Electronic music, festivals, and nightlife
Kyle Domingo grew up in Cebu, built his name in Los Angeles, and just released his first single on Insomniac Records. In December, EDC Thailand brings him back within reach of home.
Leo Cheng makes music as FINGERGAP, forcing romantic Cantonese pop ballads into Chicago footwork's 160BPM syncopation. DJ Mag just named him one to watch, on the back of a new single built around Hong Kong's own housing estates.
Funtime's debut EP names every track after a nightclub from Eurobeat's golden age, and closes on Akasaka, the Denpasar mega-club that stayed shuttered for seven years over a drug trafficking bust before reopening in 2024.
A London DJ with Malaysian roots just launched a reissue label built for Asia-Pacific record collectors, and started with a 46-year-old Manila jazz-funk record nobody outside crate-digging circles had heard.
bani haykal's new record turns bicycle frames into more than 90% of its sound. Every sale of the Strange Weather Dunia cassette goes to Palestine solidarity groups.
Eri Septian has been releasing tracks under the name Cyda since 2016, scattered across half a dozen small labels. It took a Paris imprint called Minitel to finally give him a full album: nine tracks of 90s progressive house dressed up as a fake in-flight announcement.
DJ Mag put Manila's Ezzrei on a list of six emerging artists worldwide this July, the only Southeast Asian name on it. She got there by seeding a rave scene alone on a surf island, then building the Philippines' first platform for bass music back in the capital.
Nineteen years after co-founding the Korean electro-rock trio Idiotape, Dguru has started his own label, Sangsu Records, built around Seoul's club and live scenes and the sounds that don't fit neatly into either.
Thai vocalist Chucheewa Cheepchoke and producer Vichaya Vatanasapt wrote a stripped-back love song called Galactic Love. Their new label Soundkoh Collective's first release turns it into six versions, remixed across Thailand, Korea and Germany.
The two Colombian-heritage producers built their first extended collaboration from a 2024 meeting in Mexico City. It lands on Domino's Smugglers Way, out now, vinyl remixes due in November.
Habibi Funk's new sister label Audible Beauty has debuted with two reissues pulled from Radio Television Malaysia's 1960s and 70s jazz archive, Alfonso Soliano's Tiga Trombone and Johari Salleh's Jazz Dari Angkasapuri, licensed with help from Kuala Lumpur's Sputnik Rekordz.
On Book of Spells, New Jersey producer WILHELMINA folds tikbalang mythology, Bisaya vocals and a Filipino illustrator's occult artwork into jersey club and techno, then goes further on a new pan-Southeast Asian club compilation.