House, techno and electronic music news, releases and events from across Asia.
Djakarta Warehouse Project draws the headlines and, in 2024, saw 18 of its own police officers investigated for extorting attendees. Bali's Savaya cracked DJ Mag's Top Five. Jakarta's underground signs to European labels. None of it is the same scene.
A new six-city index from Amsterdam Dance Event and VibeLab puts Seoul in the middle of the pack, strong on creative ecology, weak on sustainability, and still legally tangled in clubs zoned as restaurants.
Studio Lam closed its Sukhumvit 51 shophouse in February after twelve years. Salon Kiku, the wine bar built one floor up by four friends including DJ Pam Anantr, never stopped.
Bangkok's door is simple, no fuss. Singapore's isn't. A city-by-city look at what it takes to get into Southeast Asia's best house and techno rooms, from Mustache to Marquee to a club that keeps its door policy to itself.
Budapest-born, Brooklyn-based singer Hien built her debut album Trăng Qua from a decade of demos, bolero and chèo samples, and a guitar line she dug out of her grandfather's old cải lương tapes.
More Rice Records launched in Bangkok in 2017 on a mission to make underground dance music as much a staple as rice itself. Nine years later, the label takes over the 44th floor for Halloween.
Hanoi's spring-loaded club Unmute marks three years with a three-day, two-stage anniversary from November 5 to 7, with lighting by Wonderfruit's Jiro Endo.
Hardstyle is a 150 BPM Dutch genre built around distorted kick drums. Its biggest stage just closed, and the region's clearest entry point is a Jakarta producer who once played an all-Indonesian set at Tomorrowland.
A Johor Bahru DJ who started out spinning his own house parties because he couldn't afford to book anyone else was picked through a highly-competitive open call to play Amsterdam Dance Event's CLUB Lab.
Three Bangkok clubs made DJ Mag's 2026 Top 100. Manila has none. The number says less about which city's nightlife is better than it looks like it does.
Khaosan Road sells bucket cocktails and knockoff tank tops. The Club Khaosan, on that same strip, climbed to #71 on DJ Mag's 2026 Top 100, run by a Swede who worked a dairy-factory job back home before building his career in Thai nightlife.
Kenny Wee, Callen and Alam have run Kuala Lumpur's underground night Ohrwurm since 2010.