The New York-based journalist talks about her breakout book, Mood Machine, live from Soft Centre Festival in Sydney.
As we approach the end of 2025, it's clear that one of the year's most zeitgeist-defining books has been Liz Pelly's Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. The New York-based writer has been on a promotional tour, speaking at festivals around the world, and one of her recent stops was at Soft Centre in Sydney, where this Exchange was recorded live with writer, editor and DJ Audrey Pfister.
Pelly's background is in the DIY scene, college radio and independent alt weeklies, all of which ignited her interest in writing about music. Over the last few years, she has become an outspoken advocate for underground music, and an incisive critic of how the streaming economy has debilitated independent artistry. In this conversation, she unpacks some of her book's main conceits. Spotify, for example, was originally designed around advertising models rather than music-first models, which is why it rewards music that performs well at scale. She explains how that's created so much growing inequity in what performs well on the platform, and she also draws fascinating parallels between the streaming economy and digital media.
Mood Machine ends on a somewhat hopeful note, and Pelly proposes some solutions: as custodians of the independent music scene, we have a responsibility to go to live shows, subscribe to emerging DIY media projects and give money directly to artists by buying their music and merch. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula
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The New York-based journalist talks about her breakout book, Mood Machine, live from Soft Centre Festival in Sydney.
As we approach the end of 2025, it's clear that one of the year's most zeitgeist-defining books has been Liz Pelly's Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. The New York-based writer has been on a promotional tour, speaking at festivals around the world, and one of her recent stops was at Soft Centre in Sydney, where this Exchange was recorded live with writer, editor and DJ Audrey Pfister.
Pelly's background is in the DIY scene, college radio and independent alt weeklies, all of which ignited her interest in writing about music. Over the last few years, she has become an outspoken advocate for underground music, and an incisive critic of how the streaming economy has debilitated independent artistry. In this conversation, she unpacks some of her book's main conceits. Spotify, for example, was originally designed around advertising models rather than music-first models, which is why it rewards music that performs well at scale. She explains how that's created so much growing inequity in what performs well on the platform, and she also draws fascinating parallels between the streaming economy and digital media.
Mood Machine ends on a somewhat hopeful note, and Pelly proposes some solutions: as custodians of the independent music scene, we have a responsibility to go to live shows, subscribe to emerging DIY media projects and give money directly to artists by buying their music and merch. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula
Andrew Weatherall's first official posthumous mix. The only b2b DJ Harvey ever agreed to. Six hours at Trouw. The rarest of rare for RA.1000: this one's special.
When mulling which direction to go in for RA's 1000th mix celebrations, many options came to mind. Some shadowy character 2-stepping around the fringe of our collective consciousness? An impossible-level IDM icon?
All tempting. But, ultimately, we are a DJ-forward publication and this is a DJ mix series. It felt truer to the history of the RA Podcast to release deep vault material from a time when the world of niche records felt different, tighter, more discrete.
The fourth-longest mix in the RA Podcast's history is an unrepeatable marathon set recorded in 2012 at a superclub that no longer exists. (2012, incidentally, is farther away from 2025 than 2012 was from 2000; if we have to clock it, so do you.)
It's the coming together of one British icon who passed away in 2020, and another whose time on the road has scaled back considerably as of late. DJ Harvey agreed to exactly one b2b set in his life: this one, with Andrew Weatherall.
The night took place at Trouw, an Amsterdam club already considered legendary before it shuttered its doors in the opening hours of 2015, as part of RA VS, a series anchored around start-to-close combinations. Harvey was at the peak of an irresistible career second act, which dovetailed with a disco revival that dominated clubs for years. Weatherall, with infinite brownie points stockpiled from the '90s, remained everyone's favourite debonair psychonaut.
What follows is 385 minutes of arpeggiated chug and slow-cresting climaxes, chronicling a moment when the resting heart rate of dance floors plunged lower than potentially any comparable point in the 21st century.
If you've got time to spare, a fun side game is sussing out who plays what. The goosebumps-inducing slide into a disco-dub cover of Echo & the Bunnymen? Smart money's on Weatherall. Exuberant EQ'ing of the comically overripe bass on The Isley Brothers? Gotta be Harvey. As for the low 'n slow, lightly spangled house that was all the rage in the early 2010s (think Maxxi Soundsystem, Disco Bloodbath, Rub & Tug, C.O.M.B.I. and Full Pupp), it's anyone's guess. The pair putter around the 100 BPM range for so long that nudging up to 127 by the double encore feels practically like flooring it down the highway.
When we kicked off our RA.1000 campaign, we outlined a few goals: tick off a handful of long-awaited dream guests, honour architects who shaped the world around us and deliver recordings you truly can't hear anywhere else. We sought to render an accurate picture of DJ culture in 2025 for posterity, and get arms around some of the key storylines since we went 5 for RA.500.
DJing and the mythology around it has undergone a quantum leap since 2012, let alone 2006, 1996 or 1989. It's a scarcely-recognisable scene. For those of us who were kicking around in the former, there's a creeping melancholy that our prime is fast becoming a matter of historical record. The killing moon really did come too soon.
Yet a sense of accomplishment is bundled within that melancholy. Appreciation, too. 1000 episodes is great innings, and we're thankful for every contributor and facilitator who built this series, week by week, mix by mix. Where will DJ sets—or any of this—be in 2044? Hard to say; best not to overthink that one. Instead, enjoy luxuriating in the company of two of the greatest to ever do it, together, for the first and last time. – Gabriel Szatan, Editor (RA)
@andrew-weatherall
Read the interview with DJ Harvey and Andrew Weatherall's family at https://ra.co/podcast/1016. Listen to all RA.1000 mixes, as well as the complete history of the RA Podcast, at 1000.ra.co
RA Podcast
The New York-based journalist talks about her breakout book, Mood Machine, live from Soft Centre Festival in Sydney.
As we approach the end of 2025, it's clear that one of the year's most zeitgeist-defining books has been Liz Pelly's Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. The New York-based writer has been on a promotional tour, speaking at festivals around the world, and one of her recent stops was at Soft Centre in Sydney, where this Exchange was recorded live with writer, editor and DJ Audrey Pfister.
Pelly's background is in the DIY scene, college radio and independent alt weeklies, all of which ignited her interest in writing about music. Over the last few years, she has become an outspoken advocate for underground music, and an incisive critic of how the streaming economy has debilitated independent artistry. In this conversation, she unpacks some of her book's main conceits. Spotify, for example, was originally designed around advertising models rather than music-first models, which is why it rewards music that performs well at scale. She explains how that's created so much growing inequity in what performs well on the platform, and she also draws fascinating parallels between the streaming economy and digital media.
Mood Machine ends on a somewhat hopeful note, and Pelly proposes some solutions: as custodians of the independent music scene, we have a responsibility to go to live shows, subscribe to emerging DIY media projects and give money directly to artists by buying their music and merch. Listen to the episode in full. -Chloe Lula
