Electronic music night «Văn Nghệ Đương Đại» (Contemporary Performing Arts)

   For once the Hanoi electronic scene is playing for itself: no flown-in headliner, all four names behind the decks live and work in the city, and the music runs for eight hours straight, from ten at night until six in the morning. The «Văn Nghệ Đương Đại» series returns to the club Unmute, and this is the rare night where you hear the city without a shop window for visitors.

   The name is worth translating. In Vietnamese «văn nghệ» means an amateur variety concert — the school or workplace evening of songs and dances — while «đương đại» means contemporary. The sign promises a community talent night, and behind it there is techno running until sunrise. The series is young: the previous edition took place in this same room on 31 July.

   A quick look at who plays:

• — Fomococo — a Hanoian who came to the decks from a band, where he played bass, and still describes his path as a search for his own sound in the underground;
• — Planète Gigz — a Frenchman from Lyon, formerly known as Verbena, who ran the Chineurs de Lyon and 169 crews there; now based in Hanoi and part of the Samo.Malo series, he moves from dreamlike, melancholic soundscapes to dense dancefloor tracks;
• — HDMI? — one of the key figures of the Hanoi bass scene and a co-founder of Conglective, blending deep dubstep, bass and garage;
• — Tanohi — a Hanoi DJ with no public biography: only the sets speak for him.

   The night is built for people who come to listen rather than to be seen: long sets instead of a hit parade, and four different approaches to one evening. A first-timer will fit in too, as long as the idea of staying until morning does not put you off.

   Unmute occupies the upper floors of a building on Phúc Tân by the Red River: the Cuốn Club Room on the fourth floor and the Tan Bar with its panorama one floor above, both spaces designed by Jiro Endo. Instead of a drawn flyer this night uses a photograph of the room itself — turquoise walls, tall speaker stacks around the booth and nothing else.

   Entry is strictly 18+. The organisers had named no price by the time of writing, there is no online sale for the night, and the description on the event page is still empty, so the line-up may yet grow and the door conditions are worth checking with the club before you set out.

   If you want to know how Hanoi sounds when it plays for itself rather than for guests, this September night belongs in your plans.