RA Exchange

"There's a lack of continuity for FLINTA* individuals." The Chilean artist talks about trans rights and the launch of her new sex party, ABOV. What would genuine visibility, safety and solidarity look like for the trans community? This week's interview with Chilean artist Dominga Huidobro (AKA Föllakzoid) explores this topic in depth. Huidobro began her transition eight years ago. By then, Föllakzoid had already put out a number of releases on Sacred Bones. She's since gone on to totally reinvent the psych rock genre, working with hypnotic loops and percussion, and even crossing over into the world of techno with collaborations and remixes from Atom TM and DJ Nobu. Huidobro opens up about how transitioning changed her artistic identity, and even fed directly into her standout album, V. But it also began to pose problems in her personal life. She was attacked at a queer party in Berlin last September, an incident that reflected an ongoing lack of safety and care for the trans community. Touring as a solo artist, she is still rarely provided safe, pre-arranged transportation to and from venues, and the constant trauma of crossing borders and being left to fend for herself in threatening situations led her to pause her live shows for the rest of this year. In the meantime, Huidobro has started a FLINTA* party, ABOV, with her partner Ariana Paoletti (AKA Volvox). The two end the conversation with a meditation on what the FLINTA* mission means in 2025. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"I want more risks." The French DJ and producer talks about groundbreaking musical practices, musique concrète and her forthcoming album, Juggling Dualities. There's a history of groundbreaking musical practice that's lost in modern dance music, at least according to Hermione Frank, AKA rRoxymore. The French DJ and producer has been questioning the dominant modes of creativity for a long time. First, she learned from the world of free jazz and Afrofuturism as a child—her dad was close friends with pioneering spiritual jazz musician Sun Ra. She then went on to study musique concrète, the avant-garde school of sound collage pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer. Today, Frank makes music that's geared more towards the dance floor, and in this RA Exchange, she uncovers how she brings her background pushing musical boundaries into more "listenable" contexts. She also dives into working with the now-defunct collective Room 4 Resistance—an intersectional feminist party for Berlin's FLINTA community which also hosted workshops dedicated to fostering systems of care—and why she's moved on from Berlin, a city that she once viewed as a hub for creativity, accessibility and as the nucleus of political, risk-taking art. Frank has a new album, Juggling Dualities, out July 17th on !K7. It sits at the fringes of New Age and dub, taking a sideways look at wellness culture by meditating on the importance of self-care while simultaneously poking fun at it. Pre-order a copy here and listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"I'm ready to bring back gatekeeping." The New Yorker staff writer discusses how to protect the underground, experimenting with drugs and her new book, Health and Safety. Can drugs help us find meaning in music and nightlife? This is a question that today's Exchange guest, New Yorker staff writer Emily Witt, asks in earnest in her new book Health and Safety: A Breakdown. Just released in hardcover in the UK and Europe, the memoir traces Witt's life in her early-to-mid 30s. A journalist living and working in Brooklyn, she began experimenting with psychedelics and club drugs after years of living what she describes as a conservative, straight-and-narrow, middle-class life. She became enamoured with the borough's underground raves, frequenting events like the festival Sustain-Release, the party Unter and sets at Bushwick haunt Bossa Nova Civic Club, all while falling in love with an aspiring DJ and producer she calls Andrew. As the book progresses, Witt documents the growing MAGA movement in America, gun rights rallies and mass shootings. As the country falls apart, she watches her romantic relationship fall apart, too. Drugs and Brooklyn nightlife, she writes, became both an escape and a way to rearrange a world that she starts to feel no longer makes sense. Witt shares critical opinions about the underground scene's capacity to be a utopia and place of belonging in an increasingly hostile world, arguing that there should be more gatekeeping in place to protect a scene that's threatened by capitalism and the mainstream. She also interrogates what she calls "woke identity politics" in Brooklyn, the lack of change that came from the Black Lives Matter movement, empty calls for political protest that dominated the early days of the pandemic and why, despite everything, she's chosen to stay in Brooklyn for good. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"Is the infrastructure working?" The Canadian DJ and producer talks playing Coachella 2025 and the music industry's unequal power dynamics. Is the electronic music industry pay-to-play? This week's RA Exchange with Jamaican-Canadian DJ and producer BAMBII tackles this question, exploring whether innate talent is really enough to become an artist, or if success favours those with privileged socioeconomic backgrounds. BAMBII, a queer club innovator whose exhilarating, rave-ready records exist at the crossroads of jungle, dancehall, drum & bass and UK garage, lives in Toronto. She made waves earlier this year when she posted a viral Instagram story about her set at US festival Coachella, where she said she was forced to play with malfunctioning sound and DJ equipment. As she explains to today's host, British journalist Tara Joshi, the debacle spoke to a broader issue about an economy built on exploitation. BAMBII played the festival for free, paying her way to the gig in exchange for exposure. The music industry, she argues, thrives on unequal power dynamics: her experience was one of countless examples of how many artists are taught to be grateful for anything, and to be silent if they feel otherwise. "The music industry shows us how the world operates when there are no rules," she claims. "There is an assault on ethics and care in this industry. People love to recreate capitalism in the highest form." In the interview, BAMBII also speaks about her forthcoming EP—Infinity Club II, out June 20th—as well as the North American club scene and the local grassroots collectives that she believes are keeping underground nightlife alive. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"I'm an individualist." The Throbbing Gristle co-founder on extreme experimentation, difficult women and her new album, 2t2. As long as underground culture has existed, there have been pockets of resistance—people at the fringes who challenge societal expectations and create work that pushes against societal norms. Cosey Fanni Tutti is one of them. She's a founding member of the defunct British band Throbbing Gristle, a visual artist, pornographic model, solo musician and writer. Tutti, now 73, grew up in the English city of Hull, where she met like-minded performer Genesis P-Orridge. Together, they formed Throbbing Gristle and the collective COUM. Their activations and installations were, unequivocally, shocking. In one show, Tutti urinated on the audience as she swung naked across the stage. In another, the band performed alongside framed displays of her used menstrual pads. Throbbing Gristle's extreme experimentations flirted with the erotic and the grotesque, pushing the limits of sound and frequency. Their outsider approach to making music—and their erasure of the boundary that separates life and art—went on to influence a generation of creatives across genres, especially in early techno. After Throbbing Gristle disbanded, Tutti performed as synth pop duo Chris & Cosey with her husband and ex-band member, Chris Carter. Her work as a solo artist has blossomed in recent years. She published her memoir, Art Sex Music, in 2017. After turning 66, she also wrote two full-length albums and wrote another book, Re:Sisters, which explores the life and legacy of the late composer Delia Derbyshire who faced adversity as a woman in a male-dominated world, like Tutti herself. In this Exchange with with Chloe Lula, Tutti discusses her dedication to living alternatively, expressing herself by any means possible and her forthcoming album, 2t2, composed during a time of extreme difficulty in her personal life. The underground icon also talks about mastering Mongolian throat singing and her upcoming solo art exhibition in New York, which will display the pornographic photos she took as a model in her 20s. Listen to the episode in full.

“My mission is to explore the boundaries of psychedelic music.” The revered artist talks about expanding consciousness, breaking boundaries and his new album on Tresor.  There has always been a strain of dance music that has leant psychedelic, from the left field psychoacoustics of pioneers like La Monte Young to the proggy techno taking over today's dance floors. One artist who embodies the spirit of psychedelia is Anthony Child—AKA Surgeon—a revered DJ and producer who has historically been placed in the world of industrial techno, but whose output over the years has consistently flirted with altered states of consciousness and a strong opposition to the mainstream. 
Child is originally from Birmingham, where he and Karl O'Connor, AKA Regis, helped birth a style of powerful, loop-driven techno. Together they've put out music as British Murder Boys and released music on O'Connor's label Downwards Records. But they've had equally successful solo careers, with Child putting out several releases on Tresor and performing live improvised electronics as Surgeon and as part of ambient listening duo The Transcendence Orchestra. In this interview, Child talks about his most recent release on Tresor, the album Shell~Wave, and its innovative use of techniques associated with Jamaican dub. He also discusses the throughline of psychedelia in his work and what it means to surrender oneself to sometimes uncomfortable processes—both creatively and in life—and come out the other side. There are strong links to spirituality and Buddhism in Child's work, many of which are designed to prompt listeners to question and reconsider the boundaries they've set around the reality they live in. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"Music kept me sane." The hard techno breakout opens up about how life's greatest challenges have made her headstrong. To honour Mental Health Awareness week, the RA Exchange sits down with hard techno DJ Lee Ann Roberts, who opens up about her tough childhood in Durban, South Africa, and how music saved her life. While to some it may appear that Roberts broke through only a few years ago, she's been hard at work for much longer, starting out in South Africa's fashion scene before moving to Los Angeles and finally committing herself to pursuing a career as a DJ and producer. She speaks candidly about her abusive household and the limited opportunities for self-expression and creativity she had as a child. As a result, she's become headstrong; nothing has stopped Roberts from being herself and chasing her dreams, and she talks about how self-care, self-compassion, authenticity and a sense of humour have gotten her through some of the darkest periods of her life. As a member of the contemporary hard techno scene, Roberts also shares her reaction to the recent Resident Advisor feature on the movement and the underpinnings of a trend that has polarised the underground. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"Everyone tells me I'm terrifying." The powerhouse agent talks about being a woman in a male-dominated world and growing the careers of artists like David Guetta, Marlon Hoffstadt and more. What does it take to become a powerhouse agent in the male-dominated electronic music industry? No one can answer this question better than Maria May, a name that might be familiar to anyone who's had a brush with big-ticket dance music over the past 30 years. May is a longtime agent at CAA, or Creative Artists Agency, one of the largest booking agencies in the world. She was first hired a little over a decade ago to expand its representation of electronic music, back when the company saw that DJs were primed to become the new rockstars. She now looks after major acts like David Guetta, Paul Kalkbrenner, Marlon Hoffstadt and Sara Landry. But she isn't just a fierce businesswoman. She's also a tireless advocate for equity and inclusion in club culture. In this conversation recorded live at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, she talks about the obstacles she's faced over the course of her career as she's actively rebuilt the rooms in which major decisions are made. She was first inspired by her involvement in Britain's illegal rave scene, she recalls, which turned her onto the power of activism and showed her how on-the-ground organising can lead to real-life policy change. She also addresses the negative narrative taking hold of the music industry and the opportunities at hand to make positive, collective change. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"It was so difficult to become someone." The house hero talks about Chicago's competitive scene, developing a sound and letting go of his ego. Theo Parrish is one of dance music's most influential DJs and producers. Raised in Chicago, he's become synonymous with slow-burning, immersive grooves and sets that mix classics with obscurities. He began DJing in 1986 aged 13, eventually earning a degree in sculpture and moving to Detroit, where he hit his stride as an artist and became a member of the collective Three Chairs alongside Moodymann, Rick Wilhite and Marcellus Pittman. He also started the label Sound Signature, which uses the language of soul, jazz, disco, Chicago house and Detroit techno. A few months ago, Resident Advisor teamed up with London institution fabric to host Parrish for an eight-hour set—his first time playing the club. While he was in town, he also spoke with CDR's Tony Nwachukwu. In the Exchange, Parrish talks about the intensely competitive scene he grew up in. He DJ'd for 13 years before he was ever paid or had his name billed on a lineup. It took years of passion and hard work to break out of his local scene and build the career he's become known for. "At five years, you're dealing with the technical part [of DJing], at ten it's finding your sound and at 15 it's dealing with the ego of it all," he says. "It's not until much later that you actually start to play for and with people." Parrish also reflects on the ongoing dearth of diversity in the dance music industry and posits whether some of the most popular music in the US—such as trap—reinforces counterproductive racial stereotypes. He asks: did house music ultimately survive because it left where it originally came from? Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula

"I'm in a place of brutal honesty." The electronic pop auteur talks about her new album, the pressures of performing and falling in love with techno. One of today's most exciting stars is Tahliah Debrett Barnett, better known as FKA twigs. Genre-wise, she's difficult to pin down; some critics call her music ethereal, alien R&B refracted through the lens of dance music. She's now touring her third album, Eusexua which she's described as "that surge of nothingness right before a surge of creativity, or the moment before an orgasm." It's a response to falling in love with techno a couple of years ago, and the songs all hover somewhere around the rave. In this RA Exchange recorded live at AVA London 2025, twigs talks to Nadine Noor, founder of queer arts platform PXSSY PALACE, about the process of putting the LP together, as well as the sometimes painful pressures involved in performing and adopting a public persona. Today, twigs says she's in a place of brutal honesty, and on the edge of 40, "hitting the perfect arc of behind hot and not an idiot anymore." She also discusses starting her dancing practice from an incredibly young age, taking her first steps on what she anticipates will be a long partnership with modular synthesis and the challenge of making original art in an era dominated by trends. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula