DEF CON RadioDEF CON Radio

DEF CON Radio started in 2013, when SomaFM took over the music for the chill room at DEF CON, one of the largest hacker conventions in the world, which fills a Las Vegas hotel every summer. Rather than run it for the conference week alone, SomaFM kept the channel going year-round from San Francisco, programmed by the same DJs who work the room in Vegas. The chill room now has a permanent off-season, and the convention is the one week it goes back to being a physical place.

The music is downtempo, glitch and IDM with ambient and electro edges — Emancipator, Gold Panda, Rival Consoles, LORN, Sun Glitters and DMX Krew all turn up in rotation. It is slow and spacious but a good deal warmer than the dark-ambient label suggests, built for the long concentrating stretch rather than the dancefloor, which is what a chill room is for.