Taiwan's Electronic Music and Party Culture: From Underground Rave to International Stage

30-Second Overview: Taiwanese electronic music started with outdoor raves and dance clubs in Taipei during the mid-1990s, evolving from riverside parties to large-scale EDM festivals over three decades. DJs like Sonia Calico and RayRay performed and competed overseas, while musicians such as Meuko! Meuko! gained international attention with experimental electronics.

Taiwan's electronic music culture reflects the localization process of youth culture in a globalized era: from receiving Western Rave culture to reinterpreting it from a local perspective and establishing fame in Asia, the evolution of this scene has specific traceable nodes in Taiwanese music history.

Underground Origins (1990-2000): The First Ravers

The First Rave at Ershou Floodway

On July 29, 1995, DJ @llen and friends brought speakers to the Ershou Floodway for Taiwan's first outdoor rave. The following year, @llen and EDGE co-hosted "Taipei Tribal Massive" at Meihuahu Lake in Xindian, which was Taiwan's first large-scale outdoor rave, shut down by police after 10 PM due to an unpermitted event.¹

In the club scene, DJ Victor Cheng recalled that Twilight Zone, near Guanghua Plaza on Songjiang Road, was the first nightclub in Taiwan dedicated to electronic music, which later expanded and renamed itself Underground.² In 1997, PLUR, Taiwan's only electronic music magazine, was launched.¹ The name was derived from PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect), a core concept in the American rave scene.³

Rise of Pioneer Venues and DJs

In 1998, DJ Tiger and Chin founded TeXound, which became a landmark club in Taiwanese electronic music history.⁴ The Roxy series bars run by Ling Wei were where many people danced for the first time; ROXY 99 was located in a basement on Jinshan South Road for many years before moving to Fuxing South Road in 2013.⁵

Lim Giong: A Key Bridge of Local Electronics

In 1990, Lim Giong (林強) shook the music scene with his Tâi-gí (Taiwanese Hokkien) rock album Go Forward. Starting in 1993, his work gradually shifted toward electronic music, and he also scored films by directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, including Farewell South China and Millennium Mambo.⁶ His path moved from Tâi-gí pop rock to electronic experimentation, and then into film scoring.

Budding Commercialization (2000-2010): From Underground to Above Ground

The Rise and Crackdown of Nightclub Culture

In the early 2000s, the scale of Taiwan's nightlife expanded; electronic music moved from outdoor parties and small clubs into larger venues, reaching a broader audience. Mainstream nightclubs and underground venues in Xinyi District, Taipei, developed separately, with styles like House, Trance, Drum & Bass, and Breakbeat each finding their audience, and DJ culture evolving from an amateur hobby to a professional path.

However, the intensive police inspections of electronic dance clubs starting in 2003 were a crucial turning point for the scene's evolution. Police would raid every weekend looking for ecstasy pills, leading TeXound to close after its farewell party in January 2004.⁷ The scaled-up commercial nightclubs and underground circles subsequently took different paths.

The LGBT queer party emerged almost simultaneously with Taiwanese electronic music. Starting in 1995, Victor Cheng held Paradise parties at Underground, which are considered the first regular series of gay parties in Taiwan.² In the late 1990s, the area around Ximen Honglou also became a favored gathering place for the LGBTQ community due to its secluded environment.⁸

Deepening International Exchange

The popularization of the internet and the evolution of music production software provided Taiwanese electronic music creators with more opportunities to connect internationally. Some DJs began being invited to perform overseas, while many international DJs came to Taiwan, increasing the density of local scene exchanges.

The International Era (2010-Present): Taiwan's Global Footprint in EDM

Milestones of Road to Ultra

In the lineage of large music festivals, Spring Scream was held annually in Kenting from 1995 to 2019, primarily featuring rock music. In 2014, Ultra Music Festival first appeared as Road to Ultra, and it upgraded to Ultra Taiwan in 2018.⁹ In 2017, Looptopia, the first local multi-day, multi-stage electronic music festival in Taiwan, opened, attracting 32,000 people for its first edition.¹⁰ These stages also provided opportunities for local electronic musicians to share a stage with international DJs.

The International Rise of Taiwanese DJs

Two Taipei DJs rose internationally during this period: Sonia Calico, who grew up in Taipei and remains based there, founding the label UnderU and collaborating with producers from Taipei, Beijing, and Tokyo.¹¹ RayRay participated in DJ competitions in Asia and Canada, winning the Red Bull Thre3style Taiwan championship in 2013.¹²

The Experimental Spirit of Independent Electronic Labels

Beyond mainstream EDM festivals, there are musicians in Taiwan who follow an experimental path. Meuko! Meuko! is a personal project by Taipei artist Pon, whose work mixes noise, field recordings, and traditional sounds, gaining attention in the international experimental electronic scene after being released on Danse Noire in 2018.¹³ She is also one of five Taiwanese musicians featured in the Sea Cucumber label release FINAL Taipei Compilation.¹⁴

Contemporary Developments and Challenges

Club Succession Before and After the Pandemic

The pandemic halted most parties and festivals in 2020. In November of that year, Road to Ultra: Taiwan became the first large-scale event hosted by Ultra after the outbreak.¹⁵

The starting point for contemporary underground electronic music in Taipei was Korner, a basement club on Roosevelt Road, which was the first space dedicated exclusively to independent electronic music in Taipei.¹⁶ It closed in 2019, before the pandemic. A subsequent group of clubs took over: the same group opened Pawnshop in December 2019,¹⁷ and Final opened in 2018,¹⁴ along with Grey Area and Studio 9; most of these venues survived the pandemic restrictions, relying on advance ticket sales from regular patrons.¹⁸

Taiwanese electronic music is also exploring clearer local styles: some musicians remix Tâi-gí (Taiwanese Hokkien) or Hakka songs, or sample traditional instrument sounds in electronic productions, attempting to establish a vocabulary of "Taiwanese EDM" with local roots.

References

Further Reading

• Soundtraces — A database of post-war sound culture in Taiwan, containing a timeline of dance music and rave.
• Resident Advisor — Taiwan — Database for international electronic music media in Taiwan.