RA Podcast

The Radiohead guitarist talks about finding spirituality, life inside one of the most mythologised (and occasionally polarising) bands of the last 40 years, and his second solo album, Blue Morpho.

Ed O'Brien has been a guitarist in Radiohead since the band formed at Abingdon School in the mid '80s, playing a supporting role across a catalogue largely written by Thom Yorke. He comes from a guitar tradition that runs through Johnny Marr, John McGeoch and Will Sergeant—players who serve the music rather than themselves.

His second solo record, Blue Morpho, is his most fully realised statement away from the band. The themes running through it are spiritual, in the broadest sense. With anything related to group dynamics or current affairs averted by request, in this RA Exchange, O'Brien speaks with RA’s Editor Gabe Szatan about a long period of depression during lockdown, the meditation practice that pulled him through it and his deepening interest in devotional music and sound as a physical force, which has fed his subsequent songwriting. He also discusses the wider arc of a life in music: his years at Parlophone, the early Radiohead webcasts, the move from OK Computer to Kid A and what it felt like to climb back on stage with the band last year. Blue Morpho is out May 22 on Transgressive Records. Listen to the episode in full.

90 minutes of blissful, sun-soaked house from the essential UK producer duo.

For a certain type of DJ, a record from The Trip is a buy-on-sight proposition. Even if the name is new, you’ve likely heard their tracks in sets from Job Jobse, Shanti Celeste or Avalon Emerson. With a catalogue full of records equally at home at Pitch Music & Arts or fabric Room 2, Oliver Hiam and Max van Dijk have locked into a particular sweet spot: big, emotional dance music with enough drive to snap a festival crowd into focus, while still carrying the nuance and emotional pull of the best ’90s club records.

The key to this is decidedly old-fashion: clocking hours on the dance floor. Long before they became a hot-shot producer duo, Hiam and van Dijk were promoters first. For more than a decade, they hosted parties at Corsica Studios under the Tessellate banner, bringing artists like DJ Sprinkles, Mr. Ties and Octo Octa to London.

Think of RA.1038 as a marker for the start of summer: packed with bongo drums, piano breakdowns, and the occasional surprise (at one point, you might even hear what sounds like a dolphin sample). It hits that sweet spot for outdoor dancing: light, playful and just euphoric enough.

As they note in their Q&A, it traces a line through the deeper corners of their taste, ducking pure peak-time pressure to show off a real feel for tension and release—honed over years of reading the floor from both sides of the booth.

Read the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1057
@tessellatelondon

The emergent star of the Belgian underground delivers 80 minutes of spectral techno, electro and leftfield obscurities.

Lola Haro has clubbing in her DNA. The Brussels-based DJ grew up around electronic music, with parents who were regulars at Antwerp’s Café d’Anvers and a childhood shaped by record stores and a household soundtracked by Villalobos mixes.

Since emerging in the late 2010s, she’s become a key figure in the Belgian underground, moving within a loose network of “diggers” exploring the deeper corners of electro, techno and house.

That sensibility comes through clearly on RA.1037, where Haro drifts through spectral techno, electro and leftfield club obscurities. The mix unfolds like a fever dream: spacious grooves give way to uneasy bass pressure and jagged, alien rhythms, before slipping back into murky, immersive flow.

Rather than genre, mood binds the set—slow, creeping tension and a sense of something always on the verge of collapse. Drawing on a recent warehouse set in Melbourne, it’s a study in subtle control, with blends so seamless the seams all but disappear. In the final stretch, arpeggios spill over like acid rain, dissolving any sense of solid ground.

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1056

@lola-haro

A rare snapshot of house music's early days, captured through an unheard 1986 broadcast from the East Coast pioneer.

For Humphries' long overdue debut on the RA Mix series, we publish an original, unedited radio recording from 1986, during Humphries' glorious reign over KISS FM's airwaves at the right hand of Shep Pettibone. Drawn from Humphries' own archives, the Running Back-sanctioned release captures the breadth of his reach at a time when he was breaking records week in, week out—bridging New Jersey talent, European imports and the emerging Chicago sound in a single sweep.

Every Friday and Saturday night, for over a decade, Tony Humphries checked in to Kiss FM, bringing the club to the airwaves. Alongside a residency at New Jersey's answer to Paradise Garage, Club Zanzibar, Humphries helped define the sound of garage house on the New York–New Jersey axis. Like Larry Levan, you simply can’t think of the city’s scene without him.

The hour-long mix shivers with spectral vocals and solar-plexus grooves alike, a document of Humphries knack for acting as a conduit for various funk-forward tributaries the world over. A mastermix, indeed.

Find the Q&A at ra.co/podcast/1055
@tony-humphries

The longtime BBC Radio 1 DJ talks about his rigorous music-discovery routine, soundtracking the world's most elite runways and the legacy of his party series, Deviation.

Since first stepping onto the airwaves more than 20 years ago, Benji B has spent his career bridging London club culture with the worlds of art and fashion. He's hosted his weekly BBC Radio 1 show for over two decades, founded the legendary Deviation party series, and served as musical director for Celine, Louis Vuitton and now Burberry.

Beyond the booth, the London DJ has also left fingerprints on some of the 21st century’s most defining records—from Kanye West's Yeezus and The Life of Pablo to projects by J Dilla, Pusha T, Sampha, FKA twigs, Tyler, the Creator, Arca and Flying Lotus. Across genres and scenes, he's become known as a consultant, collaborator and trusted ear at the highest level of culture.

In this Exchange, Benji B talks about the discipline it takes to sustain a life like this—including his rigorous, long-running "two-days-a-week" music search—and reflects on his creative partnership with the late Virgil Abloh. He also shares how he's brought underground innovators like Jeff Mills and Cybotron onto some of the world's most rarefied runways. Listen to the episode in full.