5 Ways to Club Anywhere
Boiler Room
What began in 2010 as a single livestream called Boiler Room, with a webcam taped to a D.J. booth, has become not just a global proving ground but a rite of passage, and a catchall term for a format that’s changed the course of dance music.
Start here: Kaytranda’s devilishly chaotic, often hilarious 2013 Montreal session; a fun hour of soulful dance music that foreshadows big things to come for the artist and the format alike.
The Lot Radio
Started in 2016 on a triangle-shaped patch of gravel in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the Lot has drawn a wide range of top-tier talent to D.J. inside its sticker-covered booth (or as Charli XCX did last summer, dance on top of it).
Start here: The Japanese video game composer Takuya Nakamura, blasting an elegiac trumpet solo over drum-and-bass to mind-expanding effect.
NTS Radio
Femi Adeyemi created what may be the greatest anti-algorithm collection of D.J.s and music today, while reclaiming the power of live broadcast and the lost art of the radio show. (He was also involved in the founding of Boiler Room.) To wit: 40 percent of the music on NTS can’t be found on Spotify.
Start here: Moxie’s recent set at Public Records in New York brings the literal sound of the club right into your headphones — two purely excellent hours of house.
HOR Berlin
A D.J. in a tiny, tiled room, at the base of a former East Berlin broadcast tower — that’s it. And yet: In a raw, entirely unadorned environment that leaves nothing unexposed between decks and D.J., HOR Berlin has become an essential incubator for up-and-coming talent since it started in 2019.
Start here: HOR’s broadcast of the journeywoman D.J. Avalon Emerson’s set from Amsterdam’s Dekmantel festival in 2023 is absolutely electric.
Rinse FM
Born in 1994 in the great tradition of U.K. pirate radio, Rinse.FM had a few scuffles with the law before it eventually secured a broadcast license. It has always been an essential hub for the country’s homegrown talent, from grime and dubstep and well beyond: Rinse put out chart-topping records as a label and, in 2014, started Rinse France.
Start here: Any episode of Hessle Audio’s show. The label, co-founded by Ben UFO (a true D.J.’s D.J.), is eclectic, fun and wildly au courant. — Foster Kamer
