It’s clear from their nonsensical self-written bio that German duo Super Flu doesn’t take themselves too seriously. It's a hilariously written string of non-sequiturs and indecipherable statements. 



“Welcome to the world where crispy baked bass drums give the keynote, where Momratzn twitch to tweaking hi-hats and speech bubbles wave engaging basses to you!?" It begins. "Do you falter on making a tough decision? Super Flu recommend you garlic bread rolls and 6-minute-boiled eggs!”



The duo don't subscribe to any convention, as further evidenced in their wide-ranging fifteen-year catalog. Their genre-fluid approach puts a playful spin on the art of DJing and producing underground music. Mathias and Felix of Super Flu have described their sound as “eco-house with fair-trade techno elements.” In other words, they make tasty music.





Super Flu have made their impact on the scene in many different ways. Their label Monaberry is notorious in the underground world of electronic music, helping artists that would otherwise be too left of center to sign elsewhere to break out well before international recognition.




Founded in 2009, Monaberry was Super Flu’s answer to the gauntlet of record label A&R. Frustrated by the implications of having to cater to specific labels' sounds, Mathias and Feliks decided that starting their own label would allow them to be independent and create whatever music they wanted. Furthermore, it has served as an opportunity for them to identify rising talent, helping prominent artists like Andhim and Monkey Safari find their footing and reach a wider audience.




Below are our five selections from the uniquely independent Monaberry record label.




Super Flu & Andhim - Reeves

The title track of this EP, “Reeves,” marked the beginning of Andhim’s introduction to the world of underground music. Simon Haehnel and Tobias Müller started making music together in 2010, and just two years later, Super Flu spotted their immense talent and collaborated with them on this breakout EP.




Super Flu - Go

One of Super Flu’s most notable tracks, “Go,” is a prime example of what we’ve come to expect from the eclectic pair. A slow roller with a scintillating bassline that has listeners grooving from its opening seconds, “Go” breaks down into husky impassioned vocals that remind listeners of a rock & roll song without any of the percussive elements. It sounds like a winding psychedelic trip through a far-off desert.




Super Flu & Monkey Safari - Halle Halle

Similar to their relationship with Andhim, Super Flu was also instrumental in Monkey Safari’s origin story. Also beginning their careers in 2010, Monkey Safari had scant releases and limited success.

Super Flu plucked them from obscurity and collaborated on an EP released in 2011 titled Eutreph. The lead single “Halle Halle” relies on distorted percussion and heavy sub-bass to create a techno groover.




Diva Halle - Super Flu & Angelov

When it comes to identifying rising talent, Super Flu continues to do the business. In 2021 they released “Diva Halle” with Angelov. The young Solomun protege regularly releases on Diynamic. “Diva Halle” is a superb effort from the tenured Super Flu and newcomer Angelov, bringing both artists' signature synth lines to a seven-minute track that screams for big room plays.




Super Flu - Re Nue

Another track from the Go EP, “Re Nue,” is a beautiful construction from the German duo. A more stripped-back approach prompts a track suited for the early morning hours in a small club or outdoor sunrise party, with tropical sounds interspersed throughout a compelling drum pattern.

5 Reasons You Should Check Out Super Flu's Monaberry Imprint

Ibiza is an inseparable part of some of the world’s biggest party brands. Some were born on the island. Many call it their second home. The White Isle has been a permanent magnet for a wide range of genres and music styles, inspiring aficionados and party-goers worldwide.



Since the first superclubs—Amnesia and Pacha—were founded in the ’70s, Ibiza has remained synonymous with dance music and club culture's evolution. And with each new club and residency, Ibiza further cemented its global reputation as a trendsetter.



The golden age of electronic music in Ibiza went hand in hand with the rave wave of the 90s, encouraging promoters and musicians from across the planet to try their luck on the island each summer with new creative concepts.



Throughout the years, big-name DJs and world-renown promoters have

become residents at the clubs they once raved as teenagers. Ibiza has helped them reach new heights in the industry and been an engine for their careers.



As Ibiza prepares for its biggest season yet, let’s look at some of the island’s most influential artists and their longest-running residencies.



F*** ME I’M FAMOUS by David Guëtta 

David Guetta first made his imprint on the island in the late 90s. Already a regular on the dancefloor, he was invited to play on the infamous Space Ibiza terrace. He also ran a few parties at Amnesia under the name Ohlala!.



He would personally hand out flyers on the beaches to promote his early performances in the early days. But in 2003, when he started F*** ME I’M FAMOUS, the Parisian DJ, producer, and songwriter had already started his meteoric rise both in Ibiza and worldwide.

His residency brought glamour, exclusivity, and one of the hottest productions to the island with a crowd made up of rock stars, top models, fashion designers, and jet setters. He introduced posh VIP appeal to the nightclub scene of the White Isle.

In 2019, Guetta decided to move the iconic party brand to Hï Ibiza after starting a partnership with its sister venue in 2016, hosting the open-air party BIG by David Guetta at Ushuaïa Ibiza.

Even after becoming a global success story, Guetta continues to curate his sexy and provocative shows in Ibiza and beyond.











Carl Cox: THE REVOLUTION

In 1985 Carl Cox, his then-girlfriend, and his sister Pamela came to Ibiza for the first time with a recently purchased Fiat Panda that they also slept in. They had no idea where they were headed, but the bright lights of San Antonio drew him in. The little money he had was spent on one epic night at Amnesia, and despite being broke, it changed his life.

Carl was already becoming a key figure in the Acid house and rave parties in the UK and quickly fell in love with the island's music, culture, and sunny weather. Carl returned to Ibiza every year, sometimes to party and others to DJ. He became a staple of the scene and finally got a residency at Space Ibiza in 2001, helping establish the venue as one of the greatest clubs in the world. His party CARL COX: THE REVOLUTION was at the forefront of the Ibiza scene for 15 consecutive years and became the most successful residency in the island’s history.

Carl has proven his love for playing music, breaking tunes, and celebrating life as a dance music pioneer, the king of techno, Intec label owner, a magnetic personality, and an all-time favorite in Ibiza. Although his relationship with Space Ibiza ended when the club sadly closed its doors in 2016, he remained attached to the island.

Cox launched PURE CARL COX a year later at Privilege. In 2018, he played the One Night Stand party at Amnesia, Pacha, and DC-10 and brought Resistance (his lauded partnership with Ultra Music Festival) to Privilege in 2019.

The British icon continues to be one of the most in-demand DJs, with countless festival and club appearances every year. Yet, seeing him in Ibiza continues to be a singular experience.



COCOON by Sven Väth

Sven Väth arrived in Ibiza on holiday when he was 16, and it changed his life. When he returned to Germany, he realized that he wanted to become a DJ. His career began in the ’80s, and as techno arrived in Berlin, he led the revolution.



Sven imagined his COCOON concept after La Fura dels Baus (a Spanish theatrical company) came to Berlin in 1994. The show’s hanging cocoons filled with water inspired him to pour his money into a brand that represented metamorphosis and change.



The techno night soon became Amnesia's flagship party and became a paradise for all the ravers on the island who loved techno. When the 2019 season closed, COCOON had been on the island for 20 years. Its influence on the sound of Ibiza is immeasurable. He's built a strong community of cocooneros, revolutionized afterparty culture, and elevated the music careers of many DJs such as Richie Hawtin, Luciano, Loco Dice, Marco Carola, and Ricardo Villalobos. Without Cocoon, dance music in Ibiza might look completely different today.



FLOWER POWER

The most deep-rooted party on the island is FLOWER POWER, a concept that recreates the magic of the 60s. This slogan originated in California as a peaceful movement against the war in Vietnam, where flowers represented an iconic symbol of non-violence, love, and harmony.



Ibiza was home to many hippie communities who found an ideal place to rebel in opposition to societal norms and feel free. The island has celebrated nearly four decades of this gathering, where people of all ages wear clothes adorned with intricate details, vibrant colors, and real flowers. It’s all soundtracked to the anthems of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Music from The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin transport you to another era. In 2022 the genuine party returns to Pacha for its 40th season.



These are just a few successful residencies that have shaped Ibiza’s party scene. Ibiza now has over 20 superclubs, tons of day clubs, nightclubs, hundreds of beach clubs, and many more places to enjoy music. But the essence of these parties and DJs will never be lost.

Explore Ibiza's Longest Running Residencies

What do you get when combining boundless young talent and seasoned veteran vision? You get our track of the week—Mr. Diamond and LEON’s new collaboration, “Rum.”



Mr. Diamond is Ecuador’s meteoric dance music representative, rising to international recognition in just two years. LEON has evolved into a stalwart figure in Italy’s budding dance music scene through the last decade while holding down residencies at some of the world’s most prestigious clubs. The two groove-masters recently linked on a rippin’ new single on The Martinez Brothers’ label, Cuttin’ Headz, and this pairing couldn’t be sweeter.


“‘Rum' is the perfect balance between both me and Leon’s musical background,” Diamond shares.


“Starting from the early tech sounds of 2000, going to the roots of UK Garage for the drums, and lastly ending with some rave synths before it drops! We’re super happy about the end result, and it makes us smile whenever we hear the crowd go mad with it!”

High-octane drum kits, mind-numbing sound design, and an indomitable groove to boot? “Rum” is a USDA-certified cross-generational banger that will crank any party up a notch.

Mr. Diamond & LEON Join Forces on High-Speed Single 'Rum'

Firing you into the stratosphere with intense hooks and thumping kicks, Sama Abdulhadi’s 2020 set for Monegros Desert Festival's livestream delivered immeasurable energy. An icon of the Palestinian underground scene, she is one of the first DJs and producers to emerge internationally from her home country.

Her tracks and sets elevate techno into an immersive narrative, bringing in a myriad of real-life samples she records on her travels and shapes in the studio. “The music is Berlin techno, but I perceive it in a Lebanese way,” Sama explains.

Abdulhadi’s 2018 Boiler Room set, viewed nearly 10 million times, introduced her talents to the global electronic music community. Her ambition has always been to put Palestine on the musical map.

Abdulhadi continues to inspire a community of artists in Palestine despite Israeli government restrictions. She uses her global success to support a growing number of musicians at home. Abdulhadi set up Union, an artistic community in Ramallah, that helps local DJs and producers to improve their skills, and advises them on challenges they’ll face going forward.

The globetrotting maestro is set to play at Halcyon in San Francisco, Coachella, Fabric, and many more incredible clubs and festivals in the coming months.

This year’s edition of Monegros Desert Festival features Paul Kalkbrenner, Giorgia Angiuli, Maceo Plex, and more - tickets are available now.



Follow Sama' Abdulhadi on Twitter | Instagram | SoundCloud

Follow Monegros Desert Festival on Twitter | Instagram | SoundCloud

Blast Off With Sama Abdulhadi for the Monegros Livestream

It’s a fool’s errand to try and summarize the mania, magic, and music of bloghouse through 10 tracks alone. But if there’s anyone who’s up to the task, it’s the music nerds at Gray Area.

Amid the renewed interest in the much-missed era, this list attempts to distill the wealth of sounds that made it so memorable — and continue to prove influential — into a single, definitive collection of songs. To borrow a word one of the selected artists below built an entire album around. These cuts are essential to understanding everything bloghouse encompassed, from the sacred and transcendently beautiful to the unapologetically brazen and profane.

Maybe you had the good fortune of spending the late aughts and early 2010s clad in American Apparel and shutter shades. Or you're just discovering this world through the intrigue of “indie sleaze.” Either way, you’ll find plenty of sneering, genre-defying spectacles of sound to love here. Scroll on for Gray Area’s selection of essential bloghouse tunes and recommendations for further listening.




Justice vs. Simian - We Are Your Friends

This is it — the big, era-defining anthem. It’s the one that brought a generation of kids into the dance music fold, propelled two of its key groups to stardom, was enough of a crossover hit to adorn the title of an ill-fated movie, and whose video spurred one of Kanye West’s earliest award shows meltdowns. “We Are Your Friends” is bloghouse refined to a perfect four-and-a-half minutes, blending its various strands into an idealized expression of the movement. With its impossibly earworm-y production and lyrics, the song lovingly pushes you in the chest and all but bullies you into getting in on the fun. In short, it’s flawless.

See also: Justice: “D.A.N.C.E.” / Scenario Rock: “Skitzo Dancer (Justice Remix).”




Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler

“Hustler” is the towering centerpiece of one of the best albums to emerge from bloghouse. Attack Decay Sustain Release was the first LP released by James Ford and Jas Shaw as Simian Mobile Disco after the pair broke away from their former band Simian to move in a more explicitly electronic direction. Their indie rock origins served them well on the dance floor. Soon enough, they codified many of the things that made bloghouse great, including the in-your-face production and playful raunchiness depicted in the very-much-of-its-time music video for “Hustler.” Attack Decay Sustain Release is as fully realized an electronic album as they come — but if you have to dip your toes into just one track, make it this frenzied blast of musical fanaticism, kleptomania, and survival.



See also: Simian Mobile Disco: “Sleep Deprivation” / Simian Mobile Disco: “It’s The Beat.”




Robbie Williams & Soulwax - Lovelight (Soulwax Ravelight Vocal Mix)

There’s a lot to be said for the musical finesse brothers David and Stephen Dewaele have flexed at every step of their career. As both 2manydjs and Soulwax, the duo spent the late ‘90s and early aughts paving the path for bloghouse’s arrival by deftly blending indie rock and dance music into one brain-bending brew. (Quick clarification: 2manydjs is their name while mixing on the decks, while Soulwax is their moniker for original music, remixes, and live shows as a band.) Although they remain as prodigious as ever in 2022 with their record label DEEWEE and other projects, it was during the bloghouse era that they cemented their reputation as masters in the art of remixing. The words “Soulwax Remix” are synonymous with quality, and of all the reconfigurations they’ve done, their 2006 effort for English pop star Robbie Williams may just be the nuttiest.



"Lovelight (Soulwax Ravelight Vocal Mix)” is an aural roller coaster, a torrent of crisp hand claps, perfectly placed percussion, and screeching synths set against Williams’ sultry come-ons. Propulsive is a mild word to describe what's happening. Long before the industry abused “the drop” to the point of memeification and mockery, it was deployed by artists like Soulwax to genuinely surprising effect. Whether you hear this one while out clubbing or at home, steel yourself to get scraped off the walls by the time it’s over.




See also: Soulwax: “Accidents and Compliments” / The Gossip: “Standing in the Way of Control (Soulwax Nite Version).”



DJ Mehdi - Signatune (Thomas Bangalter Edit)

The genius of “Signatune” lies in its simplicity. Although the original by DJ Mehdi is nothing short of a sonic assault, the version released on 2006’s Lucky Boy only lasts a scant minute and four seconds. Leave it to Thomas Bangalter, one-half of Daft Punk, to kick it up a few notches by adding a light touch: now looped across six minutes with just a kick drum, the occasional interlude, and “Rollin’ & Scratchin’”-esque skittering adjoined to it, Bangalter’s edit transforms “Signatune” into a lightning bolt of dopamine from the dance floor heavens.


The song’s emotional resonance is only heightened by the havoc Bangalter famously wreaked with it during Busy P’s 2009 birthday party at Cinespace (where, indeed, he mixed it with “Rollin’ & Scratchin’” — more than a decade onward, the footage remains one of the craziest things you’ll ever see on the internet) and Mehdi’s tragic passing in 2011. “Signatune” is a tour de force of raw production prowess, and the passage of time has done little to dull its power.


See also: DJ Mehdi: “I Am Somebody (feat. Chromeo)” / Chromeo: “Fancy Footwork.”




Cut Copy - Hearts on Fire

One of the beautiful things about bloghouse is the sheer number of musical styles that fit under its inclusive, neon-tinted tent. Whether it was hip-hop, electro, or synth-pop, few genres had trouble staking a comfortable claim in the bloghouse landscape. Synth-pop specifically thrived in this environment and, as throughout the history of popular music, played a large part in bringing rock-inclined listeners into the dance floor fold.


Much of the era’s best synth-pop came from Australia, where record label Modular Recordings fostered a regional sound fusing indie rock signifiers with electronic ecstasy. The most definitive release among artists of that particular time and place — think the likes of Midnight Juggernauts, The Presets, and Van She — arguably came from Cut Copy. The band’s 2008 album In Ghost Colours represented a crossover moment for bloghouse, winning over Pitchfork-reading hipsters and raucous club kids in equal measure. It helps that several scene luminaries — including Hercules & Love Affair, Boys Noize, Joakim, and even a pre-breakthrough Calvin Harris — enshrined the record’s status by contributing remixes of the album’s many standout cuts.


“Hearts on Fire” is the shimmering linchpin tying the emotional threads of In Ghost Colours together. (All apologies to the “Lights & Music” evangelists.) Equal parts melancholy and euphoric, the track soars across the expanse of feelings a dance floor can evoke. Armed with a buoyant beat, lovelorn lyrics, a horn-heavy climax, and blink-and-you-miss-it Jennifer Lopez vocal snippets, “Hearts on Fire” is as tailor-made to soundtrack crying in the club as it is moody late-night drives. If any track here transcends bloghouse for a place in the pantheon of great pop music, it’s this one.




See also: Bloc Party: “Banquet (Boys Noize Remix)” / Friendly Fires: “Skeleton Boy.”




Switch - A Bit Patchy

“A Bit Patchy” is something of a secret handshake among the bloghouse faithful, notably accompanying the most chaotic sequence in Soulwax’s scene-defining documentary Part of the Weekend Never Dies (where a hilarious Peaches cameo immediately precedes it) and kept in semi-regular rotation thanks to dance music veterans like Boys Noize.


Anchored by a prominent sample of “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band — which also provides the tune’s punny title — “A Bit Patchy” sees Switch take the source material and contort it to better resemble his signature style. As with other Switch productions, it’s goofy, fidgety, and squelchy as all hell. “A Bit Patchy” might not be the most immediate song newer bloghouse converts fall head over heels for, but give it a bit of time, and they’ll come around on it.


See also: Boys Noize: “& Down” / In Flagranti: “Business Acumen.”




Does It Offend You, Yeah? - We Are Rockstars

Sneer is a crucial ingredient in the bloghouse formula, and few did it more snottily than Does It Offend You, Yeah? As noted in writer Lina Abascal’s book surveying the movement, Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor, the group emerged in a blaze of glory, releasing their rowdy debut LP You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into and wreaking total havoc at music festivals before returning to the chaotic ether from which they came. But before they simmered down, Does It Offend You, Yeah? trampled over scenesters’ ears and good taste with tunes that rocked as hard as they raved.



“We Are Rockstars” is the platonic ideal of bloghouse bedlam, a finely tuned electro temper tantrum with jeering lyrics taking the piss out of online notoriety. The song left a large enough impression to thrash its way out of the clubs and into the larger cultural conversation, fueled in part by its appearance in the trailer for 2009’s Fast & Furious.



Does It Offend You, Yeah? seems to be gearing up for a big return with the release of “GUESS WHO JUST ROLLED BACK INTO TOWN,” the band’s first single in a decade. Brace yourself for the answer by cueing up “We Are Rockstars” and flashing back to the days of MySpace Top 8s and carefully chosen profile songs.


See also: Mr. Oizo: “Positif” / SebastiAn: “Ross Ross Ross”



The Whitest Boy Alive & Fred Falke - Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix)

For all the chaos that bloghouse is closely and rightfully associated with, many of the period’s best cuts also delivered moments of sublime, otherworldly beauty. Fred Falke’s remix of “Golden Cage” by The Whitest Boy Alive is one such song. The French DJ-producer’s rework takes the original track — a sparse-but-groovable slice of melancholic indie pop — and bathes it in glistening synths primed for peak dance floor euphoria.


Music journalist Larry Fitzmaurice may have said it best, “People who liked music for three years in college call it ‘indie sleaze.’ People who partied too hard into their 20s call it ‘bloghouse.’ The truly enlightened and pure of heart call it ‘The Whitest Boy Alive, 'Golden Cage (Fred Falke Remix).’”


See also: Hot Chip: “Boy From School” (Erol Alkan’s Extended Re-Work)” / Friendly Fires: “Paris (Aeroplane Remix)”




Uffie - Pop the Glock

Uffie exuded more swagger across the three-and-a-half minutes of “Pop the Glock” than most artists do in their entire careers. Following in the tradition of raunchy electronic female vocalists before her — electroclash starlets Avenue D, Peaches, and Miss Kittin immediately come to mind — the ex-Ed Banger cohort rattles off a flurry of brags that can’t help but stoke the imagination. Just who is her crew, and what makes them militia? How did she and Feadz get so bangin’? Is she actually as fast as Twista on the mic? And most importantly, will she really pop the glock?


Like any great work of art, the questions it raises are more important than the actual answers. “Pop the Glock” both captured the zeitgeist and tacitly reshaped it, embodying mid-2000s celebrity decadence, setting a precedent for viral internet success, and unifying the disparate threads of hip-hop, underground club music, and pop all at once. The most impressive thing about it all? She made it sound effortless.


It's possible that Katy Perry may never have kissed a girl, and Kesha couldn’t tick-tock on the clock were it not for “Pop the Glock.” Contemporary culture owes a lot to Uffie, and we can show our appreciation by pressing play on Sunshine Factory, her forthcoming second album co-produced by Toro y Moi.




See also: M.I.A.: “Paper Planes (DFA Remix)” / CSS: “Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above”





MSTRKRFT - Bounce (feat. N.O.R.E. & Isis)

“All I do is party” — is there a better summary of the bloghouse ethos? The electro-punk maestros of MSTRKRFT teamed up with NYC rapper N.O.R.E. and Isis for “Bounce,” a concentrated burst of punishing beats and braggadocious flow. It’s a tight party rock anthem that wastes zero time getting to the serious business of throwing down and exemplifies the madness that tended to ensue whenever hip-hop and bloghouse collided.


If the brief running time leaves you wanting more, the standalone single release of “Bounce” features an extended version and remixes courtesy of The Bloody Beetroots and Felix Cartal.


See also: Busy P: “To Protect and Entertain (feat. Murs)” / Kid Cudi: "Day 'N' Nite (Crookers Remix)"

The Essential Bloghouse Bangers

Many people who have heard Afrohouse describe it as "spiritual." It sparks uninhibited self-expression, euphoria, and freedom, touching the deepest parts of its listeners. Afrohouse is the African subgenre of house music that started as a niche underground genre involving elements of tribal house, deep house, and the beautiful sounds of soulful music. Pretoria, Soweto, Johannesburg, Durban, and Cape Town in South Africa are widely considered Afro House's roots and come with their incredible unique beats and sounds.

Dance music from South Africa holds a deep-rooted sound based on African history. It carries the voice of its people—pain, suffering, and the hardships of daily life, but also celebration, romance, love, and joy. The music is a feeling that tells a story and takes listeners on a journey.

Soulfulness, percussive compositions, rich tones, and a profoundly touching emotional intensity characterize Afrohouse. The sound is defined by voices, ranging from soothing vocals to African ethnic chants. The BPM fluctuates between 80 and 122. This is known as "allegro, the heartbeat tempo" and is an essential technique to hit that sweet sound spot.


Afrohouse—like the rest of dance music's broad swath of genres—has a patchwork of subgenres such as tribal house, Afrotech, and ancestral house.


Some of the current heavy hitters in the Afrohouse scene taking the indigenous genre to the global stage include South Africa's Black Coffee, Black Motion, Caiiro, Prince Kaybee, Sun El Musician, Zakes Bantwini, Shimza, Simmy, and Kenya's Suraj.


Moblack, RISE, Aluku, and DM.Recordings are some of the European labels that have given African dance music more international exposure. Major companies in the United States, on the other hand, have been slow to nurture native talent, typically signing local artists only after they've gained international attention. This has resulted in a self-sustaining underground sector, with many Black-owned businesses and young celebrities becoming wealthy, but systemic privilege remains.




The west often exoticizes the genre. Western spectators often mistakenly believe that "genuine" African dance music includes indigenous chanting or tribal rhythm. This occurs because most individuals have just a rudimentary awareness of the range and depth of South African music. One of the most common reasons is how brands in the Western world mediate culture. Many African artists are only given attention through a limited lens that focuses mainly on the more popular acts.


African dance music is already mutating, with dynamic styles like Amapiano swiftly gaining traction worldwide. Future generations of African artists will continue to be inspired by the global reach of Africa's electronic music. Many people believe that Afrohouse has hit its pinnacle, but it is a genre that has the potential to be internationally recognized in the next few years.

Let's Talk About Afro House

Ibiza enters a new era in the final week of April after two years of hiatus. Its most anticipated party season kicks off in the last days of the month, and below are some recommendations to keep you dancing from day till night!



While Ibiza is known for its electric nightlife, events happening during the sunlight hours of opening week are not to be missed, including one of the first major global dance music industry gatherings since the start of the pandemic, the International Music Summit Ibiza. It kicks off on Wednesday, April 27-29, at Destino Pacha Ibiza Resort. You can check the full program and speakers here.







The Summit Grand Finale party takes place on Friday, April 29, at 5 pm inside the ancient walls of Ibiza’s old town, Dalt Vila. This one-of-a-kind event is something that every electronic music fan should experience once in their life and has taken on the role of the official start to the Ibiza season. The line-up features fantasy back-to-back pairings (Jamie Jones and The Blessed Madonna will carry out a b2b closing set) as well as stand-out solo sets:









On Saturday, April 30, Defected Records will also be taking over the Dalt Vila fort in partnership with IMS, delivering an outstanding list of talents. Honey Dijon, Bob Sinclar, Danny Tenaglia, Louie Vega, and more join forces for an epic afternoon of house music. 





Tip: Don’t miss these because IMS events are the only few parties at this historic location during the season!



Two of Ibiza’s most iconic clubs open their doors on Friday, April 29



Pacha will be celebrating its Grand Opening party with Solomun all night long to take you on a deep, hypnotic, and underground music journey. The night under The Cherries roof promises to be memorable as Pacha unveils its new look. This is its third and most extensive round of refurbishment since the “Casa Payesa” first opened in 1973.





In parallel, Amnesia will host the Pyramid pre-season event the same day from 7 pm, offering cutting-edge technology, lighting, and performances.

The superclub is famed for its sunrise session on the terrace, when the sun streams through the windows, illuminating the entire crowd. Here in Ibiza, we love to dance as the sunbeams through Amnesia’s terrace, so when you come to the island, you have to experience this moment!



You’ll dance from dusk till dawn to the rhythm of a great variety of house and techno sounds by Luciano, Paul Woolford b2b Richy Ahmed, Marco Faraone, and Syreeta. And for the techno lovers, the main room brings Amelie Lens, Ben Klock, Airod, and Luca Donzelli to the game.



Last but not least, Ushuaïa and Hï Ibiza join forces on Saturday, April 30, to present Better Together, a day and night musical marathon featuring performances by many of the biggest names in electronic music.



Ushuaïa is a hotel and a spectacular open-air venue located in Platja d’en Bossa that operates with parties from midday till midnight. Paul Kalkbrenner has a long history with the openings, and he has once again been invited back, joined by fellow live act Stephan Bodzin, ARTBAT, Kölsch, Mathame, and Layla Benitez will complete the line-up.





Across the road, Hï Ibiza will open at 11 pm with some of the greatest female talents on the scene, such as Anfisa Letyago, Chloé Caillet, and Charlotte de Witte, and other heavy-weights like Adam Beyer, Chris Liebing, Damian Lazarus, Black Coffee, and The Martinez Brothers, creating together with the crowd a unique celebration of music and human connection.







To top off Ibiza’s most anticipated opening season, the colossal week wraps up with a host of lush music celebrations on Sunday, May 1, including Defected Festival at Amnesia, Loco Dice all night long at Pacha, and the legendary Duran Duran in concert at Ushuaïa.





Aside from being the party island of the world, Ibiza is home to over 80 different beaches and calas, so there is no better way to begin a proper Ibiza listing than with a beach suggestion!



Las Salinas is one of the most idyllic beaches on the island and a popular meeting point for tourists and celebrities. The beach is in the middle of a natural park of the same name, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1999. Its landscape is surrounded by pine woods, free of buildings and hotels, and known for its soft golden sand, crystal clear waters, trendy restaurants, and beach clubs. It offers a paid parking area with clean facilities and shaded bays.





In the middle of this 1.5-kilometer-long beach, there is a chiringuito (Spanish for a small beachside bar or restaurant) called Jockey Club. It is a family-friendly beach bar open year-round. The atmosphere at Jockey Club is uplifting and relaxed yet glamorous. Among some of its services, this beach bar stands out for its Mediterranean cuisine with fresh and quality ingredients, locally crafted beers, and cocktails made with seasonal fruit. There is also a little boutique where you can find some accessories and beachwear. It is an excellent choice for relaxing on a sunbed and ordering food while gazing out to sea or sitting on its terrace enjoying the Balearic beats and DJs playing live sets during summer.

Gray Area Guide to Ibiza Opening Weekend

Gray Area welcomes Chicago legend Gene Farris to curate this week's Set. A limitless producer and DJ with over three decades of experience, Farris is also the CEO and founder of Farris Wheel Recordings. 

Farris defiantly embraces all aspects of house and techno in both his music and sets. His vast discography includes chart-topping releases on Relief, Dirtybird, ViVa Music, and Defected, and he’s collaborated with icons like Green Velvet, Jamie Jones, Sonny Fodera, and more. 

He began his career spinning acid house and disco vinyl in the cavernous spaces of underground warehouse parties in the early ‘90s. He held an eight-year residency at Chicago’s unforgettable Boom Boom Room. Later, he moved to Europe and took on a four-year residency at Jimmy Woo in Amsterdam.

But like all greats, Farris experienced moments of self-doubt in his career. “In the late 2000s I was living in Amsterdam, and I was having a really tough time,” he explains. “No one was really making the sort of music I was making, techno was really thriving and tech house didn’t really have a scene around that time and I just felt really lost. It got to a point where I was seriously considering retiring from DJing.

“I reached out to my brother Green Velvet and told him how I was feeling, and he encouraged me to find myself again. We started making disco music together and that helped to reignite my spark and love for music, and we spent a few years working on an album together.” 

Farris’ choice for Set of the Week is an outstanding mix from Marco Carola, which uplifted him at the time, and propelled his life forward. “At a similar time, I discovered Marco Carola, and the style of his music really influenced the music that me and Green Velvet made together throughout that period and the process. This mix in particular really helped to inspire me.”

Follow Gene Farris on Twitter | Instagram | SoundCloud

Words by: Luca Rizzello, follow him on Twitter

Mix of the Week: Gene Farris Shares How Marco Carola Inspired Him

“Minimal Pop Tech” queen, SOHMI, joins us as guest curator for this week’s edition of Track Of The Week. The Korean-American artist has carved out a glistening pocket in dance music that is uniquely her own, free from the confines of genre, catering only to a groove and a good time.

SOHMI is currently preparing for her inaugural Coachella performance, followed by a substantial string of spring and summer performances. Thankfully, she cut out some time from her busy schedule to share Jil Tanner’s standout melodic tech track, “Trust the Process,” off her latest EP, The Vision. The journey within this selection is enough to blast even the most apathetic of bystanders into a full-on journey, highlighting Jil’s years of Dance music experience.  

“I recently discovered Jil Tanner's music and was instantly blown away by it. Her productions straddle that perfect line of minimal, groovy, and melodic - reminiscent of another powerhouse producer and DJ from Germany, the incredible Anja Schneider,” SOHMI says.

“One of my favorites from Jil's catalogue is a track from her latest EP, The Vision, called 'Trust the Process'. I had the chance to play it to huge audiences during both my recent shows with Boris Brejcha. Each time the track was an absolute moment. It's a driving groover that sort of keeps steadily climbing, pushed forward by impeccable drums, a winding synth motif, and splashes of crystalline arps. All of this leads to an epic, stuttering breakdown that builds tons of tension before finally sending us off into a final drop that is both minimal yet still impactful. It's exactly my kind of melodic tech house track: minimal and hypnotic with a hint of drama, without ever veering into the melodramatic.”

We love seeing appreciation from one eclectically experienced artist to another. If there’s one thing we can learn from both SOHMI and Jil Tanner’s careers, it is to “Trust The Process.”

Track Of The Week: SOHMI Selects Jil Tanner’s Hypnotic 'Trust The Process'

Tony H doesn't really know how to slow down, and he's not trying to. If we were just referencing the hundreds of releases he's dropped since his first track, "Does It Turn You On," in July 2013, we can easily call him prolific. But he's also a label head—he launched Late Night Munchies in 2015 to drop his friends' tunes, and the Munchies After Dark sub-label in 2019 for techno—A&R for Space Yacht, and a touring DJ. Just wrapping your head around everything the Panama-born, Seattle-based DJ/producer is doing is a lot, and as we learned in a recent conversation with the energetic rising star, there's also a lot more in the works.

On April 8, Tony dropped his fourth release of 2022, the groovy acid house-dosed Slow Burner EP on Lots of Practice. It features "Slow Burner," which Tony describes as "a Burning Man kind of track" with a sickening, bubbling acid bassline, peak time banger "Werkin This Body," and the Michael Fam remix of the title track.

We talked Slow Burner, his busy schedule, staying creative, the wide-ranging music he grew up on, and how he got into DJing. We also learn he's working on launching a new label for his own music, and creating an NFT drop for Late Night Munchies, among other things.

When I ask what he imagined "Slow Burner" being the soundtrack for, he pauses briefly then smiles. "You know what? One of my favorite movies is Pineapple Express. The beginning scene when they have him in the lab, testing out the new weed. I feel like if they put that in slow motion and played 'Slow Burner' behind it, it would be perfect. Or in Superbad when Michael Cera is dancing at the beginning, if they have the song behind it, that would be everything."

And as for what kind of dance floors he imagines the EP best heating up, there's two very different vibes.

"''Slow Burner' is such a Burning Man kind of track. I wouldn't play it at a festival ever, I don't think, unless it was Burning Man, or an underground party. Acid house has its peaks and its kind of deeper grooves. I feel like I could run a whole acid house techie set and fit it in that way. But 'Werkin This Body,' I've played at peak hour in my set already. So that's like the A and B, or the yin and yang of the EP. 'Slow Burner' is much more for chilling at home, maybe you're taking an edible or smoking or whatever, and then 'Werkin This Body' is more peak hour, more party, more ass shaking vibes."

It's evident that part of what fuels Tony is the desire to always be learning and discovering. He explains he's been taking a lot of online classes from IO Music Academy to learn how to make new sounds and deepen his skills as a producer. "Slow Burner" was born after he took a workshop about a free plugin called Sting!

"I was just messing with [Sting!] and this Minimoog plug in I have and the pattern kind of made itself and then I went back and rearranged it. The minute I heard the pattern, I was like, 'I have to use this.' I didn't want it to ever stop. That's why the track is very consistent with that acid line. If I could've made that track 20 minutes long, I probably would have."

For "Werkin That Body," he was able to give life to an acid bassline he'd made for another track that didn't work out. It was also the first song he made backwards from his usual process, building around the bassline this time instead of creating the percussion, kick, and claps first. He'd also been listening to a lot of old Josh Wink that week and was really feeling inspired to make acid house.

Another learning adventure he's been on recently is jumping down the rabbit hole of NFTs. When he joined the Space Yacht team, they'd already done one NFT collection, which inspired him to educate himself on the world of crypto and, soon enough, he became fascinated with and engaged in the community.

He's been working on an NFT drop for Late Night Munchies, based around the ice cream character from the label's early days, that will be officially announced in the near future. They're working with a graphic designer / 3D creator to add movement to the art and make it next level. 

"I'm excited to create a story and music for these NFTs," he shares. He's also inspired by the possibilities of NFTs. For starters, he'd like to turn the NFTs into visuals for his DJ sets, and make merch inspired by them.

Clearly, creativity runs through his veins, and he's naturally drawn to discovering new avenues for it. In terms of staying inspired to make as much music as he does, "it ebbs and flows,” he says. "I'll have a week where I can pump out like 15 tracks and then I'll have a six-month period where I'm still working on one track." In addition to taking classes, he listens to a lot of sets from his favorite artists and stuff his homies send over to get in the creative headspace. Working on remixes and edits helps too. Fall and winter, when gigs slow down and the weather in Seattle chills down, is when he "pumps out" tracks and puts them in hibernation to release throughout the following year.

He draws inspiration from many places, including plenty of tunes outside of the dance / electronic umbrella, thanks to his far-reaching music tastes. His musical education began at an early age. Every Sunday, back home in Panama, when his mom was cleaning the house, she'd play everything from jazz, old school hip-hop, and R&B to classical to Jamaican and Brazilian music. 

"Probably the only thing she won't listen to is screamo music," Tony says with a laugh. As a preteen finding music on the internet, he got deeper into hip-hop and asked his friends to buy him Ludacris' Chicken-n-Beer and a Missy Elliott CD, because his mom wouldn't let him get any discs bearing the "explicit" label and pulling out the edited versions in the school yard obviously wouldn't go over well.

When asked how this rich musical diet influences his DJing and production, he's quick to assert it can be heard in his DJ sets, which some have referred to as "hip-house." His love of jazz makes him a sucker for tracks with trumpets or horns. In terms of his production, his wide music taste "helps me know what I'm hearing…and makes me try to get to that sonic level."

By high school, he'd begun his journey into dance music. He still remembers listening to his first Ministry of Sound compilation in 2008 and declaring "I love house!" 

"House, tech house, and tribal house have always resonated with me," he adds. At the time in Panama, there were lively beach parties pumping tech house and tribal house. His early DJ loves include Sean Miller, Hector Couto, Fedde Le Grande, Carl Cox, Felix da Housecat, and Cajmere. 

He got his first DJ gig in 2010 at the hostel he was working at, starting out with a tiny Numark Total in the lobby, soon after getting his own night to throw down at the hostel bar. He then started playing parties around town, and never really stopped DJing. But even before he got his own mixer, he was the aux cord DJ at every gathering, queuing up tracks on his iPod to keep the vibe going.

After finishing school, he moved to Alaska to work (his dad was in the military, so he asked to be transferred as a civilian) and had more down time to work on music and other creative ventures, one of which became Late Night Munchies. "At the time, a lot of my friends that were producing literally had no idea how to get their music on Spotify or Apple Music or any of the websites we use. And I had a friend that was like, ‘You could be the guy that provides the platform’… It was born under the pretense of 'it's for all the homies releases'…And here we are, seven years later, almost," Tony reflects.

"Late Night Munchies has really blossomed, to the point where I've already scheduled all of the releases for this year. This is the earliest I've ever done that, before the end of March. That's awesome. And now I run all things for the label. I do the graphic design, all the mastering, all the A&R, and all the distro. I literally run everything from frontend to backend. I do that for both labels, but now that Late Night Munchies is just taken care of, the focus is on Munchies After Dark, which I want to stay very underground. We'll sign a lot of new artists, for their first release ever.

For Late Night Munchies, the long-term goal is to host festival stages. In Seattle, I've already hosted a label showcase in a room at one of the venues here that has multiple rooms. So the vision long-term is definitely to keep signing all these artists and giving them a platform to put their music out on, which has always been the goal, especially locally. There's a lot of dope producers here in Seattle."

Since running everything for the two Munchies brands isn't enough, he's also launching another imprint, Not Me Being Chaotic Records—the name started as a joke but stuck—for his own music and collabs. Look out for his first release to drop on it sometime this summer. And since the pandemic shutdowns kept Tony much more static then he's used to, he's looking forward to traveling more and meeting people again this year, and is hoping to get on the festival circuit next year. If you find yourself in the Pacific Northwest, make sure to catch Tony while you can, spinning at his Be My Guest show every first Friday at the Timber Room in Seattle.

Tony H Talks New 'Slow Burner' EP, Getting Into NFTs, His Rich Musical Education & More

There’s no better way to kick off festival season than with a spine-tingling mix from Tale Of Us. Those who were lucky enough to see the duo’s set at Ultra this year will undoubtedly be telling their grandkids about it in years to come. Widely regarded as one of the world’s biggest dance music festivals, Ultra 2022 was held in Bayfront Park, Miami, and featured 100 artists spread across several stages. 

As global heavyweights in melodic techno, Tale Of Us is a duo requiring no introduction. Their sets never fail to elevate clubs and festivals into a transcendental realm. Carmine Conte and Matteo Milleri met in Milan while studying music production at the SAE Institute. 

Now based in Berlin, the pair’s Afterlife brand is known the world over for mesmerizing events and groundbreaking releases from Stephan Bodzin, Recondite, Mind Against, Agents of Time, and many more. 

Replete with bursts of melodic intensity, avant-garde soundscapes, and driving rhythms, their Ultra set isn’t one to be missed. The visuals are so hypnotic that they swallow you up entirely; you could watch their entire performance on mute and still be hooked from start to finish. 

As always, it looks set to be another busy festival season for the pair, with appearances at Caprices Festival, Terminal V Festival, Kappa FuturFestival, and beyond.


Follow Tale Of Us on Twitter | Instagram | SoundCloud

Words by: Luca Rizzello, follow him on Twitter.

Set of the Week: Tale Of Us at Ultra Music Festival 2022

If you’re a current fan of dance music, odds are you’ve heard one of Gennaro Filisdeo’s—aka Blackchild—tracks played out through the underground. Minimalist themes have recently stepped their way to the forefront of the scene, and strategic sampling has never been so important.

At the crossroads of these practices, we find Blackchild front and center. The Italian producer has rocketed through the ranks in the last eight years releasing on house music mainstays like Hot Creations and Solid Grooves. He now pulls new label, Latemorning, into the spotlight with the release of his new single, “Headache.”

This latest offering finds Blackchild doing what he does best—combining heart-pounding energy with fan-favorite samples. Rapid-fire percussion gives a staggering pace to start, instantly upping the listener's heartbeat. As we settle into the beat, cheeky sample teasing evolves into the timelessly irresistible hook of Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head,” and any hope of standing still dissipates. A whisk of digitized sound design is the icing on this gloriously groovy cake and only adds to the guarantee that we will soon hear this stomper played out in clubs around the globe.
 
           
Follow Blackchild on Instagram | Facebook | Soundcloud

Track Of The Week: Blackchild Debuts Hypnotic Tech House Roller 'Headache'

In the history books of dance music culture, there aren’t many pages dedicated to Los Angeles. Other than a general receptivity to new genres, LA pales in comparison to the evolutionary influence of hubs like Berlin, Chicago, and Detroit.

However, one tenant comprehensively unites Los Angeles with dance music. The tenant is so strong that Los Angeles has once again emerged as a leader in pushing the boundaries of the culture as it becomes a modern phenomenon in the United States.

That uniting tenant is the spirit of diversity, and RE/FORM, a new house and techno festival in Los Angeles, manifests that union on all levels. Everything from the crews producing the event, to the venue, to the artists performing hinged on a spirit of inclusion and diversity. 

RE/FORM is the brainchild of two key members of the LA-based promotion company 6AM Group: Jia Wang, Founder/CEO, and Marco Sgalbazzini, Chief Growth Officer/Events Director and Founder/Curator of Synthetik Minds, both of whom are transplants of LA. Wang moved to the city in 2008, shortly before launching 6AM and Sgalbazzini came in 2015.

The pair have also been working with a third partner, Andrew Suoto, Owner/Curator of Dirty Epic, another LA-based event brand, in producing every edition of RE/FORM since the first.. Suoto was an Orange Country resident for his whole life until moving to Long Beach 13 years ago.

These three transplants found a home in Los Angeles. They then decided to bring house and techno to their new home.

“For us it’s about what experience we can deliver to the LA community,” says Wang to Gray Area over Zoom.  

RE/FORM first came about in the summer of 2019 as a day-into-night concept to be held over Labor Day weekend. Attendees enjoyed the sounds of Robert Hood and Insolate in an outdoor daytime setting before migrating to a local warehouse for the throbbing techno of Perc and Adam X.

The day and night sections were a single stage back then, but RE/FORM has evolved quite a bit since then. At the most recent iteration, which took place this past weekend (Saturday, April 2, 2022), five rooms at the legendary LA dance haven of Catch One were filled with diverse music, creating the widespread dynamic of a full-fledged festival.

“We felt that LA deserved to have a techno [and] house boutique festival that really focuses on the music. That brings acts that are not the same milling around in a lot of the other lineups that we see,” says Sgalbazzini. “We just felt that it was time. That the LA techno scene had grown to the point where we could unite forces and bring this about in the city.”

LA has been without a proper house and techno festival for years. Insomniac has created very impressive offerings in the outdoor/daytime realm, but this culture was born in the later hours of the night and the early morning hours. 

RE/FORM offered that late into early experience, and the best place to do so was Catch One. Originally opening in 1973 at the height of the disco era, Catch One was one of the initial manifestations of the shared culture of diversity between LA and dance music. 

Catch One built its reputation as a gathering space where the Black and LGBTQ communities could party and enjoy this new style free of judgment.

“I think one of the good things that we’ve done is to really book with a lot of diversity,” says Sgalbazzini. “By properly representing the roots of house and techno as well as the different sounds of house and techno. By featuring experimental, by featuring a lot of local acts, featuring a lot of acts from diverse backgrounds, I think that’s how we’re honoring Catch One’s history.”

Of the five different areas of music at RE/FORM (not counting the after-party), the core 6AM team curated three of them, mainly focusing on techno.

“We love techno,” says Wang. 

Headlining acts like Dax J and SNTS performed contorted and obscure sounds upstairs in the main room, while Sara Landry helmed the underground room directly below with her towering, rapid-fire kick drums.

Down the hall from the main room was the Discovery Stage, where local acts like the RE/FORM DJ mix contest winner Amuck Indstrl spun alongside LA stalwart Stephan Disario. This stage reflected the strength of the LA dance music community as it never lost a solid crowd even though the headliners were mere steps away.

Each of the two other rooms represented a section of LA’s diverse sonic and cultural inclusions while contributing to the overall curation of RE/FORM. 

One came from LA-born event collective and record label Understated, which offered smooth and funky house selections. 6AM focuses primarily on techno across their catalog of events, and so the Understated room sought to provide a change of pace on the more chilled-out side of things.

“I wanted some real true blue house music,” says Michael Frazier, Co-Founder of Understated. “People have gone more into breaks and faster stuff and harder stuff, and I feel like house music has lost a little bit of its coolness. I wanted to really show that house music is still fucking cool.”

In that regard, the Understated room was a success. Walking in provided the intoxicating feeling of groove synonymous with house through the musical supervision of BIPOC and female artists: Kyle Hall, Heidi Lawden, Juliet Mendoza, and Frazier himself

The final space to mention was hosted by BL_K Noise, which, as a brand, demonstrates its own connection to the history of Los Angeles, one that stems from the city’s proven reputation for industrial advancement.

BL_K Noise came to be nearly 15 years ago as an event series to coincide with the Southern California arm of the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Show. 

With so many artists and technicians arriving in the region to display or purchase new gear, Moe Espinosa—respected producer and DJ known as Drumcell and the founder of BL_K Noise—saw an opportunity to create something special for Los Angeles. An event centered around “music technology in general. Less focused on DJing and much more focused on the live aspect of electronic music.”

“We’re mainly fixated on the fringe artistic element of electronic music. Not necessarily the dancefloor,” says Espinosa over Zoom from his home in Los Angeles.

For five hours straight, the artists cycling through their different command consoles of music tech in the BL_K Noise room exhibited why “noise” can refer to audio and visual fluctuations. 

Despite intermittent issues with the projector, the seasoned music technologists combined forces with the BL_K Noise resident visual conductor, Oktaform, towards a complete sensory overload. It was like these artists were conjuring a new world within Catch One.

And yet Catch One felt all too familiar that evening. Events like RE/FORM are why the space exists, and the diverse LA community is meant to fill it. The spirit of diversity has been emanating through those walls for nearly 50 years, and the people of LA carry it with them wherever they go.

That spirit followed the crowd to the after-party, and even when the cops came to shut everything down just a few minutes before Sara Landy and Selective Response finished their back-to-back set, that spirit remained. 

Perhaps RE/FORM won’t make it into the history books of dance music either (although in speaking to the 6AM crew, there’s a good chance it will), but this last party was one for the history books of Los Angeles.


Words by: Harry Levin

RE/FORM LA is Keeping the Underground Alive

Wax Motif has a long history with Miami Music Week. The don of bass-forward house music has been coming to the infamous marathon of dance music events since before he signed his first official releases to Nervous Records and Mad Decent nearly ten years ago. So, his debut appearance on the Worldwide Stage at Ultra Music Festival on Saturday, March 26, was a potent full-circle moment.

 

When he took the stage early Saturday afternoon, the crowd stretched well beyond the confines of the massive structure that towered over the dance floor. And as the Australian-born LA-based artist breezed through his library of naughty, low-end slappers, the crowd only grew more frenetic. While certain artists' music is more conducive to a mellow two-step, the crowd for a Wax Motif set comes to get down. There's no parking on the dancefloor.

 Born Danny Chien to immigrant parents near Sydney, Australia, Wax was imbued with a hustler's spirit. He watched his parents grind to build a home for their family. And they imprinted the entrepreneurial spirit upon him. Aside from his command of ripping basslines and technical DJing, his passion for innovation stretches into community building, label management, and technology.  

He was among the first to recognize the power crypto holds to create unique direct-to-fan relationships. His WAX coin allows users to engage directly with him in various ways, from meet and greets to production workshops. And his ever-growing Discord has forever challenged the way he sees the community that coalesces around him. So much so that he is no longer comfortable calling them fans. Instead, they've become a vital part of his team. 

 We caught up with Wax Motif just after his Ultra Music Festival debut to chat about his love for Miami, his wildest nights out, and what it means to have come this far. 

 

You've been coming to Miami for years since you were handing out USBs to DJs at shows. How does it feel to be on one of the biggest stages in the world in front of a crowd like that?

 It's crazy because we used to come out every year from Australia. Just hustling, trying to get into parties [to give] the DJs a USB. I can't believe it now. I'm the one getting USBs, and I'm the one they got getting a boat here. It's like a dream. Like I was saying earlier to the boys. I was like, 'Yeah, you want the helicopter to EDC. You want the boat to Ultra.' So I feel like I did it.

 

What do you think sets Miami apart from other party cities in the world?

One. It's Miami! Even when I was coming from Australia, every time I landed here, and walked out of the airport, I felt that humidity and smelled the air. Something happens in your brain. And you could see it this week when everybody was landing they were all posting their photos on IG for Miami. Yeah, that's that feeling.

 

There's an energy here that's different than anywhere else in the world.

I'm living in LA. Everyone's done by two or midnight. So it's like that excitement of 'I don't know, shits going on all the time. There's never a downtime. You can probably go to leave [for the club] at 3 am, and it's crackin'. 

 

 So, you started your label in 2019. And I feel like it's inevitable for artists to start a label at some point. Why do you think it's essential to create an outlet for yourself and other artists?

I think the number one thing is speed. I think with the big labels, they have a lot of other artists, and there's a release schedule. And, you know, the process is a little longer. When you have your own label, you can be like, 'bang, bang, bang' and kind of run and gun a lot. Some things need to go out straight away. One of the biggest things is speed. And then the second thing I think is owning your own masters and retaining control over everything.

 

Let's talk about your label as a community, not just for you but for your artists too. How do you see that as being a community-building project?

So, I think I involve a lot of my fans in what I do as well. We have a really good Discord. For instance, I let them vote on the title of my album. And so I think it's the same thing when someone signs to the label to the label. Like with longstoryshort the other day, my next song is with him, and he dropped in my Discord. Everybody's chatting with him, and he's chatting back and getting that crossover with fans in a genuine way. Direct engagement goes a long way.

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing to see artists be able to be so direct to fan.

I love hanging with my fans. And I hate even calling them fans. That sounds cheap. I mean, half of them are my friends now. Lunar and X, for instance, are definitely two of the biggest fans. They've come to every show from east coast to west coast. They'll fly. And we'll tell them, 'hey, we're going to an after-party. Do you guys want to come?' I want to include all my people

I love to hear that. That's so awesome that you're really making friends in the process.

 Yo! I've made shitloads of friends. My tour manager is my friend.

Are you serious?

Yeah, we became such good friends. I had other tour managers I was working with, but I just wanted to work with my boy. We met because of all that shit.

 

So fun fact, you put out the very first Dj Mix on Spotify a few years ago. I was working for the company that did that. And then you've also been an innovator in the crypto space. So I just got to ask, what is so impactful about you being one of the first to do something?

I'm pretty big on that. I'm not much of a procrastinator. If I have an idea, I'll want to do it like today, and you can ask my manager about that. He's laughing his ass off back there. Because the minute something gets in my head, I'm blowing his phone up, and I'm like, 'you gotta go now.' I'm not a waiter. I don't like waiting. He'll tell you too. If I can do it myself, I fucking will. I also just don't mind taking a risk. And if I fall on my ass, cool, but lately, every risk has paid off for me. So, I gotta keep going.


We also recorded a hilarious speed round with Wax Motif. You can check that out in the above video.

Wax Motif Came Full Circle at Ultra Miami

This week’s Track of the Week comes from none other than .WAVCAVE cofounder Meagan Rodriguez, aka QRTR. Her music has been described as an amalgam of “art house film composer and basement rave,” seamlessly navigating a full spectrum of sounds and themes through mesmeric sound design and a masterful command of sonic energy.

 

Fresh off a fully booked Miami Music Week and the release of her Snowfall EP on Walker & Royce’s Rules Don’t Apply Records, QRTR picks Jamie xx’s “SeeSaw (Four Tet Club Version).” Kieran Hebden, better known in dance music circles as Four Tet, has a long career living on the fringe of Dance music, blurring genre lines and garnering praise from some of music’s most progressive thinkers since the early 2000s.

           

“When I used to throw .WAVCAVE parties in Brooklyn years ago, I would often close out the night,” QRTR recalls. “The fog engulfed the basement space we used to occupy, strobes of light cutting through to reveal silhouettes of dancing bodies going strong in the hours of the early morning. 




“On more than one occasion, I sent everyone off in a euphoric haze with this club version of ‘SeeSaw.’ If I find myself playing the final set of the night, I’ll drop this track right before the house lights come on to allow myself a sweet nostalgic moment and remember why I started this journey in the first place.”

 

One listen to this transcendent remix, and you might find yourself in that nostalgic moment as well.

Check out our interview with QRTR from Miami Music Week on our YouTube channel.

Track Of The Week: QRTR Selects A Transcendent Four Tet Remix

Gray Area welcomes Dave Ralph, Global Head of Electronic Music at Pollen, to curate this week's Mix. Pollen is an industry-leading provider of vacations, music, and travel experiences. The platform allows users to connect with communities who share the same passions and interests and facilitates various festival experiences: from Palm Tree in Croatia to Defected in Ibiza and beyond. 




As an eclectic music lover, Ralph found it challenging to whittle his favorite mixes down to just one. In the end, he landed on a stunner from English DJ and producer Greg Wilson, which spans classic funk, soul, and indie. 

"I love music, all kinds of music from all kinds of genres, as long as it resonates with me I don't care what it is or who made it, if it's good its good. So, when I get asked to highlight music it can send me into a tailspin because I just love so much music! I had to think long and hard about this one but I think it's an absolute belter! Greg Wilson is one of the unsung heroes of dance music in the UK. Greg was the first DJ to ever mix two records together live on UK TV. That was way back in the day but nevertheless it was intriguing and a moment in time that will resonate with me forever," Ralph told Gray Area. 




"In 2009 Pete Tong of BBC Radio One aired a Greg Wilson Essential mix. It's breathtaking. Greg takes the listener on a musical journey through funk and soul and indie that laid the foundations for so much modern-day dance music," he continues.


"Rolling Stone Magazine named this mix in the top 25 DJ mixes of all time. I have played this mix so many times I know it back to front. I have shared it with friends and family to the same reaction every time, smiling happy faces, toes tapping and the desire to dance. Greg has some very special edits/versions that wow me every time. I think everyone needs a little Greg Wilson in their lives and I hope that listening to this will put people of the same journey I experienced when I heard it for the first time. Hats off to Greg Wilson. Enjoy."

Pollen Curates Mix of the Week: Greg Wilson's Essential Mix

Shortly after touching down in Miami on Wednesday, March 23, the Gray Area team headed over to 1-800-Lucky for the RVDIOVCTIVE Showcase thrown by New York’s Devon James. As if a lineup including Skream, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Nala b2b QRTR, Tara Brooks, and Francesca Lombardo wasn’t enough to entice us, the venue is a unique Miami hotspot. There aren’t too many other places to experience world-class DJs in the blissful sub-tropical Miami climate while chowing down on ramen and sushi from the on-site food court.

A name familiar to fans and industry insiders a like, Devon James has an impressive catalog of heaters on including last year’s “Dazzler” with long-time friend and collaborator Felix Da Housecat. His RVDIOVCTIVE brand started off as a tight-knit artist collective in New York and has evolved into a lauded party brand, and now a recently launched record label.

When we last caught up with James, he enchanted us with wild stories of touring with Felix Da Housecat and growing up in the music industry. This meet-up was no different as he spun a tale of a past Miami Music Week that involved the police, Ron Jeremy, and one of Miami Beach’s most infamous poolside venues.

To catch the whole story, find out how a 13-year-old Devon snuck into the rave, and hear his favorite Miami foods, check out the full interview in the below video.

Watch: Devon James Shares A Tale of Miami Music Week Past

Kyle Walker and Dillon Nathaniel threw down an absolutely slamming back-to-back set on Friday, March 25th, at the National Hotel for the MK and Friends Pool Party. As the sold-out crowd filled out the sandy dancefloor, the two rising artists amped up the energy with a set that ranged from bouncing tech house to grinding techno.

Walker emerged as part of the Insomniac Discovery Project competition in 2016 and has since evolved effortlessly as an artist moving from bass house to tech house and beyond with the ease and sophistication of artists twice his age.

Indicative of the insanity that permeates Miami Music Week, we caught Walker between back-to-back meetings and shows that would make most faint of heart. He was reaching the tail of his epic Miami run and told Gray Area he had one more show to hit before he could hang up the headphones for the week with John Summit at Floyd in Miami. He promised it would only be a small bender with the tech-house superstar. We still haven’t heard back about how small yet.

We had a blast chatting with Walker about his journey from dubstep to house music, what he’d do if he weren’t a musician and his infamous love for breakfast cereals. Check out the full video below.

Watch: Kyle Walker Reveals His Wildest Dancefloor Moments

Whitney Wei, Kat Bein, Annabel Ross, and more give insight on how we can support women journalists in dance music.

A year and a half of lockdown didn’t necessarily shutter the music industry entirely, despite how it seemed. Artists still made music, new records were released, and careers flourished throughout the pandemic. And with no events to inform their perspective, dance music fans and industry professionals turned to publications more than ever to understand what was going on in the music world. It was an incredible time for discovery. 

That being said, music journalism remains one of the most thankless (and often underpaid) jobs in the business, regardless of the work being an integral part of the industry’s ecosystem. And at its forefront are talented, passionate women who care deeply about dance music and the people in it.

Whether sharing stories from underrepresented artists, reporting on delicate news, giving strong opinions, or critiquing new releases, these seven dance music journalists perpetually set the standard.

Ebony Anderson-Brown

Editor-in-Chief of HangTime Magazine || Former Editor-in-Chief of CLUBJERSEY.net

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

Always be confident, and don’t let your age or gender get in the way of doing the work! When I first started, I was very young. At the time, I was already so insecure and constantly doubted myself. I always felt like I needed to be older or a man to be in certain rooms, but building confidence definitely helped me. It’s all about standing your ground.

How can we empower other women music journalists?

To empower other women music journalists is to uplift them and show support. Nine times out of 10, they’re wearing multiple hats to get the job done but rarely get the flowers they deserve. The work alone is a lot to commend anyone for doing, but as a woman, there are times when I am being left out of the equation because the music industry is still predominantly men. I believe that women music journalists add value in a lot of conversations, and their input should be shared and amplified as much as it is for our male counterparts.


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

I don’t know her personally, but Isabelia Herrera, an Arts Critic Fellow at the New York Times, is a new favorite. She recently wrote a piece on the Dweller Festival that immediately caught my attention. Another journalist is Suzy Exposito at the LA Times, who covers a lot within music, not just dance. 

Follow Ebony on Twitter and Instagram.

Whitney Wei

Editor-in-Chief of Resident Advisor || Former Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Beats

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

Invest in yourself and subscribe to a magazine whose writing you respect—not necessarily music-related. When I was living in Brooklyn, just dipping into my career, I lived with my best friend, a film and literary critic, who subscribed to the New Yorker. The volume of the weekly issues was so overwhelming that we always had plenty to read and discuss on our commute into Manhattan. 

Ironically, I forgot all about the enrichment provided by these magazine subscriptions when I moved to Berlin to commit to being a full-time, freelance journalist. In the first two years, there were moments I could’ve used something in print, on hand, with a wider perspective, to inspire my writing. I’ve since picked the habit back up, but I’d have told myself to do this right off the bat—and to supplement these issues with fiction to enliven my observational prose. Quality reading begets quality, confident writing. 

How can we empower other women music journalists?

The argument of representation here is definitely one step towards empowering other women journalists. Seeing the byline matters, but seeing who heads an editorial team also matters. As someone currently in a position of power, I often think back to all of the women editors who took a chance on me and honed me to become a better journalist under their review. 

The editor-writer relationship is a formative one for all parties involved, for the quality of the copy and the overall quality of the publication. Now, I’m paying it forward. Most of the section editors and senior staff writers on my team are women, and a majority of the freelance writers with whom I work are women. Having this kind of representation on all levels of the editorial ladder and having women be—in part—responsible for another woman’s personal, professional growth, is incredibly empowering for all involved. 


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

Günseli Yalcinkaya, who is currently at Dazed, is one of my favorites and someone I’ve been lucky enough to work with. She doesn’t exclusively write within dance music, more at the intersections of art, fashion, internet culture, and more. Last year, she penned a trend piece for Resident Advisor on the rise of medieval-themed raving. She often has this very mordant insight into music subcultures that is both rare and refreshing, such as her recent coverage on the rise and fall of hyper pop. Plus, she’s a lovely individual. 

Then there’s also Bianca Giulione, freelance and formerly of Highsnobiety. She’s really carving her own path as half music journalist, half spiritualist who is starting her own tarot and holistic healing consultancy. I commissioned her for The Ultimate Raver’s Diet piece for RA’s wellness month in January, and she did a stellar job researching and reporting. Generally, I gravitate towards journalists at the nexus of various interests, not only dance music, because these other disciplines inform their perspective on music storytelling in unexpected ways.

Follow Whitney on Instagram.

Kat Bein

Assistant Digital Editor at Modern Luxury || Former Editorial Director of Festival Insider || Freelance Journalist at Billboard, SPIN, Miami New Times, etc.

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

I’m a big fan of Nardwuar, and he has some great advice: Just ask. Whether it’s sending a cold pitch to a new editor, reaching out to a big act for an interview request, or sending a request to cover a local event or festival, there’s literally no harm in asking. Worst case scenario, someone tells you no or doesn’t bother to answer. No one was hurt in the process, and you’re likely to get a yes or at least learn something from the experience.

You work for your editor. It’s not the other way around, and you work for no one else. Artists and publicists don’t send you checks. Your editor does, so keep in mind that what your editor asks of you is the only ask that matters. Take your word count seriously. If you overshoot and your editor cuts a bunch of work, don’t cry about it. You had the chance to control the story, and you gave that up to someone else. Also, be open to criticism. A good editor will make you a stronger writer, and a bad editor will still teach you something about making your work stronger. If someone doesn’t understand what you’re trying to get across, that’s not on them. It’s on you to write with clearer concision. Find better words.

Be reliable, and be on time (at least, don’t blow your deadline until that editor, really, really knows you’re good for it). Clean copy delivered on time will get you soooo many callbacks. Copy that is just okay but delivered on time will still get you more work. Reliability and timeliness are things far too few freelancers and journalists are bringing to the table. 

 If there’s something in the field you want to do and no one is hiring you, do it yourself. Start a podcast, start vlogging, start a newsletter, start a blog. Prove to the world that you’re capable of creating the content you’re most passionate about, and people will start identifying you with that content.

 If you’re making 10k or more annually on freelance work, start a sole-proprietorship LLC. You’re going to save A LOT of money in taxes. Get a good accountant, too. It’s worth it.

 Beyond prepositions and the like, try not to repeat words in your story. Try not to start all your sentences with the same words. Pay attention to your internal cliches. What phrases and sentence structures are you relying on? Try to switch that up from time to time.

 You don’t have to refer to musical styles by their given genre. Come up with your own way of describing sounds. That way, you don’t “piss anyone off” by “getting it wrong,” and it’s a lot more memorable anyway.


How can we empower other women music journalists?

The best thing we can do is help each other get paying jobs. If you see an opportunity and know someone who would be good for it, give them that info or put them in touch with the recruiter. Also, we all deserve to make more money. Never ever take a job that doesn’t pay, and don’t be afraid to raise your own prices. Also, don’t be afraid to talk about your rates with others. I have watched a man with a couple of years of experience get hired and immediately get paid more than a woman who was on staff for like 6+ years. Also, easy stuff like sharing each other’s work, being friendly and encouraging, and subscribing to each other’s platforms.


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

I have to give it up to my name-twin and BBDance editor, Katie Bain. It’s an honor to be confused with her (but also, please stop doing that). My old Thump editor Michelle Lhooq has an incredible newsletter called Rave New World. Lily Moayeri does incredible work across all genres. She has a great podcast called Pictures of Lily and has become a wonderfully supportive colleague. Dani Deahl can write about the tech and business side of dance music with masterful deftness and clarity. Gabriel Pharms currently works with me at Modern Luxury and doesn’t just do music journalism but is still slaying music content regardless. My girl Brittany Gaston always does a banger job when she gets behind the keyboard. I’m super impressed with the sentences coming from my friend Alli Lindsey right now. Megan Venzin is smashing it over at DJ Mag and is also super fun to party with. Annabel Ross does great work and always takes care to address the important topics of our time. Lisa Kocay brings a lot of fun to her writing. Valerie Lee isn’t technically working as a journalist all the time anymore but still does great work whenever she gets on camera or behind the keyboard and is also putting in work for dance music at Twitch. Aurora Zboch is really nice and has a great handle on storytelling—and the writer behind this piece, Arielle Lana LeJarde, knows how to tackle complicated subjects with graceful poise and strong prose! 

Follow Kat on Twitter and Instagram.

Annabel Ross

Winner of the 2021 Drum Award for Best Investigative Journalism || Freelance Journalist at Resident Advisor, Mixmag, The Guardian, etc.

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

Read, read, read. Think about what you want to say and try to develop your own voice. Know that this career path will probably never make you rich, ha. Try and develop complementary skills — photography, video, audio. Think critically about the work you’re doing. 


How can we empower other women music journalists?

I think the best thing women journalists in electronic music can do for each other is support each other and especially try to amplify WOC writers and other minority voices. Traditionally there haven’t been many women journalists in dance music, which I think leads some to become territorial or competitive. We’re all on the same team! There’s room for all of us. 


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

There are so many of my peers doing great work. Nyshka Chandran and Kiana Mickles at RA. Isabelia Herera. Shiba Melissa Mazaza has been doing an incredible job covering the South African music scene. Christine Kakaire. Tara Joshi. Chal Ravens is always class, ditto Kate Hutchinson. Christine Ochefu. I also love to see young writers and editors like you and Melisa Yuriar coming up (yes I’m talking about you, Arielle!) It’s really exciting to see you taking on important topics at EDM publications and introducing your readers to different artists and ideas. 

Follow Annabel on Twitter and Instagram.

Jina Kim

Owner of Sidewalk Talk EDM || Photographer at C-Heads Magazine 

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

I would tell myself to stop overthinking everything. I never thought I earned the “journalist” title because EDM/Sidewalk found me. I was working as a foreign exchange sales trader and my boyfriend (and now fiancé), a new music producer at the time, introduced me to Sidewalk Talk EDM. I quickly fell in love with EDM and its community, so my only goal was to introduce incredible people in the scene to the world. I still haven’t reached the level of confidence I would like and still overthink everything I do, but I hope I can showcase the amazing personalities I’ve met in their most genuine form.


How can we empower other women music journalists?

Always being there for each other. Even if we’ve never met or talked to each other, I want women to know I support them and am here to listen and support them in any way I can.


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

Lauren Engel, even though she’s no longer a music journalist, she taught me everything I know, and I respect her so much, Arielle Lana LeJarde, and Kat Bein.

Follow Jina on Twitter and Instagram.

Rachel Narozniak

Managing Editor of Dancing Astronaut || Music Editor at Crust Nation 

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

I’d impress upon my younger self the importance of developing a more supple vocabulary because I believe this is a way to forge your own distinctive voice. When I started out in music journalism, I had no experience. I’d written a smattering of arts & culture, lifestyle, and events features for my university’s newspaper, The Daily Targum, but I wasn’t accustomed to writing music news and track posts—music journalism’s bread and butter. 

As I worked to adapt to this new genre of writing, I was preparing to enter my master’s program in English. I noticed that the preliminary reading I was doing was expanding my vocabulary, and I found myself using a broader net of words to capture what I was trying to say in my track posts and features specifically. Having a broader net of words to pull from made my word choice more intentional. By choosing to describe something one way vs. another, I was developing my own voice. So, I worked to build up my vocabulary further.

 An artist’s project is going to be covered by writers across outlets, many of whom will express the same ideas as you. However, how you relate these ideas is a means of differentiating and developing your voice. Increasing your vocabulary level enables you to convey your thoughts in a more creative and idiosyncratic way that will ultimately help you in your efforts to establish a voice and authorial identity all your own. And this becomes all the more important considering that much of music journalism is creative writing. I didn’t realize this or appreciate its power when I started out.

How can we empower other women music journalists?

We can empower other women music journalists by being more thoughtful about diversifying the contacts with whom we share opportunities. Have you sent the same writer in your Rolodex new writing-related opportunities when you see these opportunities, or have you made the effort to recommend other writers you know to diversify who receives your referrals? This is a people-centric industry, and many opportunities come from who you know and the relationships you form. When we have the chance to recommend someone for a journalistic role, it is important to ensure that we are using this chance to give women, especially women of color, an opportunity that might not be easy to come by given the male-dominated nature of the dance industry specifically.


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

Kat Bein, Katie Bain, Jaguar Bingham, Paige Sims, and Danyel Smith. 

Follow Rachel on Twitter and Instagram.

Lisa Kocay

Contributing Writer at ForbesLife, Festival Insider, and Gray Area

If you could give yourself advice for when you started in journalism, what would it be?

Take in content before creating content. I wasted so much time staring at a blank screen, trying to figure out what to write. That being said, there are days when there is no creative spark, and it’s okay not to write on those days—don’t beat yourself up over it.


How can we empower other women music journalists?

Read their work and support one another by sharing it on social media. When it comes to women of color in journalism, educate yourself on microaggressions, your own whiteness, and unconscious bias. It’s also important when supporting minority artists to learn how to pronounce their names, understand your privilege, and acknowledge your mistakes. In addition, understanding vocabulary such as misogynoir, non-binary, pronouns, chosen names, and more are important.


Who are your favorite women journalists in dance music right now?

Kat Bein, Katie Bain, and Arielle Lana LeJarde.

Follow Lisa on Twitter and Instagram.

Words by: Arielle Lana LeJarde

Taking Notes from 7 Influential Women in Dance Music Journalism

Dance music planted its seeds in cities like Chicago and Detroit, and with its all-inclusive ethos and ability to bring people together, the genre made its way to every crevice of the world. Once house and techno reached Europe, electronic dance music (or EDM) was born. English composer Richard James Burgess first used “electronic dance music” to describe his single “European Man.” The now commodified and catchily-named genre spread like wildfire, and by the late ’90s, EDM made its way to Vietnam, which bred their own subgenre, Vinahouse. 




The name Vinahouse signified Vietnam’s unbreakable ties to the country’s culture: Vina, which is short for Vietnam, combined with house music. DJs began remixing popular Chinese and Vietnamese songs with a simple but memorable beat full of high-energy and a bombastic four-on-the-floor beat. Credited as the first Vinahouse song, “999 Roses” remixes by DJ Thái Hoàng and DJ Nam Tào created the sound we now know as Vinahouse.

DJ Hoàng Anh was the first Vinahouse DJ to successfully give global attention to Vietnam’s dance music. In 2004, Tiesto chose him as the first winner of the Heineken DJ Contest. DJ Hoàng Anh frequently represented Vietnam in contests around Asia, garnering him the title as “The King of Vinahouse.” Even with the bedazzling title, he has acknowledged throughout his career that it’s a difficult lifestyle. In a translated interview with Zing news, he says, “However, to live with the profession and make a mark in the world and with the audience is not easy, the same is true of any profession, not just DJ.




The beautiful thing about rave culture is that you can escape from reality, meet amazing people, and dance the night away. But if you pull back the curtains, the glaring issues in the industry remain the same no matter what country you live in. And once Vietnam’s nightlife began to attract international attention, the scene shifted in ways that made the country’s dance music scene a bit more complex.




A Saigon-based promotion company and collective called Heart Beat is credited with pioneering the techno movement in 2012. Made up of international DJs from Germany, Thailand, France, and Vietnam, Heart Beat wanted to bring Detroit techno and Euro tech house to Vietnam by throwing events that showcased global and local talent.

DJ Mag reports, “In recent years, the few underground music events available typically followed strict ‘only house and techno’ policies and focused on attracting expats who could afford the entry fee.” Though looking through Heart Beat’s Resident Advisor page, their standard ticket price is usually 150k Vietnamese Dong ($6.62 USD), and they also offer free entry before 10 pm. 

In a 2015 piece on VICE’s now-defunct THUMP, Heart Beat expressed that throwing the parties wasn’t easy. Heart Beat cofounder Paul Tonkes said, “We’d have to give them [the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Vietnam] a list of every track a DJ intended on playing, which we would make up because you never know what a DJ is going to play. It would end up being $300 to $500 for the night just for copyrights. That’s not the money going to the artist, either.” 

Giving out tracklists for techno parties was virtually unheard of, but it was one of the rules the Ministry ordered to gain an event license. There were also midnight curfews—which Heart Beat didn’t abide by—making their parties doubly illegal.

Bringing international talent to the forefront of Vietnam nightlife was a mission for promoters like Heart Beat. The German Consulate sponsored the crew. And members of the collective included people not local to Vietnam. Some Vietnamese DJs feel that this emphasis on transplants rather than the true local scene has proven problematic. 




Cuong Pham, whose artist name is Phambinho, tells DJ Mag, “I know of people who have been kicked off the decks or out the clubs for violating the ‘standards’ of these gatekeepers.” He also says its “sính ngoại,” an expression similar to xenophilia, an attraction to foreign cultures or customs. 

Now taking the forefront of Vietnam’s nightlife is Saigon party collective Nhạc Gãy. French-Vietnamese founder Anh Phi tells Dazed, their goal for the club night was to fill “a gap in the market and the need to develop a local rave scene.” They wanted to do so without constraints. She adds, “We don’t subscribe to convention, or at least we try not to. Gãy is a way of saying that, when everything is broken, it’s OK.” Gãy translates to “broken,” but is a beautiful double entendre for its LGBTQ focus.


Unlike previous worries about revenue, Anh Phi says, “We were never in this for the money. Without a fixed venue and the costs attached to that, we didn’t have the financial pressure others faced.” And with no focus on one dance music genre, they were able to attract the eclectic and expressive crowd of Ho Chi Minh City.

But Phi wasn’t only veering off from close-knit event-throwers in the scene, Nhạc Gãy also wanted to distance itself from the formulaic Viahouse. So around this time last year, the collective released a club compilation full of Vietnamese artists that “reflected more on what could be modern Vietnamese club music.” However, they don’t wholly reject the country’s electronic music roots in the compilation, even opting to include some of the playful genre.

Electronic music tourism still seems to be a budding industry for Vietnam, especially in places like Ho Chi Minh City. And while they might not have the festival circuit that its neighbors in Thailand and Hong Kong might have, dance music continues to thrive. In a scene so young compared to the US and Europe, it’ll be interesting to see how Vietnam’s scene will continue to develop in the coming years.