Lost And Sound

Nikki Nair gets serious about fun — the formerly Tennessee, formerly Atlanta, currently LA-based DJ and producer talks about how a punk sense of purpose, Detroit and Chicago foundations, and a love of “broken” sound converge into sets and tracks that surprise without losing the groove. Nikki gets into how a recent UK residency sharpened his instincts, the studio sessions that kept his mood afloat, and the tiny cultural artefacts (hello, Percy Pigs) that colour the journey as much as any plugin.
From a life-changing afternoon at Submerge with Underground Resistance legend Mike Banks to late nights in Knoxville and formative trips to Atlanta, Nikki maps the lineage that informs his playful, left-turn club and electronic music. We get into the tension between function and originality, how drumming shaped his breakbeat brain, why he chases flow states that make him literally laugh at the DAW, and how he decides when to risk losing a slice of the crowd in order to move the culture an inch forward.
There’s a wider lens, too. Nikki is candid about the modern reality of nightlife — selling tickets and telling a human story — while keeping the focus on service, community, and sincerity.
OK, housekeeping: I've re-activated the show's Substack newsletter. Give it a follow for extra bits about the guests, thoughts on music culture and creativity and whatever else. Nothing is behind a paywall yet, so it's a great time to get on board.
If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Nikki Nair on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/nikki__nair/?hl=en
Nikki Nair on Bandcamp:
https://nikkinair.bandcamp.com/
Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Blue Lake is the music of American artist Jason Dungan, shaped by living on a Copenhagen island where wild parkland sits on reclaimed industrial ground and flight paths cross the sky. We sit down to explore how place, practice, and people turn Americana and ambient textures into something fused with a European sensibility. 
Jason shares the pivot from visual art to sound, and why Don Cherry’s spirit sits at the project’s core—not as a template but as a way of working that welcomes risk, collaboration, and porous borders. We unpack how chords feel different when five musicians make them together, how a rock club can unlock a set the concert hall couldn’t, and why the best parts of a record often come from the problems you refuse to outsource. Along the way, we talk recording in Sweden’s forests beside factories, treating albums like thoughtfully built exhibitions, and keeping the human pulse in music even as tools get slicker.
We also zoom out. Touring with a band in the UK, leaning on Scandinavian funding, and balancing freelance work all reveal the new economics artists navigate. Jason calls out AI’s promise to “solve” creative labour as missing the point—the friction is the point. And when politics intrudes, it’s real: living in Denmark means Greenland is neighbours, language, history, protest. Small-country confidence, built on community and cooperation, mirrors the values in Blue Lake’s sound.
If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Blue Lake on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/the_bluelake/?hl=en
Blue Lake on Bandcamp:
https://bluelake1.bandcamp.com/
Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

What happens when a band outlives its own legend and keeps the spark anyway? I sat down with Eric Pulido of Midlake to trace how a group known for mythic, pastoral folk found a new centre after a seismic lineup change—and why the music still lands with the same autumnal glow. Eric takes us behind new album A Bridge Too Far, from sketching twenty ideas to recording live with producer Sam Evian, capturing a decades old chemistry.
We talk about stepping into the vocalist role after Tim Smith’s departure and the electric snap that shaped an album that could well have sunk lesser acts – Antiphon. Eric shares how his lyric writing moved toward clarity and truth—naming real people and moments while keeping songs timeless and open to anyone’s story. We go deep on influences too, from West Coast folk and British folk gateways to earlier loves like Björk, and how Denton, Texas, nurtured the band’s early years with a supportive arts scene and real stages to grow on.
I love how he talks about touring with refreshing honesty: the fragile math of mid-level bands, why Europe can be more workable than the vast US, and how thoughtful setlists honour both new work and the gateway songs from The Trials of Van Occupanther. There’s a visual thread as well, with Eric reflecting on Midlake’s cinematic feel and recent collaboration with Ted Lasso’s James Lance.
If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.

Midlake on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/midlakeband/
Midlake on Bandcamp:
https://midlakeband.bandcamp.com/music
Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

What happens when you stop working behind a project name, a pedal chain, or a layer of reverb, and let the music speak more directly? That question runs through my conversation with Alejandra Cárdenas aka Ale Hop. On her latest album, A Body Like A Home, she releases music under her own name for the first time, marking a shift not just in authorship, but in how the work is written, recorded, and left open for interpretation.
Alejandra talks through her path from Lima’s punk and experimental underground to Berlin’s music landscape. We dig into how her guitar language has changed over time — moving away from volume and posture toward texture, vulnerability, and even a return to acoustic sound as a way of colouring electronics. She also reflects on production work and imitation briefs as quiet training grounds, and the difference between craft and intention.
Alejandra discusses her research and editorial work, including writing and publishing on Latin American women in electronic music, and how archives, data, and community can slowly reshape visibility and access. 
We also talk about Berlin itself: rising costs, disappearing small venues, and what that means for artists who need space to experiment, fail, and find a voice.
If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Alejandra Cárdenas / Ale Hop on Bandcamp:
https://alehop.bandcamp.com/album/a-body-like-a-home
Alejandra Cárdenas / Ale Hop on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ale_hophop/?hl=en
Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.

Kicking of 2026 on Lost and Sound with a composer who treats architecture as an instrument and refusal as a creative decision. I sat down with experimental composer Lea Bertucci to explore how spatial sound, politics, and process collide in work that feels both ancient and urgent.
Lea’s most recent work, The Oracle, is a voice-led album shaped by site-specific acoustics and a climate of Trump-fuelled propaganda and fatigue. We get into the dynamics of spatial sound – how the resonances from recording in a post rainstorm cave in upper New York or in a grain silo in Buffalo can become part of the crerative process —less “reverb plugin,” more duet with geology, history, and weather.
Lea also came off Spotify recently, and we go into why coming off this platform was important to her. We talk DIY survival, the role of class in curation and gatekeeping, and how to move between basements and concert halls without losing the hope and humanity that makes scenes thrive.
If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
Huge thanks to Audio-Technica – makers of beautifully engineered audio gear and sponsors of Lost and Sound. Check them out here: Audio-Technica
Lea Bertucci on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/lilbertucci/?hl=en
Lea Bertucci on Bandcamp:
https://leabertucci.bandcamp.com/
My book Coming To Berlin is a journey through the city’s creative underground, and is available via Velocity Press.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.