Over the past decade, underground club circuits around East and Southeast Asia have grown from a collection of fragmented markets to an integrated community that’s dedicated to supporting local talents. Projects such as bilateral DJ exchanges and regionally-focused record labels such as More Rice, based in Bangkok, have gone a long way in building cross-border relations and generating a larger Asian fanbase. Some of the fruits of this labor are presented on a new compilation from More Rice, 14 tracks of chugging dancefloor weaponry from South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and beyond.
Harvest Vol.1 isn’t lacking energy, but most tracks are complex slow-burners that make for ideal transitions in a DJ set or deep listening sessions. Take the stand-out “Mirarboles” from up-and-coming Seoul producer Mogwaa, a classically-trained musician whose latest EP dropped earlier this year on More Rice. Mogwaa finds a sweet spot on the synth-funk hook with escalating chords that add a sense of drama, but he also plays around with it, laying the melody with warped effects and hints of squelching acid towards the end. Equally fluid are the lopsided peals of “At The End of Time,” a joint effort by producer Lustbass and drum duo The Hernandez Brothers, both of whom hail from the Philippines. The song is hypnotic, mirroring the meditative energy of Javanese gamelan, a departure from the Hernandez Brothers’ usual funkadelic maneuvers.
An effortlessly steady pace is perhaps Harvest’s biggest strength. Introspective house cuts are interspersed with syncopated beats and bassy rollers to produce a harmonious listening experience from start to finish. The first half of Harvest is generally easy listening but that quickly changes when the prolific artist known as Similiarobjects, a heavy-hitter in Manila’s electronic scene, goes down a twisting rabbit hole on “Analogmigraine.” The track gives off a sense of calm despite flurries of tightly-packaged beats and it’s the perfect primer for Karachi-based Rudoh’s “Mo Money,” a breaks-heavy mid-tempo joint that gracefully incorporates snippets of UKG and sudden tempo changes.
Despite these highlights, Harvest has pockets of weakness that make it drag on a bit longer than it should. “Still Life” by Filipino artist Saint Guel and “Bang Sue Junction” from Bangkok’s Sarayu, one of the More Rice co-founders, both fall prey to repetitive basslines that sound like fillers to hide gaps in composition. Meanwhile, other tracks such as Snad’s “Put It In My Parenthesis” and “Ham” by Tokyo producer Spanglemann start off compelling but lack sufficient dynamism to justify their six-minute stay.
If Harvest seeks to represent a wide spectrum of pan-Asian club music, it could benefit from more stylistic boldness. Genre hybrids are emanating left-and-right in electronic hotspots such as Indonesia and India amid a rising ratio of producers to DJs so there’s no shortage of fresh four-to-the-floor patterns. Still, the fact that Harvest connects the dots between multiple countries makes it stand out from other geographically-oriented compilations across East, South and Southeast Asia that aren’t as wide-ranging. Examples of the latter include the India-centric Kaala Khatta - Flavours Of The East, the all-Indonesian Moda Equator, and the Shenzhen-specific Dragon Bass EP1: Made in Shenzhen. More labels in the region should follow Harvest’s ambitious scope, paving the way for emerging Asian talents to reach wider audiences.
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