Dekmantel heads to Bali with Avalon Emerson, Soichi Terada and Ogazón

Dekmantel is heading to Bali on Saturday 26 September for a one-day takeover at Potato Head, with Avalon Emerson, Soichi Terada live, Ogazón, Dekmantel Soundsystem and Fafi Abdel Nour topping a programme that also gives a sizeable chunk of the day to Indonesian artists. Music runs from noon until 04:00 at the Beach Club in Seminyak.

A proper cross-section of the Dekmantel universe

The international side of the bill is broad without feeling random. Avalon Emerson can move from house and techno into new wave, trance and pop-adjacent material without losing the floor. Ogazón tends to keep things more heads-down and tactile, while Fafi Abdel Nour brings warm, rolling house selections that can happily live in daylight. Soichi Terada’s live set adds a different texture entirely, drawing on the melodic house, jungle and game-music sensibility that has made his catalogue so distinctive.

Dekmantel Soundsystem brings the label and festival’s digging side into the booth, while the rest of the bill avoids treating Bali as a decorative backdrop. Danny Satria performs live, and Dita, Kiwed, Sattle, Archie and Bagvs all bring different parts of Indonesia’s club and experimental network into the programme. Kaazi also appears, adding another leftfield thread to an already pretty loose-limbed lineup.

The Indonesian side of the lineup is doing real work

That local presence matters. International festival brands can parachute into destination venues with a few headline names and leave the rest of the context untouched. This programme is stronger because the Indonesian artists are not buried in a warm-up corner. Dita’s proto-house, Balearic and breaks vocabulary sits naturally beside the European selectors, while Kiwed’s Dentum Lab work connects the event to a broader interest in archiving and rethinking regional sound cultures.

There is a daytime programme beyond the booth

Potato Head is also scheduling a listening session, live Q&As and a Desa Dialogue around the event. Details of those daytime sessions are still limited, but the format is useful in a place where people are arriving many hours before the final DJ. It gives the takeover a bit more breathing room than twelve straight hours of timetable roulette.

The setting obviously changes the mood too. Potato Head’s Beach Club faces the Indian Ocean, so the first half of the day will play out in full daylight before the room gradually shifts into a more conventional night-time session. That suits a bill with plenty of selectors who are good at long arcs rather than instant peak-time theatre. Sunset disco into oddball house into deep techno? Could be worse ways to spend a Saturday.

Dekmantel’s reach keeps stretching beyond Amsterdam

Dekmantel has spent years expanding its activity through festivals, label releases, selectors and international collaborations. Bali is another extension of that network, but the strongest part of this date is the way it sits between the Amsterdam institution and Potato Head’s established music programme. The two organisations have already worked together before, so this is not a cold-start brand exercise.

The full event is already on sale through Potato Head’s official listing. For AT-DJ, the appealing bit is not simply that Dekmantel is doing a tropical away day. It is the combination of a recognisable curatorial identity, a substantial local lineup and a venue that can support the music from midday into the small hours without forcing every set into the same club-hour mould.