Stay True Journeys is a global series of live broadcast events and one-off documentary films that celebrates the music scenes from around the world, what makes them distinctive and authentic to their individual country, and the artists that provide the driving force behind each one. Brought to you by Boiler Room and Ballantine’s Scotch Whisky, the aim is to bring each scene into the light, with the BR-curated lineups incorporating past, present and future legends of every place visited. The films then take our local explorations a little further, documenting the Stay True stories of the culture and characters that define each city.
Launched in March 2014, we have since travelled to eight destinations across the world: Mexico, Chile, Poland, Germany, South Africa, Russia, Scotland and Spain. As our partnership rounds off its second successful year, and with a little help from all the curators, we look back on the highlights of each journey we have embarked on along the way, and what exactly made each one so special.
For our maiden voyage with Ballantine’s Scotch Whisky, we took to the streets of Mexico City, where we hooked up with original party boy Seth Troxler for our short film documenting the city’s exciting underground electronic music culture and the important artists nestled within it – some of which joined the bill at our first ever Stay True party. Showcasing what Mexico has to offer alongside Mr. Troxler was local hero Harvard Bass, dynamite trio Los Macuanos, Electrique Music don Yesco, and Xalapa’s finest and half of Pachanga Boys, Rebolledo – whose set came up tops for our Mexico curator.
Lucia Anaya, Stay True Mexico curator – “There’s definitely a big hype around Rebolledo’s main project with Superpitcher and Pachanga Boys. Our audience at the first Ballantine’s Stay True show was expecting a set that resembled the floorfiller duo; however Rebolledo surprised us with a fully dubbed-out atmosphere, eighties vocals and dark techno.”
The second stop of our Stay True tour with Ballantine’s saw us move southernly down the Latin American coast to Santiago, Chile. Playing host to our documented weeklong trip and Stay True party was an extensive and impressive array of local talent: electronic veteran and Chilean native Dandy Jack, Crosstown Rebels’ Francesca Lombardo, MTV Award-winning solo engineer Sanfuentes, electronic psychedelic tropical trio MKRNI, world-renowned Señor Coconut aka Atom™, techno experimentalist Fantasna and Cómeme Records affiliate Andrea Paz.
Luis Ceron, Stay True Chile curator – “Armed with a laptop and drum machines, Santiago’s Dandy Jack showed us how Chile has been building its own identity around techno, house and all its variants, through veterans like himself. Old-school Chile meets new-school sounds.”
Boiler Room & Ballantine’s crossed continents for the next Stay True pitstop, touching down in Warsaw to shine a spotlight on Poland’s music scene and chronicle the untold stories behind it. Helping us understand the bold and experimental movement that has been unfolding behind the Iron Curtain were: recklessly inventive instrumentalist Władysław Komendarek, electronic music mastermind Legowelt, Poznan-based duo Rebeka, homegrown producer of hip hop-electronic fusion Teielte, the long-running DJ Mo, Poland’s bonafide veteran Maciek Sienkiewicz and digital daredevil Piotr Bejnar.
Gosia Herman, Stay True Poland curator – “Rebeka nailed pretty much everything that makes a live performance a great one. Their energy was so contagious that even people that saw them for the first time were massively into it, which I feel can be rare nowadays. They are complete musicians and they proved it on stage that night.”
Germany marked an ambitious Stay True project, showing that the history of twentieth-century classical music and electronic music are more interwoven than our audience may realise, and have greatly influenced and changed one another. Both the party and video-docu elements of our Hamburg leg showcased the creative intersection of both genres, providing a platform for artists that apply electronic music production tools in the context of classical music. This included a one-off collaboration with electronic music visionary Carl Craig and Francesco Tristano, the music purist achieving authenticity in all his techno-classical blends. Also on the bill and in the film were the electro-acoustic trio Brandt Brauer Frick, and proficient multi-instrumentalist Gregor Schwellenbach. A truly special Stay True Journey, combining dance music and classical music, and electronic musicians crossing over into the classical realm, all at the same time.
Michail Stangl, Stay True Germany curator – “Very few musicians master the language of classical music and electronic music as well as Francesco does. Not surprising, as one can count him as one of the leading figures of classically trained musicians who crosses borders as easily as musical scales. The spontaneous jam session with Carl Craig on stage was a true highlight!”
Our next Stay True undertaking with Ballantine’s took place in South Africa, where local themes and scenes are instantly felt. Every artist we met along the way mentioned one thing as most important: the power and centrality of dancing. As MC-producer Okmalumkoolkat unequivocally put it, “it’s a dancing nation”– thus providing the predominant theme for our video-documentary, with an appearance from the Indigenous Dance Academy from Tembisa, Johannesburg and their founder, Jarrel Mathebula. Also up on the bill at our Stay True event were South Africa’s house impresario Black Coffee, the duo combining electronic sounds with live percussion Black Motion, African dance music diplomat Culoe de Song, and Tembisa’s “master of mixing” DJ Shimza. Our weeklong trip cast a light on South Africa’s compelling vision of generations of tradition being retooled for the twentieth century.
Skinny Macho, Stay True SA curator – “From listening to Black Coffee on various mixtapes and in South London clubs, to be faced to with the ‘godly figure’ on stage in his homeland is something I simply can’t explain. Looking at the crowd’s joyful smiles as they stood within arms’ reach of their idol, mixed with the crazy energy we were all feeling, just brought the endorphins raging through. Not to mention the chosen venue as Constitution Hill (where Nelson Mandela was awaiting trial) as the icing on the cake, making it an unforgettable experience for Boiler Room in black South Africa!”
Stay True Russia was big to say the least. During our trip, we created a series of three short films documenting Russia’s local beats scene – featuring DJ Premier and BMB Spacekid; Samiyam and Lapti; and KOVSH Beats, Raumskaya and Flaty – all of whom also joined us for our party alongside Black Milk and NxWorries (Anderson Paak and Knxwledge). It provided for a very special evening of Russia’s finest names staying true to their local roots and cultural identity, and a hand-picked selection of America’s similarly-inclined elite – but it didn’t end there. Another bountiful outcome reared its head shortly after our trip, taking the form of an unexpected collaboration. The same raucous energy that fuelled our Stay True Russia party lived on in the studio a few days after, where DJ Premier locked brains with BMB Spacekid and Anderson Paak. The result of their combined wizardry was “Til It’s Done” – an impromptu, headnodding joyride of electro-funk-hip-hop fusion. A secondary beat made by Preemo and BMB Spacekid during their studio time in Moscow also ended up being used by Dr. Dre on his track, “Animals“.
Sofie Fatouretchi, Stay True Russia curator – “Moscow was an experience in itself, from incredible record digs in basements with DJ Premier to our event, held on the upper floors of an abandoned skyscraper providing an entrancing expanse of the city down below. Knxwledge and Anderson Paak as Nx.Worries took to the stage that evening for one of their first live performances ever and blew us away.”
Following on from the magic of Russia, our Stay True tour continued to grow in every possible sense, with our next stopover bringing us home to Ballantine’s motherland of Scotland. Here, we saw an unprecedented feat in Boiler Room history – a four-venue takeover of house and techno broadcasts. The simultaneous parties around Edinburgh boasted four lineups that just kept on giving: Nina Kraviz, Len Faki, Blawan and Clouds at Cabaret Voltaire; Maya Jane Coles, Skream, Heidi and SLAM at The Bongo Club; Green Velvet, Underground Resistance, Optimo and Neil Landstrumm at the Caves; and Speedy J, Planetary Assault Systems, Rolando and Gary Beck at Sneaky Pete’s. In the two-part Stay True documentary, we met the iconic names behind 25 years of Scotland’s thriving electronic music scene. Alongside this also came an In Stereo exclusive with two of techno’s toughest, Karenn and Neil Landstrumm, and a trip into the crates of Glasgow’s heroic duo Optimo, for a Stay True special edition of Collections.
Charles Drakeford, Stay Scotland Scotland curator – “Four consecutive parties was no easy task. It was an operation that took our whole team to pull off effectively. Each one was knockout, but when it came to dividing up the parties, I was pretty quick to sign up to Optimo, Underground Resistance, Green Velvet and Neil Landstrumm. On reflection, if I had to pick one set that blew me away it’d be Neil’s. He tore it up right from the off, and it’s not surprising when you look back over his discography. He’s also got one of the best outlooks on dance music I’ve come across. Whaddaguy!”
Barcelona marked our eighth and most recent stop on our global Stay True Journeys series, with an all-Spanish lineup featuring some of the country’s finest house and techno exports. Despite being home to some of electronic music’s biggest artists, Ibiza’s rise overshadowed the long tradition of electronic music in Spain – a country that for decades has not only been a hub, but a creative playground for some of the scene’s most influential producers. We paid tribute to Spain’s heritage and showcased some of the biggest and brightest mainland artists – both in our documentary with Maceo Plex, Paco Osuna and Oscar Mulero; and our Stay True Spain party, featuring additional names of Coyu, UNER, Henry Saiz and Psyk.
Michail Stangl, Stay True Spain curator – “UNER put in extra for his one-off live performance in the Boiler Room, playing live with a cellist and a flautist, and not only demonstrating his amazing skills as a composer and live performer, but also showing us that the transverse flute’s role in techno should be reconsidered!”
Head here to recap on all of the Boiler Room x Ballantine’s Stay True Journeys we have embarked on over the past two years.