12 articles
What Is Vinahouse? Vietnam's Homegrown Dance Music, Explained
Before Vietnam had a techno scene, it had this: pop songs sped up, chopped and slammed onto a four-on-the-floor kick until the whole street shook. Here's where Vinahouse came from, and why the country's newest DJs are trying to outrun it.
Da Nang and Hoi An Nightlife: Where House and Techno Actually Happen
Central Vietnam isn't a clubbing capital, and it doesn't pretend to be. But between one red-lit techno bar in Da Nang and a sunset DJ set on An Bang Beach, there's a real, small scene worth knowing before you land.
Diskonnected Plays Hanoi's Cuốn Club This Friday, No RA World Tour Needed
While RA's anniversary tour picked Taipei over every Southeast Asian capital, Hanoi's Unmute booked a Smoke Machine-affiliated techno DJ for a normal Friday night, no world tour required.
NotYuTing Turned Vietnam's Reunification Into a Trance Record, From a Saigon Hip-Hop Club
NotYuTing came up through a Saigon hip-hop club that turned itself into a record label. Her newest single weaves a Vietnamese folk instrument into trance to mark 50 years since reunification, and nobody outside a small SoundCloud page has really noticed yet.
Forget the Club: Southeast Asia's Underground Now Lives on Community Radio
From a studio on Bangkok's Charoen Krung to the inside of an actual Manila jeepney, community radio has quietly become Southeast Asia's cheapest, most durable piece of nightlife infrastructure.
Hanoi's House and Techno Guide: Unmute, Mirage and the Scene Holding On Through the Raids
House and techno in Hanoi now runs through Unmute and Mirage, and a handful of bars and burger counters doing a club's job, as the scene adapts to a nitrous oxide ban and near-routine police raids.
mess. Is the First Vietnamese Woman to Play Tomorrowland
Vu Phuong Thao grew up on an organ in Son La, dropped out of diplomatic training, and built her name in Ho Chi Minh City's underground. This July she became the first Vietnamese woman to play Tomorrowland, and Vietnam's own press called it a Vinahouse homecoming.
Maggie Tra Turned Her Mother's Death Into a House Record, With Hanoi Still in Its Bones
Maggie Tra's new single 'Holding On' is a house track about losing her Cambodian mother, made by an artist who learned to DJ in Hanoi and now runs her own label, Pho The Girls Records.
Ken Ishii Made His Vietnam Debut at a Festival Built From a Dozen Radio Stations
Da Nang Community Radio spent four days in August turning its city into a decentralized festival built from a dozen Asian radio stations, with Ken Ishii and Red Pig Flower playing their first Vietnamese shows.
Saigon Soul Revival Return With a New Album, and Brotha Lok Takes It to the Club
Ho Chi Minh City's Saigon Soul Revival announce Chốn Ta Về, out September 11 on Saigon Supersound, with lead single Trúc Xinh headed for a Brotha Lok remix built for the dancefloor.
Hanoi's Most Important Club Is Gone. The Underground Found New Rooms Anyway
Savage, the club that built Hanoi's house and techno scene, closed for an opera house. A nitrous-oxide crackdown followed, and Equation Festival didn't survive the year. The scene didn't stop, it just got harder to find.
Ho Chi Minh City Nightlife: Where House and Techno Actually Live in Saigon
Forget the Bui Vien bucket-cocktail strip. Saigon's real house and techno scene runs through a 500-capacity institution on the 10th floor, a brand-new superclub with a first-in-Vietnam sound rig, and a crew that's been throwing techno parties since December 2012.