RA Podcast

Resident Advisor

Front left since 2001.

  1. RA.1031 Priori

    4 DAYS AGO

    RA.1031 Priori

    A key architect of the 2020s underground debuts on the RA Mix. Scroll through end-of-year features or the tracklists of a certain kind of new-school techno DJ, and Priori is rarely far away. The Montreal artist has built a reputation as a kind of studio chameleon, working with the biggest names across the underground. Whether it be james K, Tiga or Paul St. Hilare, or his work co-running naff recordings, his output will be familiar to any raver who has touched grass at the likes of Sustain-Release, Dekmantel or Waking Life in recent years. The "Priori touch" is easy to spot. It shapeshifts as you listen: strange, synthetic textures, enveloping low-end, everything draped in a fine silk gauze that seems to hover just above the surface. But for all its hallmarks, it's also deeply versatile. Priori is prog, Priori is dub, sometimes Priori is even pop. Just as you think you've grasped his sound, it slips away. This is by design. Priori takes inspiration from myriad genres and mediums—as likely to be moved by an obscure illbient 12-inch as a Wong Kar-wai film. "I love world-building," he once told Butter Sessions, and that instinct lends his productions a sense of richness. Making his long-overdue debut on the RA Mix, Priori opens the door to the chillout room. RA.1031 is built on thick, enveloping bass and atmospheric drift, as dub, prog and electronica cuts are folded together with ease. Who knows what thrilling new forms await in the future. Find the tracklist and Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1050 @priori-ties @naffrecordings

    2h 25m
  2. EX.788 Kim Gordon

    18 FEB

    EX.788 Kim Gordon

    The Sonic Youth cofounder opens up about her solo output, the intersection of art and music, and her new album, PLAY ME. For over four decades, Kim Gordon has navigated the edges where fine art meets noise. Her claim to fame was as a founding member of Sonic Youth, the band that took the nihilistic, abrasive energy of New York's no wave scene and forged it into a new language for rock. After Sonic Youth's public breakup in 2011, Gordon returned to her original creative practice: visual art. But in recent years, she has undergone a staggering creative transformation that's led her back to music. At 72—an age when most legends are content with the heritage circuit—she has instead dived headlong into the sounds of the present: industrial electronics, Chicago footwork and the blown-out low-end of SoundCloud rap. Aiming to break with her Sonic Youth legacy, Gordon released her first two solo albums, No Home Record and The Collective, in 2019 and 2024, respectively. And now, she's back with her third LP: PLAY ME. Working alongside producer Justin Raisen, she uses beat-oriented frameworks to interrogate what she calls the "tyranny of frictionless culture." From naming Spotify playlists in her lyrics to donating proceeds to reproductive rights, her work remains a vital, confrontational critique of late capitalism and technocratic fascism. In this RA Exchange, Gordon discusses the process of moving closer to solo work, as well as the masculinity of rock; her evolving relationship with electronic music; the politics of the "body;" and why, after thinking she was done with music, she keeps getting pulled back in. Listen to the episode in full.

    37 min

About

Front left since 2001.

More From Resident Advisor

You Might Also Like