Radio Rayo: live radio from Buenos Aires

Hooold...

Dusting off the needle…

Radio Rayo

Nothing here interrupts the music.

Classic soul, jazz-funk and nu-disco from Buenos Aires.

Radio Rayo plays soul from Buenos Aires around the clock, and whoever chooses the records has never once put a name to it. The evidence of a person is all in the selection: a classic soul singer one month, an organ-led jazz-funk session the next, a new soul and hip-hop collaboration the week it landed, and a full live set from Niceto Club when the city's own musicians were worth pointing at. It is a brief held steadily by one listener rather than a format bought in from a supplier, and listener donations keep it going.

On air it moves without ceremony from early-sixties soul to a younger generation of neo-soul singers, then out to Swedish nu-disco and back through Canadian rock. Sixties Motown sits beside modern soul from independent producers, and the through line is never the decade so much as the warmth of the recording itself. Nothing on the signal is ever announced.

More like this

United KingdomLondon

Jazz Funk Soul Radio

Crate-diggers passing the baton.

ColombiaMedellín

Mad Records

The bin the DJs raid first.

United KingdomBournemouth

Afro*disiac Live Radio

Same five DJs since 2007.

GermanyDuisburg

SOULPOWERfm

No adverts, just the records.

GuatemalaGuatemala City

Radio Infinita

Proof the mainstream is optional.

MoroccoMarrakesh

Ness Radio

Every track has a fingerprint.

United StatesChicago

Vocalo Radio 91.1

Chicago first, format second.

Netherlands's-Hertogenbosch

Disco Factory

For people who kept the sleeves.

FranceIgny

Radio GoodLife

Twenty-one years, one format.

United StatesSanta Barbara

Funk the Planet

One man, one very deep crate.

SwitzerlandBaden

Secret Rooftop Sessions

On all day, never in the way.

ColombiaMedellín

Mad Radio Medellín

Long records, low lights.

electronic

United StatesMiami

Mad Radio Miami

Sunlight, filtered through vinyl.

electronic

JamaicaKingston

Primal4K Radio

No two hours sound alike.

United StatesSan Francisco

Seven Inch Soul

All killer, no album filler.

SpainEl Médano

Qfm

Spain's only full-time jazz dial.

United KingdomLondon

ThamesFM

Everyone brings their own crate.

EstoniaTallinn

R2 Chill

Filed under chill, plays like 2am.

LuxembourgLuxembourg

radio 100,7

A grand duchy's grand piano.

United KingdomLondon

Street Sounds Radio

Where the compilations went next.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Radio Rayo

Nothing here interrupts the music.

Classic soul, jazz-funk and nu-disco from Buenos Aires.

Radio Rayo plays soul from Buenos Aires around the clock, and whoever chooses the records has never once put a name to it. The evidence of a person is all in the selection: a classic soul singer one month, an organ-led jazz-funk session the next, a new soul and hip-hop collaboration the week it landed, and a full live set from Niceto Club when the city's own musicians were worth pointing at. It is a brief held steadily by one listener rather than a format bought in from a supplier, and listener donations keep it going.

On air it moves without ceremony from early-sixties soul to a younger generation of neo-soul singers, then out to Swedish nu-disco and back through Canadian rock. Sixties Motown sits beside modern soul from independent producers, and the through line is never the decade so much as the warmth of the recording itself. Nothing on the signal is ever announced.