Tag
Manila
24 articles on Manila from Loopliner, the English-language voice of Asian electronic music: news, releases, club nights and festival coverage across Southeast Asia and beyond.
24 articles
Brooklyn's Jadalareign and Tokyo's FU Bring Their Soul Night to Manila's Nokal Tonight
Before flying to headline Circus Tokyo on October 16, Nowadays booker Jadalareign and Tokyo selector FU make a Friday stop in a Makati mall basement that used to be a cinema.
Southeast Asia's Drum and Bass Scene Lives in Bangkok's Jungle Jam BKK and Bali's Locus Festival
Singapore built Southeast Asia's biggest drum and bass night in the 2000s, then lost it when Home Club closed in 2014. The genre didn't die, it just relocated to a five-year-old Bangkok promoter, a 1999 Jakarta soundsystem crew and a four-day festival on a Bali beach.
Moni-Moni's Crate-Digging Turned Cebu Into a Philippine Underground Hub, and Mixmag Asia Noticed
Mikelis Yu grew up in California, came home to Cebu to run a family hotel, and started a radio project instead. Mixmag Asia's September watchlist is the first time the outside world put a name to what Cradio Radio built.
Boiler Room and Keep Hush Have Only Filmed Four Southeast Asian Cities So Far
Boiler Room has broadcast from Southeast Asia four times total: Manila in 2017 and 2023, Bangkok's Maho Rasop festival in 2022 and 2023. Keep Hush has quietly filmed more cities with less reach. Here's where to actually watch the region's DJ culture for free, and where nobody has pointed a camera yet.
Manila's Siangyoo Plays Zouk Singapore on October 8 to Fund Nepal Flood Relief
Manila turntablist Siangyoo has sold out two Singapore shows already. On October 8, he tries for a third at Zouk, with 10% of every ticket funding flood relief in Nepal through a new charity rave format from Beamco Foundation.
What Is a Boiler Room Set, and How Do You Actually Get Booked for One?
Boiler Room turned a webcam in a London basement into a global stamp of approval, and getting picked for one still isn't a matter of sending a good mix to an inbox. This explains what the platform is actually looking for, and the two real routes artists have used to get on it.
UNOS Reconnected With Her Filipino Roots Through a Singapore Record Label, Not a Plane Ticket
Brussels-raised DJ and producer UNOS had almost no connection to her father's home province in the Philippines until she signed to Darker Than Wax, the Singapore label that introduced her to Manila's underground and inspired her debut EP, Boodle Fight.
Cebu's Clubs Were Karaoke Bars and Budots. Cradio Radio Rented an Art Gallery Instead.
In three years, a Cebu house party built around vinyl and instinct grew into a regional network reaching Manila, Bali and Sydney, with its founder now on Mixmag Asia's watchlist.
Manila vs Jakarta: Boiler Room Picked One City. DWP Built the Other.
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.
Pamcy Named Her New House Album After a Fictional Filipino Supermarket. She Launched It at a Jollibee.
Manila producer Pamcy scored a fictional Filipino supermarket chain across 11 house tracks named after grocery staples, from quail eggs to mosquito coils, then launched it inside a real Jollibee.
How to Learn to DJ in Southeast Asia, Starting at Bangkok's InEarBeat
You don't need a residency to start, or famous friends. You need about eight hours, a laptop and, in Bangkok, 10,000 baht. Here's where Southeast Asia actually teaches people to DJ.
Jun Regalado and Thandii Blend Manila Sound and UK Alt-Soul on Coco Okayo
The Philippines' most recorded drummer, credited on some 400 records since the 1970s, spent a January session in his home studio with a Margate duo. The result, Coco Okayo, landed on Sama Sama Records this month.
BuwanBuwan Built a Nightclub Inside Minecraft. Now Its Founder Runs a Real One.
Manila producer Jorge Wieneke built Club Matryoshka, a working nightclub inside a private Minecraft server, in 2019. Four years later the same instinct opened Apotheka, a real one in Poblacion.
Mustache Closes at 3:30am. Here's Where Southeast Asia's Afterparties Actually Happen.
Bangkok has a bar built for exactly this gap. Singapore has a law against it. A city-by-city look at what actually happens once Southeast Asia's clubs turn the lights on.
Manila's Twelve Points Records Marks Two Years With Pathways II
Twelve Points Records turns two with Pathways II, a homeward-leaning follow-up to the compilation that once pulled Bangkok and Hanoi into its Manila catalogue.
The Philippines' Electronic Music Scene, Explained: Budots, Manila's Underground and What Comes Next
Budots came from the streets of Davao and went viral on Boiler Room. Manila's DIY underground keeps losing venues and rebuilding anyway. And a scattered new generation is getting picked up abroad with nothing connecting them but a passport.
Where Southeast Asia's Warehouse and DIY Parties Actually Happen
Djakarta Warehouse Project borrowed the word for a stadium-sized festival. The actual warehouse and DIY scene is smaller, scrappier, and scattered across converted shophouses, a former cinema, and a small club above a Poblacion sidewalk.
Sama Sama Records Just Gave a Lost 1980 Manila Jazz Record Its Second Life
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.
Ezzrei Taught Siargao to Rave. DJ Mag Just Named Her One to Watch
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.
The Best Record Stores for DJs in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia doesn't really have record shops built for house and techno the way Berlin or London does. What it has instead, city by city, is more interesting: soul, funk and reissue specialists who happen to stock the electronic stuff too.
Junoy Manalo's Inner Child Is Manila Deep House With No Label Behind It
Six tracks, zero labels, 356 Spotify listeners. Inner Child is what Manila house sounds like when nobody outside the city is watching.
The Best House and Techno Clubs in Manila, 2026 Edition
Manila's house and techno scene runs through five small rooms in Poblacion and Makati Cinema Square, from Apotheka's split-level policy to The Void's no-frills basement. Here's where to go, what it costs, and how to get home after.
UNKNWN Turns Ten: The Party That Outlasted Half of Manila's Clubs
While XX:XX, TIME, Today x FUTURE and Pineapple Lab all shut their doors, one Manila collective kept moving from room to room until it didn't need a room at all. Ten years and one 16-hour anniversary party later, UNKNWN is the closest thing the city's underground has to an institution.
Alinep's Rolyo EP Lands Manila Techno on a Berlin Label
Manila producer Alinep, a survivor of the club raids that gutted the city's nightlife in 2018, drops a new EP on Berlin's OFF Recordings and lands on Mixmag Asia's 2026 essential listening list.