HOT TAKE: Influence and deejaying, the confusion of roles It’s become a familiar scene on social media. Perfectly styled influencers behind the decks, headphones around their necks, smiling at the crowd, with just enough confidence to look like they belong. The captions are filled with fire emojis and congratulatory comments: “She killed it”, “So proud”, […]
The Case for Gatekeeping: Saving the Dance Floor from Itself Electronic music is now worth nearly $13 billion. If money isn’t a dirty word, it does raise questions about how techno has changed in nature. It has become a spectacle to be consumed rather than a moment to be lived. Clubs look like shop windows, […]
Inclusivity is also about money Inclusivity has become one of the defining words of electronic music. It appears in lineups, manifestos, and press releases. We celebrate diverse programming, safer clubs, more mixed spaces. But there’s another form of exclusion that rarely makes it into the conversation, a quieter, more systemic one: money. Inclusivity doesn’t mean […]
Night out #1 – RDV in Hardtechno Land: Chronicle of the “New EDM” Under violet neon lights and martial kicks, hardtechno attracts a young generation in search of trance and belonging. But within it, certain faces and behaviors remind us that the underground is not always synonymous with freedom. Chronicle of a hardtechno night. There’s […]
Black Women’s Voices in House: Celebrated and Erased House music was never just about drum machines. It was born in Black and queer clubs, fed by gospel, soul, disco. The voices made the anthems. Yet again and again, those voices were erased, stolen, or replaced by models lip-syncing on TV. Thirty years of dance culture […]
Ireland introduces minimum income for artists: €1,300 per month guaranteed A groundbreaking European initiative In its 2026 budget, the Irish government confirmed the creation of a guaranteed minimum income of €1,300 per month for 2,000 to 2,200 artists and creative workers. This program, called the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA), was first piloted between […]
Paul Kalkbrenner – The Essence Album Review (2025) Seven years after Parts of Life, Paul Kalkbrenner returns with a record that feels like an intimate wake-up call. The Essence is not the album of a producer chasing trends, but that of an artist who, faithful to his own method (as he admits in our interview, […]
YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE UNDERGROUND We’ve stripped the word “underground” of its meaning. Today, it’s slapped onto parties that play techno or house in clubs and festivals, as if choosing a genre were enough to claim belonging. But underground has never been just a matter of style. It’s a culture, a set of values, […]
UNTOLD ONE: THE FIRST CHAPTER OF A NEW ERA SAVE THE DATES: AUGUST 6-9, 2026, IN THE HEART OF TRANSYLVANIA, ROMANIA UNTOLD ONE is the concept under which the UNTOLD Festival 2026 edition will unfold, marking the beginning of a new decade – one unlike anything seen before. From August 6–9, 2026, the beautiful city […]
This Isn’t Hate, It’s Love for the Scene Since we started publishing weekly opinion pieces and amplifying the voices of those who live the dancefloor, we’ve been hit with insults, threats, and harassment. 98% of the time, it comes from the very people our critiques touch. Because criticism stings, it shakes comfort zones and points […]
How the Scene Keeps Young Artists Precarious You have to start somewhere. A first residency, volunteer work, an apprenticeship, an internship: it’s often the beginning of a career. Learning on the ground has always been part of the path (and in our view, essential, even crucial) in the music world. But what once was about […]
Long livestreams don’t lie The way we consume electronic music has radically changed over the past ten years. Back in the days of Be-At TV or DanceTrippin, you could watch entire sets from your couch, sometimes four or five hours straight. The experience wasn’t clean: shaky cameras, uneven video quality, but the essence was there. […]
