Reclaim Your City 677 | Ben Sims

Serial havoc-wreaker Amotik punches in this week with a hi-velocity two-hour round running the gamut from mind-expanding minimalism to claustrophobic dubs onto proper heavy-duty, industrial-informed big room wares. Unleashing wave after wave of unrelenting synth undulations and clinical basswork that'll send shivers down your spine, his set is pure techno NRG in a bottle. Ease yourself into Amotik's shape-shifting cyclonic architectures and doomed hi-tech atmospheres, the ride ahead ticks all the boxes of an entrancingly memorable sonic voyage. Lock in and lift off. 

Swinging by with her debut RYC transmission this week is Giegling affiliate and Blitz resident jockey Yamour, a DJ who blends the finest of classic Chicago house joints with Detroit style churners to decisively compelling effect. Showing a particularly deft hand for building soulful sonic narratives with a truly hypnotic edge to them, Yamour digs far and deep into heritage grooves and newly released heaters to form her own floor-focussed musical alphabet, bridging hypnagogic house, eclectic machine funk and muscular techno dubs throughout complex, intricately woven tableaux. Never quite where you’d expect to find her at, cutting her own singular path away from formulaic criterions and run-of-the-mill genre-boundness. A joy to hear from start to finish, Yamour’s versatility blazes with every bar and every beat, writing its own idiosyncratic chapter in the big book of electronic music with unparalleled swagger and chemistry. Hectic. 

Up this week is FUSE resident DJ and Phaaar label owner Phara treating us to a whirlwind of gusty minimal groovers and relentless big-room punchers. With a solid bunch of quality records on the likes of Token, Soma or SK_Eleven under his belt, the Brussels-based DJ and producer delivers a two-hour mix right in line with his signature stripped-down floor mystique and deadeye, hi-velocity style behind the decks. Running the gamut from strapping, 909-fuelled pound to choppy dubbed-out swells, via jagged prog-technoid momentums and acid-informed psychedelia, Phara’s mix is a vibrantly trippy, inch-perfectly engineered ode to techno’s dual essence, combining spontaneous combustion with future-facing innovation to riveting effect. Saddle up and brace yourself for this incoming number shall leave you gasping for air. 

Herald of a darker, more opaque style of deep-diving techno music, RYC alum Ruben Ganev (he's got a debut solo transmission on the way but shhhh) punches in with his second podcast for us. Dwelling the frontier betwixt sunken dub mechanisms and full-immersion atmospheric industrialism, Ganev pulls the strings to a fascinating shadow play rife with textured analogue stunts, verbed-out hoodoo and hair-raising crescendos out a cinematic tale. Continually slacklining between faux-organic sound membranes, laser precise scape-sculpting and haunted brutalist architectonics, his set maintains a complex equilibrium throughout, vibrating with suspenseful constructions and unsuspected developments that’ll keep you on your toes through the whole of this shape-shifting journey. 

Who better than the man, the legend Ben Sims to get 2026 rolling in proper spectacular and ever thought-provoking fashion? As we’re slowly finding our feet into this odd new revolution ahead, the London legend clocks in with a most solid bunch of psychoactive wares and chiseled big-room pumpers bound to have you enter flow state from first minute to last. Channeling the hard-boiled NRG of his prime and trusted grit of today’s self, Sims has us surfing a massive comber of fractalized uptempo motifs, raging machine funk and ruthless, iron-clad grooves. Having lost nothing of his boundary-pushing verve and floor-harnessing savor faire, the UK born-and-raised maestro dishes out a fiery two-hour buffet of unstoppable hi-tech rollers and no-surrender material that pledges to reunite 90s heyday buffs, hardcore purists and techno newcomers alike. Slapping and banging ride all the way, with all best wishes from RYC and co. 

Clocking in for our last round of the year, and ready to shut 2025 off on a proper high note, here comes SPE:C, Reef and Biofield boss Darwin with two hours of hi-velocity yet cerebral material for the heads. Loaded with the steel-hard fury of future-facing techno wares and breaks-informed combinations of sci-fi atmospheres, alien emotional spaces, and impactful weight in the low end, this mix makes for a proper sendoff party to 2025 so we transition from this long-ass year into the new one with renewed energy and focus. All in on the 4x4 and adjacent pumpers, bass-heavy depth charges and zero-G, dub-leaning stunts, the former Griessmuehle resident and habituée at some of the scene's most illustrious bastions - including our friends of Berghain and Bassiani - dishes out a mind-boggling set packing not just the most massive punch but also a deadeye accuracy in her mixing technique and pristine curation, sure to please lovers of fast-paced and hedonistically havoc-wreaking blends, fully zeroed in on bringing back the true pioneering spirit of techno to the fore. RUFFFFF. 

Championing a sound intrinsically deep and leaning towards lo-fi dub techno, St. Odes co-founder and Dial Records alum Ben Kaczor stops by to deliver his first ever RYC podcast. Laying down a mix rife with the slo-churning, micro house-esque jams and eerily contemplative boogie that’s come to define his style, Kaczor treats us to a two-hour jaunt into a fractured headspace, organic and synthetic at once, inhabited by odd creatures and ghostly silhouettes. Evocative and lush, his mix conjures up the most haunting reverb-drenched melodies and esoteric grooves to shape a uniquely engaging, cinematic voyage. Give in to this slo-evolving buildup of dusty ambiences and falsely serene harmonies, as they teem with the kind of held-in magnetic power and subjugating potential to get any crowd wading in a weird, awry sense of XTC. 

A sonic explorer connecting the dots between spaced-out abstraction and trippy techno sorties, Shoal has been cruising the scene’s hyperspace for the past ten years with his eyes set on a new horizon of musical possibilities, eager to clear the ground for further audacious expeditions in the uncharted nooks and crannies of atmospheric electronics. Combining spacious and layered envelopes with finely textured, FX-soaked membranes of sound and forward-rushing dynamics, Shoal beckons us on the path of fearless time and space traveling through sound. Immersive and uncompromising, his present mix takes us on a bumpy ride across alien-engineered megastructures and subterranean drifts, in search for the unheard ore concealed at the heart of techno’s paling mainstream veinstone. 

For the past decade, Rhyw has been trading monster floor twisters, inherently bold and inch-perfectly engineered to whip up crowds into a frenzy with its UK bass-y chassis and post-industrial bodywork. Blending in rugged percussion with hard steel machine funk and hip-swaying grooves, the Fever AM co-founder keeps on carving out a lane truly his own in today’s oft tepid techno landscape. Aiming to trigger off yet unfelt sensations amongst ravers, Rhyw puts together mixes that defy gravity and genre-bound limitations, sculpting momentums and harnessing the crowd’s NRG like no one else. Sweeping his wide spectrum of influences, from two-step rhythms and Garage culture to classic steely techno punch, through Latin-inflected swing and electroid propulsion, Rhyw’s RYC mix ushers us down a volcanic vent flush with the wildest floor pyrotechnics and straight slapping bursts of untamed audio synthesis. Fiery. 

Hailing from Sapporo, Japan, Occa is no typical big room DJ but a master acrobat in sound, expertly pushing the envelope of electronics as a transcending means of expression. Shifting gears constantly between conceptual abstraction and functional architecture, seeking effect in every move and sniffing out substance in any sine, Occa dwells his own sonic continuum, hermetic to stiff norms and creatively hampering conventions. Laser-like and seamless, be ready for a descent into a cyclonic tempest of FX-splattered loops and verbed-out tactile, nimbly moving the cursor between ominous dubs, hi-tech floor destroyers and experimental-leaning detours. A masterclass in sound design, boasting both impeccable curation and mind-bending construction thru and thru, it’s Occa taking over with one of this year’s most hair-raising highlights. HARD.