SURPRISE.FMSURPRISE.FM

SURPRISE.FM works less like a station with residents than like a switchboard for a whole scene. The slots belong to the institutions themselves: Arma17 and the Outline festival take hours, so do the labels Gost Zvuk and Private Persons, and so do neighbouring radio projects — OTO, KURS, Renegade Radio Camp, Underground Experience. Alongside the broadcasts it runs releases and podcasts of its own, which is why a set heard on air one week often turns up later as a record with a catalogue number.

A single month carries dozens of Moscow DJs and producers, label heads and club residents among them, with back-to-back sets for good measure. The house vocabulary runs from drone and ambient through electro, acid, dub techno and footwork out to deconstructed club and gabber, which is a fair description of what actually airs over the course of a week.