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Spaces Between the Beats

Spaces Between the Beats is a series spotlighting music and cultural communities around the world, exploring their stories as they build resilience and find meaning and hope in connection.

As Hanoi’s nightlife faces raids & repression, its underground scene modulates

Spaces Between the Beats — Tensions between nightlife and authorities have grown in recent times, as police target venues and their patrons with increasingly frequent drug testing and searches. With clubs becoming hostile spaces as a result, Hanoi’s electronic music community is finding new spaces and forms of expression, reports Martin Guttridge-Hewitt.

  • Music
  • Martin Guttridge-Hewitt
Live music venue with white spotlights illuminating red stage backdrop. White "SPACES BEATS" text above crowd of silhouetted figures in purple, blue, and yellow lighting.

Iceland’s music scene is erupting, and the world should listen

Spaces Between the Beats — Set a few hours from Europe and the USA, the once remote, barely populated island has cultivated one of the world’s most fertile avant-garde sonic playgrounds. We head to Reykjavík for Iceland Airwaves to find out how.

  • Music
  • Isaac Muk
Cello player and bearded man seated with text 'Spaces Between the Beats' in the background.

After Assad’s fall, Syria’s musicians rebuild from the rubble

Spaces Between the Beats — Following decades of dictatorship and 14 years of civil war, the country’s classical and creative scenes have an opportunity to build from scratch. Andrei Popviciu speaks to the people hoping for a flourishing new era of art and sound.

  • Music
  • Andrei Popoviciu
Vibrant poster featuring a group of musicians and performers, with the text "SPACES BETWEEN THE BEATS" prominently displayed.

Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, an underground music scene bubbles

Spaces Between the Beats — Set over 800 miles away from mainland Portugal, the Azores archipelago has historically been well detached from Portugal’s music and culture. But in recent years, a local scene has begun to emerge.

  • Music
  • Isaac Muk
Group of people dancing at a live music performance, with a large "Spaces Beats" sign in the background.

Amid tensions in Eastern Europe, young Latvians are reviving their country’s folk rhythms

Spaces Between the Beats — The Baltic nation’s ancient melodies have long been a symbol of resistance, but as Russia’s war with Ukraine rages on, new generations of singers and dancers are taking them to the mainstream.

  • Music
  • Jack Styler

The rave salvaging toilets for London’s queers

Happy Endings — Public bathrooms have long been contested spaces for LGBTQ+ communities, and rising transphobia is seeing them come under scrutiny. With the infamous rave-in-a-bog at an east London institution, its party-goers are claiming them for their own.

  • Music
  • Ben Smoke

As Tbilisi’s famed nightclubs reawaken, a murky future awaits

Spaces Between the Beats — Since Georgia’s ruling party suspended plans for EU accession, protests have continued in the capital, with nightclubs shutting in solidarity. Victor Swezey reported on their New Year’s Eve reopening, finding a mix of anxiety, catharsis and defiance.

  • Music
  • Victor Swezey

Inside the UK’s first festival dedicated to East and Southeast Asian alternative culture and music

From dancefloor heat to post-punk, Margins United is a showcase of creativity and a bubbling underground community.

  • Culture
  • Isaac Muk

Inside the secret club night bringing the party to Pakistan

Meet the party pioneers making space for diverse dance floors in a city with no record shops, night clubs or club culture.

  • Spaces Between the Beats
  • Daniel Dylan Wray

‘We’re learning by doing’: Inside the Faroe Islands’ new music boom

Tórshavn’s music scene is attracting musicians from all over the world and reflecting cultural shifts at home as young Faroese artists make themselves heard.

  • Spaces Between the Beats
  • Martin Guttridge-Hewitt

The community radio station broadcasting from war-torn Kyiv

Launched in the midst of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Gasoline Radio is fanning the flames of Ukrainian culture with a taste for homegrown talent and a schedule to rival NTS.

  • Spaces Between the Beats
  • Paul Hanford

Underground cyphers are helping young Kashmiris reclaim their voices

Set against a backdrop of conflict and crackdowns, rappers in Srinagar are speaking truth to power in secretly organised freestyles.

  • Spaces Between the Beats
  • Junaid Kathju

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