NTS regular Buttechno has been hosting PAVEL MILYAKOV since 30 October 2017. Buttechno hosted a guest show on 30 June 2017. Buttechno has been played over 170 times on NTS, first on 2 October 2015. Buttechno's music has been featured on 160 episodes.

Electronic music from Russia has, for the most part, been criminally overlooked in the rest of the world, but that seems to be changing. The past few years have seen a new wave of Russian producers whose music resonates beyond their country's borders, the most intriguing of which might be Pavel Milyakov, a multidisciplinary artist who makes records as Buttechno. Milyakov became a musician sometime around 2010 when he played in the punk band Midnite Cobras. From there, he founded Johns Kingdom, a community of electronic artists from the suburbs of Russia. "After some time I understood that I wanted to write music 24/7," he wrote in an essay for INRUSSIA. Since then, he's forged a "musical language" as open-ended as it is distinct, drifting from fierce techno and electro to ambient breaks and guitar drones. His music has appeared on labels like The Trilogy Tapes and Moscow's GOST ZVUK, and soundtracked runway shows by the Russian fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy.

Milyakov's musical influences are eclectic—by his telling, they range from Japanese noise to musique concrete to psychedelic rockers Spacemen 3. Naturally, though, he has a special appreciation for the Russian techno artists who came before him. RA.631 is an introduction to this overlooked lineage. In Milyakov's own words: "It represents the history of Russian techno, like from '95 till now, with old and new sick and unknown producers, very talented and unappreciated musicians."