Boiler Room and Keep Hush Have Only Filmed Four Southeast Asian Cities So Far

Boiler Room has pointed a camera at exactly one Southeast Asian city twice: Manila, in 2017 and again in 2023. Bangkok got a turn in 2022 and 2023, as a stage inside a rock and indie festival rather than a session of its own. Jakarta, the region's biggest city and arguably its deepest underground scene, has never had one at all. If you want to watch what Southeast Asia's clubs actually sound like, for free, without a flight or a door fee, the list of places to look is shorter than the size of the scene suggests, and most of it sits quietly on YouTube rather than on a homepage anyone promotes.

Boiler Room Picked Manila Twice and Bangkok Twice, Then Stopped

Boiler Room's first Southeast Asian broadcast ran on May 26, 2017, from Black Market in Manila. Director Angela Stephanson, who is half Filipina, chose the city on a personal basis and picked six acts to represent it: similarobjects (a co-founder of BuwanBuwan Collective), singer-songwriter Jess Conelly, producer LUSTBASS, trap collective OWFUCK, Black Market resident Red-I, and musician Eyedress. Boiler Room framed it as the start of a Southeast Asian push, with Singapore and Hong Kong named as the next stops. Singapore never got its own session. Hong Kong did, years later, through its own Yeti Out-led revival.

Manila's second shot came through Boiler Room's Broadcast Lab grant, which Manila Community Radio won in 2023 specifically to showcase budots, the maximalist, bass-heavy dance style that grew out of Mindanao street parties and spent a decade getting laughed at by Manila's own scene before European labels started signing it. The showcase ran April 29, 2023, and Boiler Room uploaded five full sets to YouTube: Showtime Official Club, Hideki Ito b2b T33G33, obese.dogma777 x Pikunin, Libya Montes, and DJ Love. Watch Libya Montes' set and you get the thing a press release can't convey: a packed, sweaty room losing it over a producer most international listeners had never heard of, which is the entire point of the Broadcast Lab format.

Bangkok's entries came attached to Maho Rasop, the city's indie and rock festival, not a standalone club night. On November 20, 2022, Boiler Room curated the Rim Daeng Stage at ESC Park in Rangsit from 3pm to midnight, running Dutch producer Legowelt and Belgian duo Asa Moto alongside three Thai acts: Chalo, Dott and Elaheh, mostly out of the More Rice Records orbit. Five sets from that day went up on YouTube two months later: DJ Dragon, Chalo, Dott b2b Elaheh, Marmosets and Rempit Goddess. Boiler Room came back for a second stage at Maho Rasop in December 2023. Neither year produced a session outside the festival, so there's still no record of Boiler Room filming an ordinary night at a Bangkok club.

Keep Hush Has Filmed the Cities Boiler Room Hasn't

Keep Hush, the UK platform best known for filming DJs on London street corners and in car parks, has quietly covered more Southeast Asian ground than Boiler Room has, just with less fanfare. Its "Keep Hush Live" series has uploaded a full set from Ho Chi Minh City, where Yasmin played trance and hardcore for Vietnamese crew VAPCUCDA, and one from Davao, where DJ Love gave what the video's own title calls "a masterclass in budots," the same genre Davao's Budots Three have been exporting to London. Both are free, both are on YouTube, and neither gets anywhere near the reach of a Boiler Room upload with the same production quality.

Keep Hush also ran a Singapore night, on November 9, 2024, at the club iKi, with Carhartt WIP backing and local crews North East Social Club and Revision Music hosting. Singapore selectors Helios XL, TASHASAN and Yetpet played alongside Malaysian DJ Mia, across UK garage, bass, footwork and techno. Worth the honest caveat: that one was a ticketed club night with $40 presale and $50 door, not one of the brand's filmed livestreams, so if you weren't in the room, there's nothing to watch back.

What's Not on This List

Jakarta has no Boiler Room session and no Keep Hush Live upload despite running, by most accounts, the region's busiest underground calendar; whatever is filmed there tends to stay inside individual clubs' own Instagram grids rather than landing on a platform built for reach. Kuala Lumpur and the rest of Malaysia are in the same position. Cercle, the French platform that films sets at landmarks like Petra and the Great Wall, has actually reached the region twice: The Martinez Brothers atop Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and Lee Burridge at OMNIA in Uluwatu, Bali, the same island that hosted Dekmantel's first regional show. Neither Cercle date has had a sequel, and Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur still have nothing from any of these platforms at all.

How to Actually Find These

None of this is curated anywhere on the platforms themselves. Boiler Room's own city pages (boilerroom.tv/cities) list every session it has ever filmed, searchable by location, and that's genuinely the fastest way in: Manila and Bangkok are both there, in full. Keep Hush runs the same model at keephush.net/play-back, though its Southeast Asian uploads are easier to find through YouTube search than through the site's own navigation. Subscribe to both channels directly on YouTube (@boilerroom and @KeepHush) rather than relying on either platform's algorithm to surface regional content, since neither has published anything from the region on a predictable schedule. Boiler Room's Southeast Asian output has run on festival calendars (Maho Rasop) and grant cycles (Broadcast Lab) rather than a standing beat, which is why five years separate Manila's two sessions.

FAQ

Does Boiler Room livestream from Southeast Asia regularly?

No. It has filmed in the region four times total: Manila in 2017 and 2023, and Bangkok's Maho Rasop festival in 2022 and 2023. There's no standing schedule.

Is Keep Hush the same as Boiler Room?

No, they're separate UK platforms with similar formats. Keep Hush has covered more individual Southeast Asian cities (Ho Chi Minh City, Davao, Singapore) but with far less reach per video than Boiler Room.

Can I actually watch these sets for free?

Yes. The Manila, Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City sets discussed here are all uploaded in full on YouTube, with no paywall or ticket required.

Has Boiler Room ever broadcast from Jakarta or Singapore?

No. Despite naming Singapore as a planned stop back in 2017, Boiler Room has never filmed there, and it has never broadcast from Jakarta either.

What about Cercle, the platform that films at famous landmarks?

Cercle has filmed in the region twice: The Martinez Brothers in Singapore (atop Marina Bay Sands) and Lee Burridge in Bali (OMNIA, January 2020). Neither stop has repeated since.

Cover photo: Boiler Room x Manila Community Radio, April 2023, via Boiler Room.