EX.740 Gabrielle Kwarteng

"We're getting better at what we do." The Australian dance music trio discuss their longtime creative collaboration and their new album, Inhale / Exhale. Australian electronic dance trio Rüfüs Du Sol—composed of the artists Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt—is synonymous with catchy, vocal-led bangers. They've received a huge amount of success in more commercial and underground scenes in the more than 10 years that they've been active. In fact, they hit it big from their very first release, Atlas, which peaked at #1 in the Australian charts when it came out in 2013. In the years that have elapsed since, they have won a Grammy Award (and multiple nominations) and sold out stadium shows around the world. In this Exchange, they talk to RA editor Gabriel Szatan in a closed door interview recorded at San Francisco's Portola Festival. The trio took a break from music-making for a period and even moved to different cities. Since they've reconvened, they've undertaken a number of measures to refine their inter-group communication, which has included wellness exercises, group therapy and breath work. They talk about this in some detail, as well as the realities of touring as they've gotten older and started having families. The time required to "fill their bucket" in between tours, as they say, is more critical than ever. As an outfit that's worked together for a long time, they also reveal the intricacies of their now well established creative process, such as how they create internal momentum in songwriting, and their newest album, Inhale / Exhale, which they will tour throughout 2025. Listen to the episode in full.

Punk house and techno from a modern Midwest icon. Every DJ has their own genesis story: a pivotal sound, a formative scene, a defining philosophy. In Kiernan Laveaux's case, her philosophy, rooted in psychedelia and experimentation, sets her apart. Inspired by Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode and New Order, she came of age in Cleveland’s acid house and queer party scenes, developing an ethos that constantly pushes dance music’s limits. Her DJ style is scrambled (in the best way), with zany tricks like scratching, creative EQing and modulation. This approach reflects the Midwest's DIY tradition, where artists thrive in isolation and cultivate a radical disobedience, as seen in contemporaries like Eris Drew and ADAB. As Laveaux recounted in a 2023 interview with GROOVE Magazin, "Titonton Duvante once told me that being a Midwest DJ is about playing music from anywhere and making it sound like a piece of your spirit." Spanning two and a half hours, Laveaux's RA Podcast showcases this spirit. It’s a testament to her decade-long career, blending tracks from friends and cherished memories into a transcendent mix. It’s "music to shake your hips to and decalcify your pineal gland." (For the curious, the pineal gland helps regulate your circadian rhythm.) RA.963 will make you dance and think in equal measure—a beautiful, restless and resolutely wicked journey through a singular imagination. @kiernan-laveaux Read more at ra.co/podcast/963

A dubstep legend roars back. When dubstep ruled the roost in the late '00s, electronic music had no shortage of icons and spinoff variants to rally around. But one rumble from Bristol stood out: the Purple sound. Popularised by Joker, AKA Liam Mclean, with Guido and Gemmy in support, it hit like a beam of bright light flooding through the basement dank. When America cottoned onto bass quakes in the next decade, Mclean's taste for chiptune-coded synths and maximum intensity kept his vision alive at arena level, even while he retreated from view as an actively touring performer. In 2023, "Tears," a collaboration with Skrillex and Sleepnet, helped remind the world just how much Joker's juddering sound could put us in a headlock. True to form, this year's gargantuan "Juggernaut"—Mclean's first solo single in six years—crashes through the speakers with as much glorious crunch as earlier classics like 2009's "Purple City." Mclean has kept busy in the studio applying his perfectionist streak as a producer and engineer to many sound system anthems, which means his influence is never far from a dance floor being turned inside out. The fact that Joker had never laid down an RA Podcast before was, being honest, a blemish in our copybook. RA.962 fixes that in style. @jokerkapsize Read more at ra.co/podcast/962

"I do activism as much as I can." The Peruvian DJ and producer talks about the human rights issues close to her heart, fighting for human rights and the incredible story behind her LP for Ninja Tune. Sofia Kourtesis is a Peruvian DJ and producer based in Berlin known for her buoyant, upbeat music that channels and transmutes sociopolitical activism and personal hardship. While she's put out a number of solo works, her EP Fresia Magdalena and her debut LP, Madres—both of which came out on Ninja Tune—have been received with exceptional critical acclaim and put her on the map as a headlining touring artist. Both speak to some of the discrimination Sofia has felt as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community in South America, as well as how she's confronted difficult topics like family caregiving, illness and death.  In this RA Exchange recorded live at C2C Festival in Turin, she opened up about her mother's recent battle with cancer and the neurosurgeon who provided life-saving surgery (as a thank you, Kourtesis took him and his surgery team out to one of her shows in Berlin). She also discusses her commitment to human rights at length. For Kourtesis, music is a form of activism and healing; she uses it to talk about her Latin American community and the movements that are happening, to show the diverse range of demonstrations for equality, for the queer community and for abortion rights. In a touching final moment of our talk, she opens up about the homophobia that ultimately caused her to leave her school in Lima and then to depart from Peru to Europe altogether. She's been based in Germany since she was 17. Listen to the episode in full.

Dubstep-tech hybrids from one of 2024's most forward-thinking breakouts. Born in France to English parents, Beatrice M. is a product of two environments. And like many third culture kids, this lends the Rinse France resident and Bait label head a knack for seeing the realm of possibility beyond arbitrary borders and binaries. Beatrice M. is a part of a wider cohort of artists spearheading an elastic take on dubstep: take Carré and Introspekt in the US, EMA in Dublin and Mia Koden in London, to name a few. Collectively, they are not only pushing greater representation and diversity, but ensuring a broader palette of sounds find home within the genre's renaissance. Where dubstep got trapped down a brostep cul-de-sac in the early 2010s, 2020s already seems to be all about a charming phrase Beatrice M. employs: siblingstep. Their RA Podcast, a "full femme, non-binary, trans productions set," is testament to that. RA.961 finds Beatrice M. embracing the softer, more intimate edges of their sonic world. There's cuts from Grace Jones and rRoxymore, a fresh tech-house venture under the alias B. McQueen and heaps of siblingstep. All in, it's an hour of past reverberations, present rhythms and glimmers of future horizons. @beatricemasters Read more at ra.co/podcast/961