Stumble into 2026 with the 3XL favourites' uncanny vision of ambient.
It's become a tradition that the first RA Mix of every year eases listeners into January with soft, gentle and unhurried tones. For RA.1020, though, crimeboys take a different approach.
Made up of Ben Bondy, Special Guest DJ and Pontiac Sterator, the US trio are all loosely associated with 3XL. Over the past decade, the Berlin-based label, run by Special Guest DJ, has helped define a strain of ambient that foregrounds strangeness, texture and eccentric detail.
This energy comes through immediately on RA.1020. Listen to the first ten minutes and you might not quite feel soothed. Stick with it, though, and a different logic begins to emerge, as church bells, corroded electronics and industrial abrasion give way to long passages of dub pressure, shadowy rhythm and low-lit propulsion.
Across two hours, the trio draw a map of influences both internal and external to the 3XL universe, from foundational reference points like Skinny Puppy, M.E.S.H. and DJ Krush to artists embedded within the label’s wider orbit, such as Perila, james K and Critical Amnesia. Together, these selections trace a throughline from '90s industrial and jungle into dub techno, experimental club and contemporary ambient's more unsettled edges.
RA.1020 isn't comfort listening in the conventional sense, but it does offer its own form of recalibration and release. Stay put, and you'll be rewarded.
Find the tracklist and interview at ra.co/podcast/1039
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