EX.712 Liaison Artists

Recorded live at Brussels festival Listen, the veteran talks about leading the birth of acid techno and the sound of proto-techno in Belgium. At the turn of the '90s, Belgium was under the twin influences of early techno and '80s new beat. It was artists like CJ Bolland who helped usher these two sounds together, bridging the low-slung sludge of bands like A Split Second and Lords of Acid with the futuristic chug of Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills and Detroit's first guard. Bolland grew up in Antwerp and was exposed to underground music from his parents, who owned a club. Eventually beginning to produce himself, he helped create the early acid rave sound that would take over Europe. He signed to then-powerhouse label R&S Records with his career-defining single, "Horsepower," in 1991, and from there embarked on a prolific touring career. In this Exchange, he talks to RA's senior producer Chloe Lula live from Listen Festival in Brussels, diving deep into Belgium's unique musical landscape and his thoughts on how it's evolved in response to its position between major techno hubs like The Netherlands and France. A massive gear head, Bolland also shares his favourite tools and reflects on how the state of music-making has changed in the years since he first started his career. Listen to the episode in full.

"There's a double edged sword to success." The North American booking agency shares insights on the state of the music scene and how they grew their enterprise from the ground up. Andrew Kelsey and Mariesa Stevens started Liaison Artists—the North American booking agency that represents acts like BICEP, Maceo Plex, Dixon, Honey Dijon and many more—20 years ago. At that time, the nightlife landscape was different than the one we inhabit today; there were fewer artists, more localised scenes and a nascent but passionate group of artists leading the development of techno. In this interview with RA music editor Andrew Ryce, Kelsey and Stevens talk about the agency's humble origins in San Francisco and the challenges they overcame to get their enterprise off the ground, developing it into the power house it is today. They also spend time discussing the temperature of the contemporary climate: a swing towards new sounds and an influx of new, young talent competing for a finite number of club and festival slots. In their view, the environment, while competitive, is fertile ground for a new, exciting era of clubbing and electronic music—and a newfound challenge to stay true to their sound in a scene that's changing rapidly. Listen to the episode in full.

Moby got his big break in the '90s when he released the hit "Go" followed by the hugely successful studio album Play, which has been included in countless movie and TV soundtracks. But beyond the limelight, the US artist has also gone through immense struggle. Raised in a working-class family in a wealthy part of Connecticut, he often felt displaced as a child, eventually moving to a disused factory space to make music before finally relocating to New York and trying his hand at being a DJ. In this interview, Moby reflects on the early days of his time in New York. Rejected from all the record labels he sent his demos to, he felt like an outsider, choosing to frequent clubs like The Loft and Paradise Garage before finally becoming a resident DJ at the now-defunct club Mars. He also talks about living with panic disorder, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, and how he's turned his life towards activism and animal rights. Listen to the episode in full.

"There are more safe spaces for women to be themselves." The UK star discusses the diversity of the jungle scene and her new album, Silence Is Loud. UK DJ and producer Nia Archives is among a coterie of new artists who are infusing drum & bass and jungle with heartfelt lyrics, lush chords and crowds that are more diverse and inclusive than ever before. Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, she grew up around a rich sound system culture, developing an early interest in documentary video and choral music from her church. She left home young, setting out to London on her own to pursue a dream of making it in music and self-releasing a string of debut EPs. In the last two years, the 24-year-old has garnered a huge following. Her fans have fallen in love with her heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics taken straight from the pages of her diary—she calls herself an "emotional junglist"—as well as her fun, inclusive approach to a historically male-dominated scene. In this interview with Chloe Lula, she talks about her party series and her debut album, Silence Is Loud, produced alongside renowned songwriter and producer Ethan P. Flynn. Listen to the episode in full.

"We always put minorities to the front." The Mala Junta cofounder and affiliate talk about prioritising femme queer ravers, the value of local party crews and not taking themselves too seriously. Friends and colleagues Hyperaktivist and Yazzus share one important value: putting marginalised folks to the front. The Venezuelan and Ghana-via-London artists, respectively, met in Berlin not long after Yazzus went to the Berlin-based Mala Junta party, a collective co-founded by Hyperaktivist, DJ Tool and door selector Nyaam Hassany. Yazzus was asked to be a party resident and has collaborated with the crew extensively, playing their shows and helping curate lineups ever since. In this RA Exchange with Berlin DJ and journalist Juba, the two talk about their shared passion for better representation on party lineups and what authentic diversity means in a climate that often privileges checking boxes and meeting quotas. They also talk about their solo endeavours, their trajectories into dance music and their shared passion for nurturing the growth of homegrown parties and scenes. Amid Berlin's rising prices (and competition), they reflect that the ideals of collaboration and connection remain stronger than ever before. Listen to the conversation in full.

"I discovered how to build sound systems at our dairy farm." The DJ talks about growing up in rural Australia, starting her own label and more in this Playing Favourites live from Pitch Music & Arts. On this week's Exchange, we reintroduce our flagship live format, Playing Favourites, where artists discuss the songs that shaped their taste in music. Today's episode features CC:DISCO! at Pitch Festival in Australia. As the artist's name suggests, her style fuses disco with French touch, synth-driven electro and funk; she's collaborated with artists like Jennifer Loveless and released her first EP with Erol Alkan on his label Phantasy Sound, and last year she launched her own imprint, Miami Daddy. In this interview, CC:DISCO! plays songs that were formative in her career development and reflects on growing up outside of big cities. Born and raised on a dairy farm in rural Victoria, FM radio became her cultural lifeline and her first introduction to dance music. The artist also talks about working with indigenous promoters from beyond Sydney (Eora) and Melbourne (Naarm), the music that defines Australia today and the protest songs that have helped serve as the backdrop for the First Nations fight for representation and sociopolitical change. Listen to the episode in full.

"It's a pure form of love." The hardcore artist talks about collecting ephemera from rave zines, working in high fashion and his undying love for the gabber community. Alberto Guerrini, better known as Gabber Eleganza, has made a name for himself as a hardcore and gabber DJ, as well as a fervid documenter of the culture that surrounds it. Growing up in Italy, he started going to raves at a club called Number One Hardcore before eventually traveling to the Netherlands with his parents' blessing and starting to DJ himself. Guerrini's love of hardcore spilled over into a Tumblr blog he started in 2011, a project that aggregated the rave zines, photos and stories he collected from his time spent in the gabber community. The goal of the project, he says in this interview, was to build up anthropological dialogues on the "sonic landscape and aesthetic of the hardcore continuum." The online compendium contains amazing pieces of hardcore ephemera: clippings of Soviet era rave zines, letters ex-ravers sent to the hardcore community from jail and Guerrini's own appendices providing context around the global subculture. Much of this archival work made its way into a book that Guerrini published with artists Ewen Spencer Mark Leckey called Hardcore Soul, a photography collection that traces the similarities and relationships between hardcore and the UK's Northern Soul movement. He discusses this and more—including his own label, Never Sleep, and his work with the fashion industry and art worlds—in this conversation with Chloe Lula. Listen to the episode in full.

"The Beatles blew my mind." The LA artist talks about her new album—Something in the Room She Moves—writing music while pregnant and how she works in the studio. The LA-based composer and musician Julia Holter has garnered a reputation for releases that toe the hazy edge of shoegaze and dream pop, always skirting the contours of the electronic music world. On today's RA Exchange, she takes a deep dive into her sixth studio album, Something in the Room She Moves, with music editor Andrew Ryce. Holter talks about writing all but one of the songs while she was pregnant ("Evening Mood" even captures a sample of her child's ultrasound, recorded from her phone), which lends the album a warmth and tenderness unparalleled in any of her past releases. But it's also a somber record; her nephew died while she was recording it, an event that forced her to process the complexity and gravity of two conflicting, converging experiences while composing. For the technically inclined, Holter also discusses how she works in the studio and manages post-production. As the artist tells Ryce, she likes to play with resonant frequencies and processing that puts each of the sounds she records into the same sonic world on a record, using effects and composition tricks to give everything what she calls a "sensuous vibe." Something in the Room She Moves is out now on Domino Records. Listen to the episode in full.

"Humans think they're top of the hierarchy." The Live From Earth member talks about growing up in Sunshine Farms, the perils of competition in the music industry and how TikTok changed her career. You might know horsegiirL from her horse mask, her viral singles on TikTok or her hugely popular online videos. The DJ and producer—who famously never breaks character—has launched into popularity over the past two years, bringing her frenetic and contemporary style of hardstyle-meets-Europop mash-ups to dance floors around the world. Her fans, or "farmies," go crazy for her music, donning cowboy hats and pitchforks at all of her shows. In this episode of the RA Exchange, horsegiirL sits down with senior producer Chloe Lula to talk about her upbringing in Sunshine Farms and the key differences between the animal kingdom and the human world. They also discuss her involvement with the Berlin-based label Live From Earth Klub, an irreverent art and DJ collective featured as part of our latest cover story. (Two of the crew's other key artists, DJ Gigola and MCR-T, also mixed this week's RA Podcast.) Listen to the horsegiirL episode in full.

"You could feel the ground shifting beneath you." The long time BBC Radio host talks about her party, All Queens, her love for SHERELLE and music as a force for good. Resident Advisor continues its celebration of Women's History Month (and International Women's Day) with a special conversation with Mary Anne Hobbs. The long time BBC Radio presenter has been a diehard documenter of music culture and a radio fanatic ever since she was a young girl. As she recounts in this episode, the transistor she kept in secret while growing up became her getaway to another universe, a beacon of hope that she listened to every night under the covers at home. In 1996, she became a host at BBC Radio 1. It was a time when there were few women involved in the music industry in general, and few people at all championing leftfield electronic music. Hobbs famously started the Breezeblock show and championed dubstep and grime, pushing new artists whose work she admired and helping usher them into the limelight. Today Hobbs' iconic voice is still hosting the radio every day—this time at Radio 6. She's leading an exciting project called All Queens, a platform that started as a radio show for women's music that has quickly turned into a touring club night at fabric run by and starring women, from the sound engineers to the bouncers and headliners of the night. Hobbs discusses the platform and is joined by close friend SHERELLE, who dissects some of the nuances in representation the scene fails to overlook when it discusses gender in nightlife. The pair recently performed sets together at the BBC Radio 6 Music Festival. Listen to the episode in full. This episode was recorded at Recorded at Pirate Studios – Recording, Rehearsal, DJ, Podcast and Dance studios spread across New York, London, Berlin, Los Angeles and beyond. For more information, visit pirate.com.