Reclaim Your City

Herald of a darker, more opaque style of deep-diving techno music, RYC alum Ruben Ganev (he's got a debut solo transmission on the way but shhhh) punches in with his second podcast for us. Dwelling the frontier betwixt sunken dub mechanisms and full-immersion atmospheric industrialism, Ganev pulls the strings to a fascinating shadow play rife with textured analogue stunts, verbed-out hoodoo and hair-raising crescendos out a cinematic tale. Continually slacklining between faux-organic sound membranes, laser precise scape-sculpting and haunted brutalist architectonics, his set maintains a complex equilibrium throughout, vibrating with suspenseful constructions and unsuspected developments that’ll keep you on your toes through the whole of this shape-shifting journey.

Who better than the man, the legend Ben Sims to get 2026 rolling in proper spectacular and ever thought-provoking fashion? As we’re slowly finding our feet into this odd new revolution ahead, the London legend clocks in with a most solid bunch of psychoactive wares and chiseled big-room pumpers bound to have you enter flow state from first minute to last. Channeling the hard-boiled NRG of his prime and trusted grit of today’s self, Sims has us surfing a massive comber of fractalized uptempo motifs, raging machine funk and ruthless, iron-clad grooves. Having lost nothing of his boundary-pushing verve and floor-harnessing savor faire, the UK born-and-raised maestro dishes out a fiery two-hour buffet of unstoppable hi-tech rollers and no-surrender material that pledges to reunite 90s heyday buffs, hardcore purists and techno newcomers alike. Slapping and banging ride all the way, with all best wishes from RYC and co.

Clocking in for our last round of the year, and ready to shut 2025 off on a proper high note, here comes SPE:C, Reef and Biofield boss Darwin with two hours of hi-velocity yet cerebral material for the heads. Loaded with the steel-hard fury of future-facing techno wares and breaks-informed combinations of sci-fi atmospheres, alien emotional spaces, and impactful weight in the low end, this mix makes for a proper sendoff party to 2025 so we transition from this long-ass year into the new one with renewed energy and focus. All in on the 4x4 and adjacent pumpers, bass-heavy depth charges and zero-G, dub-leaning stunts, the former Griessmuehle resident and habituée at some of the scene's most illustrious bastions - including our friends of Berghain and Bassiani - dishes out a mind-boggling set packing not just the most massive punch but also a deadeye accuracy in her mixing technique and pristine curation, sure to please lovers of fast-paced and hedonistically havoc-wreaking blends, fully zeroed in on bringing back the true pioneering spirit of techno to the fore. RUFFFFF.

Championing a sound intrinsically deep and leaning towards lo-fi dub techno, St. Odes co-founder and Dial Records alum Ben Kaczor stops by to deliver his first ever RYC podcast. Laying down a mix rife with the slo-churning, micro house-esque jams and eerily contemplative boogie that’s come to define his style, Kaczor treats us to a two-hour jaunt into a fractured headspace, organic and synthetic at once, inhabited by odd creatures and ghostly silhouettes. Evocative and lush, his mix conjures up the most haunting reverb-drenched melodies and esoteric grooves to shape a uniquely engaging, cinematic voyage. Give in to this slo-evolving buildup of dusty ambiences and falsely serene harmonies, as they teem with the kind of held-in magnetic power and subjugating potential to get any crowd wading in a weird, awry sense of XTC.

A sonic explorer connecting the dots between spaced-out abstraction and trippy techno sorties, Shoal has been cruising the scene’s hyperspace for the past ten years with his eyes set on a new horizon of musical possibilities, eager to clear the ground for further audacious expeditions in the uncharted nooks and crannies of atmospheric electronics. Combining spacious and layered envelopes with finely textured, FX-soaked membranes of sound and forward-rushing dynamics, Shoal beckons us on the path of fearless time and space traveling through sound. Immersive and uncompromising, his present mix takes us on a bumpy ride across alien-engineered megastructures and subterranean drifts, in search for the unheard ore concealed at the heart of techno’s paling mainstream veinstone.