The second edition of RA's Home Listening series in partnership with Sonos took place in the home of Lena Willikens, a DJ and producer who lives in Cologne and holds a residency at one of the best small nightclubs in Europe: Düsseldorf's Salon Des Amateurs. Anyone who's seen Willikens play or has tuned into her Sentimental Flashback show for Radio Cómeme will know she's a DJ and collector with wide and intriguing tastes. While many of her DJ sets these days are full of lean electro and techno, her radio shows give her the chance to explore more whimsical sounds.

Willikens lives on the top floor of an apartment building located a short walk from the Rhine river. In her lounge room are the hallmarks of someone who's spent a lifetime devouring music and art. An entire wall is devoted to records, tapes, books, DVDs and vintage film gear. Next to this is her home music setup, with speakers, a mixer and turntables watched over by old posters of Delia Derbyshire and Kraftwerk.

For her home listening session she invited fellow Salon Des Amateurs residents Phillip Jondo, Vladimir Ivkovic and Jan Schulte (AKA Wolf Müller), as well as Sarah Szczesny, the artist behind Cómeme's visual direction. (Szczesny designed the sleeve for 2015's Phantom Delia, Willikens' only solo EP to date.)

Willikens selected an hour's worth of music and talked about her choices, which ranged from local acts like Toresch and Don't DJ to a Brazilian psych record so obscure that Willikens herself uploaded some of its information to Discogs. Titled Persona, it comes with a fold-out poster and instructions, written in Portuguese, about how to play a strange game that involves candles and a mirror. (There's a photo of the guests playing the game in the gallery below.)

On the night Willikens also stitched together the far-out psychedelia of Brainticket, the bubbling ambient of Nuel, Vito Ricci's 1980s experiments, marimba music from Angklung and some dubbed-out Ekoplekz. It's no exaggeration to say that her selections include some of the trippiest music you'll hear anywhere. Her choices may have been far-out but the way she programmed them showed the kind of careful thinking she brings to her DJ sets and radio shows.

Listen to the playlist on Apple Music

Hear the session in full

The listening session took place in Willikens' lounge, where one wall is lined with books, films and records from floor to ceiling. She spoke passionately about the music she chose to soundtrack the session. There was a relaxed atmosphere as she played the records, her friends eating, drinking and soaking up her selections.

Full tracklist /
Brainticket - Era Of Technology
Brainticket - To Another Universe
Asmus Tietchens - Erloschene Herzen
Bear Bones Lay Low - Hazy Frog
Nuel - Mentalism
Vito Ricci - Music In Fourth
Angklung - Das Versprechen
Persona - Introdução
Aksak Maboul - Saure Gurk (Aus 1 Urwald Gelockt)
Don't DJ - Savanna Sundown
Mutamassik - Long Beards
Georgia - Abstract High (Gone Fishin' Mix)
Toresch - Quedarte
Lena Platonos - Αιμάτινες Σκιές Από Απόσταση (Aimatines Skies Apo Apostasi)
Marie Davidson - Excès De Vitesse
Ekoplekz - Fluktuate
Professor Genius - Merciful And Blessed
Dennis Young - Panic In The Air
Isaac Johan - Every Time I See Your Face

Gallery

Home listening

On the evening of her listening session, Willikens provided guests with music and food. (Guests also played the mirror game that came with Persona Som, her obscure Brazilian psych record.) Photographer Mathias Schmitt documented the evening.