Richie Blacker has returned to Sasha’s Last Night On Earth label with his Gods In The Machine EP, released on June 12, 2026. The two-track release marks his fourth appearance on the imprint and continues the direction he has been developing across trance pressure, house structure, and melodic hooks.
The EP’s two tracks occupy noticeably different spaces. “Maui” is built around uplifting vocals, bright melodic lifts, and a forward momentum suited to peak-hour dancefloors. “Neo” takes a darker route, opening with breakbeats and tension before modular synth lines, arpeggios, and vocal fragments pull the track into more dramatic territory. Together they present both sides of Blacker’s approach: direct emotional payoff alongside a more shadowed, heads-down club moment.
Alongside the release, Blacker spoke to Magnetic Magazine about one of the more persistent tensions in contemporary DJing — the gap between building something real in a room and having that work reduced to a 30-second clip afterward. His position is straightforward. He designs sets for the people on the dancefloor in front of him, not for replay value or viral potential. “I do not just play big tracks in the hope that a 30-second clip goes viral,” he said. “The best nights cannot really be translated into a 30-second video anyway.”
Blacker described himself as someone who comes from an old-school background where the music takes priority and social media sits second. He acknowledged that content has its place and that clips can help his sound reach people who were not present, but he frames that as a byproduct rather than a goal. “It is more like a doorway,” he said, “never the full picture.”
On the question of cameras in the room, he is equally direct. He prefers a darker, minimal club atmosphere where people can lose themselves in the music rather than reach for their phones. He noted that the best footage tends to come when no one is performing for it, and that a single raw moment captured naturally holds more value to him than a set shaped around being filmed.
When asked about a moment that existed entirely in the room, Blacker recalled a night in a small underground club in Berlin where the crowd, the sound system, and a selection of unreleased tracks locked together in a way he described as electric. No phones were raised. “You could feel the room shift,” he said. “That stayed with me because it reminded me why I do this.”
Reflecting on what makes a set successful, Blacker pointed to connection over technical precision. He wants a set to take people somewhere emotionally, where they lose track of time. “They remember how the night felt and the music,” he said. “If I walk away knowing I was fully present, took risks, and connected with the crowd on a real level, that is a great set to me.”
Source: Magnetic Magazine
