenges us to think differently. "I felt this 1000th podcast should reflect the moment in which it was made," she told us in her Q&A. And what is this moment? Every day since Israel's 2023 assault on Gaza began, an average of 28 children have been killed. That's an entire classroom, every day, for over 600 days (at the time of writing). It's a staggering figure that only captures a fragment of the listless cruelty imposed on the strip. Faced with such a genocide, what can music really do? How political can it truly be? For their RA.1000, Thaemlitz gives us an unflinching rebuke to the idea that music should provide escapism. The mix weaves ambient fragments and jazz passages, woven around samples from Israeli media and the voices of outspoken Jewish critics like Gabor Maté and Norman Finkelstein. The result is not just a protest, but a document of our time. For Terre Thaemlitz, music is never just music. Her RA.1000 serves as a reminder that in an age of relentless suffering, the most political act is to reject the illusion of escape, and search for something greater. Read the interview and find the tracklist at ra.co/podcast/1013. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at https://1000.ra.co
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