Amapiano put a South African soloist on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time in 55 years. In Southeast Asia, the genre has one dedicated weekly slot, Saturdays at Jakarta's Vault, and a scattering of Singapore parties that treat it as one flavor among several.
Idris Elba's house music alias IDRIS played a one-off set at Bangkok's Cloud 11 Theatre on September 26, sharing the booth with two of the city's own DJs, Wildealer and Elaheh, as his label Sound International made its Thailand debut.
A decade after two schoolmates threw a house party with a soundsystem, Ice Cream Sundays is Singapore's longest-running dance collective. Its 10th anniversary gift to itself: bringing Japan's Rainbow Disco Club to a Tanjong Pagar carpark.
Boiler Room has broadcast from Manila's underground twice. It has never officially broadcast from Jakarta. Jakarta, meanwhile, built the region's biggest dance festival. Two capitals, two very different bets on what a scene is for.
Most Singapore rooftop lists rank sunset views and cocktails. This one only counts venues that actually book house DJs: NOVA's 63rd-floor dance floor, CÉ LA VI's Saturday Elevate nights, and Kinki's low-key terrace sets, with real prices, dress codes and what to skip.
Penang's closest thing to a dedicated home for underground electronic music lost its lease to roofing bills in June 2026. Two months later its crew threw a rave inside a Cantonese clan temple built in 1898.
A beach city known for seafood restaurants and package tours has had a real techno collective throwing weekly nights since 2019. This August a radio festival with Ken Ishii on the bill finally noticed.
DJ Craze, the only DJ to win three straight DMC World titles until 2020 and once Kanye West's tour DJ, plays Phnom Penh's Pontoon Club on October 2, a rare marquee booking for Cambodia's still-rebuilding scene.
The Bandung record store, sound room and cocktail bar plays Mumbai, Delhi and Goa this October, its first shows outside Indonesia.
"Radio Hood," out October 16, marks Rekids' 20th anniversary and 300th release, the first-ever team-up between Robert Hood and label boss Radio Slave, who has already played Bangkok's Sing Sing Theater and Singapore's Ritual series.
Every euro from Charlotte de Witte's new EP goes to a nonprofit fighting to keep clubs open worldwide. Its own research points straight at Bangkok and Vietnam.
Sanjonas' second album fuses gqom, marawis and lion dance music into a nine-track meditation on Javanese self-discipline. It lands October 15 on his own Yogyakarta label RAMPAK G.