Boiler Room Returns to Beijing After 2-Year Hiatus With NY DJ Volvox

Kyle Mullin | Apr 18, 2019 12:00 pm | Add a comment | 1011 reads

Beijing nightlife is about to bubble up and boil over thanks to the hotly anticipated return of Boiler Room at Gongti nightclub Lantern on Apr 30. The impressive roster includes New York up-and-comer Volvox, seasoned Macedonian vet Tijana, and beloved domestic acts like L+R Wang Lu alongside guzheng player Yu Miao, Chengdu erhu-wielding DJ Temple Rat, resident Zhao Dai DJ (and co-founder) Zhiqi, and Shanghai’s DJ Doggy (AKA Mingyu Sheh).

READ: "It Looks Like a Gun and Has the Skin of a Snake!”: Temple Rat on Melding Techno and Tradition

The Beijing and Shanghai (at 44KW, May 2) Boiler Rooms mark its first bookings in China since 2017. The prolonged absence can be largely attributed to the licensing hurdles and a number of last minute cancelations that China is so notorious for, making Boiler Room's return all the more special.

Aside from welcoming back such a well-known nightlife institution, Beijing electronic music fans will surely also be excited by the lineup. Fast-rising DJ Volvox, for instance, has garnered praise for her dark and industrial sound. Although she hails from Brazil, Volvox was raised in Buffalo, New York. After dabbling in that small town's burgeoning goth and punk arenas, she became enamored with electronic body music (EBM) acts adjacent to those scenes. That unique background is reflected in her chillingly atmospheric instrumentals, which are punctuated with clanging metallic percussion and intermittent, mysterious background vocals. We don't expect it but fingers crossed that her Beijing engagement is something like her previous set with Boiler Room x Pornceptual.

Tijana, meanwhile, has been awarded numerous prizes in Eastern Europe for her producing and DJing, and has won over many like-minded clubgoers with her cheekily defiant outlook (she once told an interviewer "I hate ballads. I am a party woman!" which is a sentiment that fans surely appreciate as they dance to her upbeat sets).

As Boiler Room China representative, and local nightlife guru Miao Wong told the Beijinger upon news of the live-streamed dance night's return: “It’s not been an easy journey trying to relaunch Boiler Room and explore a new way to run the project in China.” Yet despite the obstacles, Wong has no doubt that Boiler Room was worth fighting for.

Since launching in the UK in 2010, Boiler Room has hosted shows in over 100 cities around the world, and built a reputation as a multimedia force to be reckoned with, curating world-class line-ups and streaming their "exclusive" parties, making them accessible far beyond the walls of the clubs, or bedrooms, that host them. These qualities have prompted both praise – one particularly effusive Guardian writer called it "a global streaming sensation" – and derision, often for the air of pretentiousness that surrounds the "insider event."

Sadly, no matter what your opinion, this time around Boiler Room will break from tradition as they are unable to live stream the Beijing and Shanghai sets on account of local bureaucratic obstacles. Instead, the Boiler Room team will film the event and release it online once the China-side revelers have had their fun (and dispersed).

This compromise has not phased Wong, who pluckily says: “Step by step we’ll try to expand Boiler Room China in the same way [it has grown elsewhere], and explore themes of performance, identity, youth culture and anti-establishment. We can’t break the boundaries, but let’s stretch them.” No matter how you slice it, their return to Beijing is a coup for music lovers in the capital.