RA.944 TSVI ⟋ RA Podcast

A roaring tour through modern club, hard house, Latin percussion and Italian progressive trance history.

As a producer and DJ, TSVI is in the form of his life—which you can't always say for an artist a decade in. The cofounder of Nervous Horizon has an exceptional ear for rhythm, dedicating aliases and entire albums to the exploration of patterns and timbres from drums around the world. He's been an enduring presence through several underground cycles for a reason: the man knows how to flow. His RA Podcast features a solid number of new and forthcoming cuts from the current vanguard pushing club music forward, amongst them Verraco, Surusinghe, DJ Plead, Doctor Jeep, DJ JM, WOST and DJ Babatr—who just dropped a split 12-inch with TSVI on TraTraTrax last month. Alongside the names you might expect, TSVI also leans into a streak of personal history. On RA.944 you'll hear fast, deep and percussive '90s and '00s cuts from Spain, Latin America and his native Italy, with a particular focus on the kind of playful progressive trance minted by the late, great Franchino. It makes for a truly dynamite mix. What have you been up to recently? A lot! Touring has been non-stop since the beginning of the year. It's been incredibly fun, though I haven't had much time to spend at home. I've had the chance to visit some amazing places for the first time, including Colombia and India, eaten some amazing food and met incredible people. I also released an EP on my label, Nervous Horizon, and a single with DJ Babatr on TraTraTrax. It's been busy, but I can't complain. Quite insane! How and where was the mix recorded? And can you tell us the idea behind it? I started putting this mix together while I was in South America and Mexico back in April, then recorded it once I came back home in June, using my XDJ RX. The energy at the shows I played there was really high, so I wanted this mix to channel a similar feeling. Usually, in my mixes, I try to include as much new and unreleased music as possible. However, for the RA Podcast, I wanted to take a slightly different approach. There is still a lot of new music from friends and myself, but I also included some tracks from back in the day that I've been listening to recently—old percussive/hard house/progressive trance records from Spain, Italy, and Latin America. I also added some snippets of Italian vocalists from the late '90s and early 2000s. I wanted this podcast to feel like one of those old mixes ripped from tape that you find on YouTube. I included these elements as a tribute to the late Franchino, a true pioneer of the progressive trance movement in Italy, which was seminal in shaping my taste growing up. What's one club or party that had a major impact on you as an artist? Insomnia, located just a ten-minute drive from my home in the Tuscan countryside, played a pivotal role in shaping my career. It was an iconic venue, often referred to as the "Discoacropoli d'Italia," becoming one of the biggest institutions of the techno and trance scene in Italy. This place introduced me to the world of electronic music. I remember the first time I went there when I was 17, Satoshi Tomiie and Francesco Farfa were playing—it was the best night of my life! After that, I was there every Saturday. What's one social or political cause you want the world to pay more attention to? Palestine has been on my mind for a long time now, but there are other pressing crises that receive much less global attention, especially the war in Sudan. It is heartbreaking how Sudan has been overlooked globally, despite going through one of the most urgent crises in the world right now. What are you looking forward to in the near future? Spending more time with my partner, and finally finishing another album, are things I'm looking forward to. Recently, I've been focusing a lot on making dance music that I play in my sets, which is really fun, but I feel more and more drawn to creating a project with a strong narrative. These days, I often find myself going to the studio trying to make a big dance floor hit, so the challenge will be to break free from this mindset again and go back to creating from a place where I feel free to experiment and have no rules or boundaries

Tracklist

STHLMSoundMachine - Beautiful People (Chemical Original) DJ Babatr - Zumba Lumba Javith, Salazar & Gil - Arawak (Carlos Fauvrelle Mix) DJ JM - Winted Zentral - Total Drums French II feat. Agboba - Run it Red Umek - Voice 3 TSVI - Din Daa Daa DJ Deep RH - Radical Evolution TSVI - Pullover Abel the Kid & Raul Ortiz - Flamenkito X CLUB. - New World Expression DJ Fucci & WOST - Sol Doctor Jeep - Mecha Martyn - Vancouver (Verraco MDE Reshape) Hassan Abou Alam, Ziad Zaza, Aly B, Ismail Nosrat - Basha CRRDR & Ojosfinos - Trampa Parzubanil - Control Ritmico El Nick DGO - Pecado TSVI - Facciamo un Delirio!! TSVI & DJ Plead - ??? Surusinghe - Lord of da Tings Hodge - ??? Metrist - Thatbues Harba - Lakking WOST & Peter Blue - ??? Ojerime - Give It Up to Me (Marzo Bootleg) Cardozo - Suada SPLT - Grill Party E-Unity - E-Ternity Travel - Bulgarian (Incisions Remix) Franchino - 999