RA Exchange

EX.685 Honey Dijon

"I don't complain, I create." The house DJ talks about her new multi-platform project, Honeyverse, and using music as a way to celebrate the Black community.
Honey Dijon is a house music icon whose reputation precedes her. Originally hailing from Chicago, she grew up experiencing the city's nightlife, eventually beginning to DJ and produce alongside contemporaries like Derrick Carter, Mark Farina and other artists who shaped the Chicago house music canon.
Throughout her career, she's been an active spokesperson for trans rights and a champion for the BIPOC community, and last month she put on her greatest platform for Black culture to date: Honeyverse. The multi-platform Honey Dijon experience took place at London's Southbank Centre, bringing club nights, live sets, orchestras and intimate conversations together in a takeover that drew its inspiration from her roots in Chicago's Black community.
In this RA Exchange live from Southbank Centre, Honey Dijon talks to Josh Caffé about her connection to house music, an art form made from rejection and thus marginalised in the annals of music history. Her work, she says, is about giving visibility to the voices that were lost in its development and creating a more expansive platform for artists from the Black and Latinx diaspora. "This is a celebration of love, joy and acceptance," she says of Honeyverse.
Listen to the episode in full, and watch video snippets of their conversation on Resident Advisor's Instagram and YouTube.

EX.684 ADHD and Dance Music

Dr Michelle and Mahnoor—a psychologist and a DJ, respectively—discuss ADHD and how neurodivergent individuals can find safety on the dance floor.
In an age of technological surfeit and the attention economy, people are affected with ADHD diagnoses on an increasing frequency. Thinking differently can be both an obstacle and a superpower. While some ways of working and digesting information may be more challenging, others, like creativity, come with more ease.
Today's episode of the RA Exchange, the final instalment of our collaboration with the UK mental health charity Black Minds Matter, explores the topic of ADHD and how it connects with dance music. The industry can attract and often be a safe space for people affected by ADHD diagnoses, says host Vanessa Maria, a London-based broadcaster whose work champions music and mental health. In two interviews, she unpacks what happens on a physiological level when one lives with neurodivergence, music's ability to alleviate many of the symptoms that accompany ADHD and how more inclusive dance music spaces could allow people to better navigate neurodivergence.
Vanessa Maria's guests are Dr Michelle—a music psychologist, DJ and radio host—and Mahnoor, a DJ who lives with ADHD and creates projects for movement, music and meditation for South Asian minorities. She brings the perspective of someone navigating neurodivergence beyond BMM and the Black community. Listen to the episode in full for their insights.
This edition of the RA Exchange was recorded in collaboration with The Qube, London's first members' studio for music and content creators. If you're a music producer, songwriter, artist, photographer or podcaster and would like to apply for a membership, head over to theqube.com.

EX.683 Ash Scholem

"Dancing is never just dancing." The Tbilisi-based DJ talks about nightlife politics, the Left Bank collective and Eastern European club culture live from ICKPA Festival.
Tbilisi has been experiencing a club music renaissance over the last few years, with clubs like Bassiani and Khidi opening their doors to top tier DJs from around the world and simultaneously heralding an era of world class nightlife. While techno has reigned supreme at these venues, they left a gap that the relatively new space, Left Bank, has aimed to fill. Opening in 2021, it's provided a platform for what it calls "wildly diverse electronic sounds" beyond four-to-the-floor, and it's kicking off its new record label with a thirteen-track V/A, "Stop What You're Doing," this week.
Ash Scholem has been a member of the Left Bank collective and social space since its inception, and in this episode of the RA Exchange recorded live at ICKPA Festival—an event co-run by contingents from the Georgian and Ukrainian dance music communities—he speaks with the Exchange's senior producer, Chloe Lula, about his involvement with the venue. He also brings his background in political science and sociology to bear, shedding light on how Eastern European socioeconomics affect nightlife; the ways in which revolutionary ideals have become ingrained into Georgian nightlife culture and how people party; the fight for rights and drug policy reform in Tbilisi and broader thoughts on the role dance music plays in politics and legislative change during times of crisis.
Listen to the episode in full, and grab a copy of "Stop What You're Doing" on Friday, October 20th.

EX.682 Eris Drew

"I always want to challenge myself as a musician." The DJ, producer and T4T LUV NRG cofounder talks about her new live set and overcoming hearing loss live from MUTEK.
Eris Drew is something of a mentor to many, including people she's never met. Her words on psychedelics, the ritual of dancing and other topics have become near-gospel for many fans, and it's always a treat to hear her speak on practically any topic. While many of her discussions veer towards the esoteric or spiritual, when it came time for our live RA Exchange at MUTEK, she wanted to get down to brass tacks about making and playing music.
Ahead of the first North American performance of her stunning live show, Drew sat down with RA's music editor, Andrew Ryce. She spoke at length about her live show and DJing—including her old-school style of mixing she calls "riding the pitch"—and the trials and tribulations of proofing stages and booths for turntable use, hearing protection and more. She spoke with all the authority and feeling she usually does, with a deep, technical knowledge that makes this talk almost as much a tutorial as it was a conversation. Listen to the episode in full.

EX.681 Future Proof with Alex Ives

"You're the master of your own vision." In this collaboration with Rhythm Section, Ninja Tune's head of physical retail gives a masterclass on the inner workings of a record label.
Alex Ives has been at Ninja Tune for ten years as the head of physical retail. He also runs Big Dada, a sub-label run exclusively by minorities and people of colour. In this masterclass recorded live in London, Ives unpacks the various departments and teams that make up the Ninja Tune enterprise, from manufacturing, sync and publishing, to product management and A&R. He also suggests a few routes for young people to get a foot in the door of the label world. It's often not a matter of trying to score a hard-earned internship at a major, he reflects. Often, it's easier to launch a career by starting a label yourself and adding it to your CV. "Going DIY can build a massive amount of love and interest that can lead you to a major label," he tells host Emily Jones. "Sometimes that's the best way."
Working as the head of physical distribution doesn't come without its challenges in a world facing climate change, and Ives fields questions about pressing vinyl as a carbon-negative company, re-thinking record packaging, working to change consumer habits around ordering and returning records, and navigating a booming streaming economy. To hear more of his insights, listen to the episode in full.
This conversation was recorded live in London, and you can watch video shorts from the talk on YouTube. Watch the Masterclass video playlist via the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anqltFRkqVM
Rhythm Section’s Future Proof project is supported by Arts Council England and PRS Foundation.

EX.680 Disclosure

"We've never known what we're doing." Brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence talk about fame, inadvertently ending up on the pop charts and their new album, Alchemy.
Many listeners of this podcast likely associate Disclosure—AKA brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence—with the hits that shot them into the spotlight as teenagers. These had a good deal of crossover success, and the Lawrence brothers went on to have an extremely active touring career and secure multiple Grammy Award nominations.
But there’s much more in their brothers' creative arsenal than meets the eye, as demonstrated in their newest dance music LP, Alchemy, which came out quietly this summer. The duo released their fourth studio album under the pretence that they wanted to move away from some of the big tunes that defined the first part of their career. They did no marketing or PR, choosing to self-release and share the word via announcements on their social media pages. Alchemy is full of beautiful melodic interludes, field recordings and oblique references to the personal experiences that shaped the making of the songs—it was composed during a moment of intense heartbreak and upheaval for Howard, a narrative that weaves its way through the album. "These songs are about feeling lost and looking for love," they explain.
The brothers go deep with Chloe Lula about this period of Howard's life, talking about writing music based on intuition and how they lean on each other for creative and personal support. They also share the strategy behind their rise to success, including how they've navigated record label contracts, visually finessed their performances to appear more like live bands, exchanged EPs for page follows and started a Discord server to connect directly with their fans. Listen to more of their insights in the full episode.

EX.679 McKenzie Wark

"There are books about techno and rave, but let's fill in the blanks." The scholar and activist talks about her book Raving, bringing club culture into academia and more.
McKenzie Wark, professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the New School, is a scholar and raver who has written extensively about the world of dance music and its surrounding subculture. Most recently, Wark penned Raving, a first-person account of her experiences in the Brooklyn and trans rave scene. Wark's writing is a unique blend of memoir and literary criticism, and Raving takes readers straight into the heart of undisclosed locations around New York nightlife. Raving to techno is an art and a technique at which and trans bodies might be particularly adept, she writes—but it's also for anyone who lets the beat seduce them.
In her conversation with the Brooklyn-based DJ Alyce Currier, AKA Lychee, Wark talks about how the book came to be. She explains how entire chapters of the book wrote themselves out in her head, and how she carefully chose 26 characters—all of which have a letter as a name—to represent the friends and acquaintances of hers from the world of nightlife. Her own relationship with raving started when she was still living in Australia. At the time, she says, she hadn't yet transitioned and was experiencing an ambient sense of gender dysphoria that only dancing and nightlife could placate. She didn't actually transition until she was in her late 50s, in 2017. "After I went on hormones, I couldn't write," she says. "But the pressure [to write Raving] was enabling, and I found my voice in this book."
Wark and Currier also talk about what it means to bring club culture into academia, working with fellow rave scholar madison moore and how parties can serve the communities they're designed to cater to instead of exacerbating existing social structures that already exist. Listen to the episode in full.

EX.678 Nastia

"I'm curious about everything—this is my power." The Ukrainian DJ and label boss sits down to discuss her approach to curating, self-development, parenthood and more.
Nastia calls herself a "true DJ." The Ukrainian artist first laid hands on a pair of decks in 2005 after moving from her small hometown and attending the University of Donetsk. Beginning as a radio host at Kiss FM, where she curated a show called Nechto—now the name of her label—she started actively touring, pursuing a career dedicated to DJing and nothing else.
Nastia is proud of having reached great heights as a DJ with no productions under her belt. In this conversation recorded live at Nuits Sonores festival in Lyon, she tells moderator Christine Kakaire about her decision to turn her attention towards the studio at the apex of her career. She also discusses her idiosyncratic style of putting a set together, using each stage appearance as an opportunity to educate the audience about music and create a narrative expressive of her internal world. "I'll never be just a drum & bass DJ, or just a techno DJ," she says. "I'm curious about everything—this is my power."
Among Nastia's reflections on music are her considerations of the war in Ukraine, parenthood as a touring DJ, self-development and more. Listen to the episode in full.

EX.677 Flowdan

"Vocals go hand in hand with the grime I know." Ahead of his appearance at London's Waterworks Festival, the UK artist discusses the significance of MCs, working with Skrillex and more.
Marc Veira, AKA Flowdan, sees MCs as the "hub of all the vibes." Growing up in East London's rich dancehall and reggae scene, he developed a singular view of music that blossomed into a career as a well-known MC and cofounder of the grime collective Roll Deep. Alongside a string of successful EPs and collaborations come on labels like Hyperdub and Tru Thoughts, he recently earned widespread plaudits for his collaboration with Skrillex and Fred Again…. on their anthem, "Rumble," which came out last year.
In this RA Exchange with DJ and radio host Tash LC, Veira discusses how he got to this point, starting from his time at home and his mother's passion for sound system culture. "The MC being the hub of all the vibes—I heard that in sound system culture," he says. He believes there still isn't enough credit afforded to vocalists in live performances more generally. "The grime I know, the garage I know, the drum & bass I know—vocals go hand in hand with all of that. And at festivals, massive artists headlining shows have no mention of their vocalists. That's not what the music is."
Veira also unpacks his love for working with other people, his mentorship of up-and-coming producers and using Flowdan as the character behind which he hides his natural shyness on stage. To hear more about his creative process and trajectory, listen to the episode in full.

EX.676 James Blake

"I've been lucky to work with some of my favourite artists of all time." The Grammy Award-winning producer discusses working with Jay-Z, throwing dubstep parties and his new album.
Many people know James Blake as the singer behind the breakout cover of Feist's "Limit To Your Love," which was a hit in the underground and global pop music charts, or the Grammy Award-winning producer who has worked with artists like Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Vince Staples and Bon Iver, among many others.
Before all of this, Blake was making records for R&S and Hemlock—two UK mainstays in the dubstep and garage scenes. As a 20-year-old, he was also throwing bass nights on his Goldsmiths University campus called The Bass Society, inviting the likes of Skream & Benga to empty auditoriums. Back then, “we never made any money," he describes in this week's RA Exchange. "But we had so much fun. The feeling of promoting a night and getting Distance to come and play your night, even if there were only 20 people there, just felt like such a massive achievement."
His passion for this music never left, and now he's coming full circle with his album Playing Robots Into Heaven, out September 8th. For more on his vision behind this new record, his collage-like production techniques and his take on being a producer versus an artist, listen to the episode in full.