Hand-written starters from our editors — the fastest way in.
UK garage is a London genre from the early-to-mid 1990s built on shuffled, syncopated percussion at around 130–138 BPM. Its two poles are speed garage's 4/4 drive and 2-step's broken, skipping kick pattern.
French touch is 1990s French house built on filtered and phased loops of late-70s and early-80s disco. It runs 110–130 BPM, and its landmark year is 1997–98 — Daft Punk's Homework, Cassius' "1999" and Stardust's "Music Sounds Better with You."
Glasgow's house scene runs on two very different rooms. Sub Club is the elder statesman — open since 1987, explicitly inspired by Chicago house, and still running the Subculture residency every Saturday since 1990. The Berkeley Suite is the newer, smaller counterpoint: an intimate ~250-cap basement ballroom at Charing Cross that leans disco on paper but turns up heavy house and techno on the night. Here's the door, the price and how to actually get into each.
House music runs roughly 118–130 BPM overall (128 is the single most common tempo), but each subgenre has settled into its own narrower band — from organic house's ~100 BPM up to hard techno's 160 BPM. Here's every range side by side, and why tempo alone can't tell two subgenres apart.
Johannesburg splits by suburb, not by strip: Truth in Midrand is the city's dedicated house-and-techno flagship (5 floors, ~4,500 capacity, built in a former snake park), while Soweto — Zone 6 (Black Coffee-owned) and grassroots SNK Ink — is where amapiano actually lives (Konka, Pimville's long-running amapiano flagship, closed its physical venue in 2024). Kong (Rosebank) and AND Club (Newtown) sit in between. No single walkable strip like Cape Town — budget for an Uber between areas, and check before you go: Zone 6's official site is currently down.
Soulful house is house music's original vocal branch -- gospel- and jazz-rooted lead vocals over live-feeling Rhodes, organ, bass and horns, at a relaxed 122-127 BPM. It grew out of Chicago and New York's founding house scenes through the 1990s, carried forward by New York's King Street Sounds label and artists like Blaze, Kerri Chandler and Dennis Ferrer.
The Balearic sound (Balearic beat) is the eclectic, genre-blending DJ style born at Ibiza's Amnesia club in the mid-1980s, when DJ Alfredo mixed house alongside pop, rock and Latin records. Cafe del Mar later split off its mellow "chillout" branch, and after four London DJs experienced it in September 1987, they built the clubs -- Shoom, Spectrum, The Trip -- that ignited Britain's 1988 acid house explosion.
Montreal's calling card is the after-hours. Plan a night around Stereo, the legendary Sainte-Catherine room whose upstairs floor holds no liquor licence at all - which is exactly how it sidesteps Quebec's 3am alcohol cutoff and runs on a Funktion-One system until around 10am. Newspeak is the other core techno room. It's 18+, cover is roughly CAD 20-30, and the metro stops before the clubs do - so use the all-night 300-series buses or Uber to get home.
Belgrade is Europe's cheap-thrills techno city, and in July it's outdoor season. Plan around Drugstore, a former slaughterhouse that runs techno on Friday and Saturday, and Barutana, the open-air club inside Kalemegdan fortress that only operates in the warm months. One fact to update in your head: 20/44, long a floating raft on the Sava, has moved to a fixed address on Karadjordjeva in Savamala - it's still going, just not on the water. The one rule that saves you money and hassle: use CarGo or Yandex, never a street taxi.
Be honest about Naples: it doesn't have a deep fixed-club scene, and in July the picture is thinner still. The two rooms you can actually plan around this summer are Riva Club and Arenile, both on the Bagnoli seafront west of the centre; the real underground runs through promoter collectives like Tendenza who throw parties at rotating spaces. The famous Duel Club is real but closed for the summer. Almost everything is out in Bagnoli/Pozzuoli, so budget for a taxi home - there's no Uber here.
Plan a Lisbon night around Lux Fragil, the riverside three-floor club at Santa Apolonia that runs a real house, techno and disco calendar (Carl Craig, Midland and Floorplan all play summer 2026). The one door truth: baseline entry is about EUR 10-20, but foreign visitors are repeatedly quoted EUR 200-300 at the door while locals pay the normal rate - know the real price and walk if you're quoted an outlier. Ministerium adds a second dedicated techno room.
House and techno are cousin genres born in the early-to-mid-1980s American Midwest: house (Chicago, ~118–130 BPM) is warm, soulful and vocal-driven; techno (Detroit, ~120–150 BPM) is colder, more mechanical and built around hypnotic repetition rather than melody. Related but distinct — the beginner-level breakdown, with links to the deeper comparisons.
Hard techno is techno's harder, faster branch — roughly 145–160+ BPM, built on distorted, punishing kick drums rather than melody. Long an underground staple related to the schranz sound that took shape in 1990s Frankfurt, it broke into mainstream festival lineups in the 2020s, led by breakout artists like Sara Landry.
Acid house is house music's hypnotic, squelching branch, defined by the Roland TB-303's filter-resonance sound rather than tempo. It emerged from mid-1980s Chicago — Phuture's "Acid Tracks" (1987) is the founding record — and fuelled the UK's 1988–89 "Second Summer of Love," giving rave culture its smiley-face symbol.
Deep house is house music's soulful, chord-driven branch — lush jazz- and gospel-tinged chords over a relaxed four-on-the-floor groove, roughly 110–125 BPM. Born in mid-1980s Chicago, its founding record is Larry Heard's "Can You Feel It" (1986), released as Mr. Fingers — the blueprint for deep house's warm, late-night sound.
Melbourne's house and techno splits between the Chapel Street institution Revolver Upstairs (which runs from Saturday night straight into Monday morning) and two CBD basements: Sub Club, in a former bank vault off Flinders Lane, and Stamina, a hard-techno room in the Banana Alley Vaults on Saturdays. It's 18+ and cashless; the Night Network gets you home on weekends.
Plan your CDMX nights around Fünk (a Funktion-One basement in Condesa, Thu-Sat) and Departamento (a Roma Norte rooftop-and-club, house and deep house). Doors are 18+, they get busy late, and cover runs roughly 200-500 MXN. The scene turns over fast, so check Resident Advisor for the week — and take an Uber or Didi home, not a street taxi.
Tbilisi is a techno city first: plan a weekend around Bassiani (in an empty swimming pool under the Dinamo Arena) and Khidi (a raw room under a bridge). Both run Friday and Saturday, both prefer black clothing, and Bassiani's door reads whether you're here for the culture or as a novelty. Buy advance tickets where you can and carry a passport.
Amapiano is a South African music genre that emerged in the Gauteng townships around 2012 and broke globally in the early 2020s. Its name means "the pianos" in isiZulu, and its signature is the deep, bouncing "log drum" bassline riding over shakers and jazzy piano, usually at a slow, spacious 110–120 BPM. Below: where it came from, what the log drum is, how it differs from afrobeats and afro house, and the artists to start with.
Manchester's house scene splits into two very different rooms. The Warehouse Project is the city's — arguably Britain's — biggest club-night series: a seasonal residency at Depot Mayfield, a converted Victorian rail terminus, where house is one strand of a broader multi-genre programme. The Loft is the opposite: an intimate, genuinely house-focused 200-cap room crowned the UK's Best Club at DJ Mag's Best of British Awards 2025. Here's the door, the price and how to actually get into each.
fabric runs Seth Troxler, Magda and Matias Aguayo Saturday into a Sunday CAYA set, while LDN EAST hosts a Luke Una day party -- this weekend (18-19 July 2026) in London house music.
Tech house fuses house's groove with techno's repetitive drive, staying inside house's tempo range (roughly 120–128 BPM) rather than techno's faster pace. It traces to London in the 1990s, where DJ and producer Mr. C (Richard West) is widely credited as an early architect, anchoring the sound at his club The End (1995–2009) with Layo Paskin. Below: the clean definition, how it differs from house and deep house, and who to hear.
Cape Town's electronic-music scene is compact and walkable — nearly all of it sits inside the City Bowl, within a 10-minute stretch between Riebeek, Loop and Long streets. Mødular (Riebeek St) is the city's dedicated house-and-techno specialist and the one to plan a night around; Fiction (Long St) and Era (Loop St) mix house into broader electronic programming. All three verified open as of July 2026 — here's the door, the price and which nights are actually house.
Miami's house scene splits between the 24-hour Club Space complex downtown (Space's Terrace, plus its own Floyd room) and Do Not Sit On The Furniture, a small purist house room in South Beach — what each actually plays, the 21+ door rules, and realistic prices.
LA splits between a few fixed clubs and a big rotating-party scene — Sound Nightclub (Hollywood), Los Globos (Silver Lake) and Exchange LA (Downtown) are the reliable fixed venues, with door, price and age-policy specifics for each.
Bangkok's house and techno scene is scattered across nightlife districts rather than one strip — Silom's frequently-relocating Mustache and Ekkamai's table-service Veyla are the two currently open house/techno rooms worth planning a night around. (Thonglor's BEAM, long the scene's anchor there, permanently closed on 31 October 2025 along with the whole 72 Courtyard complex — see the note below before you go looking for it.) Neither open room is a single-genre purist space, so this guide maps what actually plays where, the door, and the going rate.
Deep, tech, afro, melodic, progressive, organic, amapiano, tech house vs techno — one map of every house subgenre we've explained, with BPM ranges and who to listen to for each.
Every HOUSE ATLAS city guide in one place — Europe's marquee club capitals, America's house birthplaces, and Asia's fast-rising, English-friendly scenes — organised so you can pick where to go next.
Osaka's electronic scene clusters within a 15-minute walk of Shinsaibashi and Namba stations — three all-mix rooms worth knowing, what actually plays on a given night, and the one club with an explicit foreign-visitor price.
Seoul's house and techno scene is concentrated in Itaewon, not the bigger EDM rooms of Hongdae — three rooms to know, what they actually play, and how a foreign visitor gets in.
Organic house layers acoustic textures — kalimba, oud, djembe, field recordings — over a slow, spacious groove (roughly 100–124 BPM); deep house is a fully electronic, chord-driven sound rooted in 1980s Chicago (roughly 110–125 BPM). Below: where each came from, what to listen for, and who to start with.
For underground house & techno: Nitsa, Input, Razzmatazz (The Loft), Macarena, Moog. Glossier waterfront: KU (ex-Pacha). Nights start ~01:00–02:00, run to 06:00; 18+ with ID; buy ahead on RA/DICE.
For real house in Paris, start with Djoon (soulful/deep/afro), Rex Club (the techno-house institution), and Badaboum (long sets in Bastille). Doors open around midnight, floors fill after 01:00, age is 18+, and buying in advance via RA or Shotgun saves you the queue. Here's which club is which, which nights are house, and exactly how to get in.
Where Detroit's scene actually happens now — TV Lounge, Marble Bar and more — how the US door works, and why Movement on Memorial Day weekend is the time to come.
Where to hear house in the city that invented it — Smart Bar, Spybar and beyond — plus how the US door really works (21+, cover, tickets) and the free summer house festivals.
Both are four-on-the-floor, but tech house is groovy and bouncy while techno is harder, faster and hypnotic. A side-by-side breakdown with BPM, feel and how to tell them apart on the floor.
House music is four-on-the-floor electronic dance music born in 1980s Chicago — the root of deep, tech and afro house. Its origins, what defines the sound, and the main sub-genres.
A field guide to the house labels worth following — Defected and Glitterbox for soulful and disco-house, Toolroom and Hot Creations for tech house, Anjunadeep for melodic, plus the Chicago and New York originators. What each one sounds like and where to start.
Melodic house & techno is about emotion and atmosphere (Afterlife, Anjunadeep, Tale of Us); progressive house is about the long, evolving build (Sasha, John Digweed, Hernán Cattáneo). Here's how the two overlap and how to tell them apart — BPM, mood and who to listen to.
Where house and underground dance music actually live in NYC — Nowadays, Good Room, Public Records, Elsewhere and the warehouses of outer Brooklyn and Queens — with the door, 21+ rules, tickets and getting home on the 24-hour subway.
Where house actually plays in London — fabric, Phonox, FOLD, Ministry of Sound, XOYO, Drumsheds and Studio 338 — with the door, advance tickets, 21+/18+, contactless payment and how to get home after the night buses.
The year-round calendar of the world's great house and techno festivals — Time Warp, DGTL, Movement, Sónar, Awakenings, Glitch, CRSSD, ADE and the Ibiza closings — ordered by season, with dates, the sound, and a link to a full planning guide for each. Conclusion-first: which to pick, when the season runs, and how foreigners buy in.
Two cities, two sounds, born almost together in the early 1980s. Chicago house is soulful and disco-rooted; Detroit techno is futuristic and machine-driven. The people, the places and the philosophy that set them apart — and how they fed each other.
Afro house is house music built on African rhythm — hand percussion, hypnotic polyrhythms and soulful, spiritual grooves around 118–125 BPM. Where it came from, how to recognise it, and the artists (Black Coffee, Keinemusik, Caiiro) to start with.
Tokyo has a world-class, welcoming house and techno scene hiding in plain sight. The clubs that matter — WOMB, Vent, Circus — plus the rules visitors get wrong: ID, the cover charge, smoking, last trains and when the night really starts.
Which Ibiza club on which night — DC10, Hï, Pacha, Amnesia, Ushuaïa and more — for real house and tech house. Season and opening-party dates, how foreigners buy tickets, cashless wristbands, dress and getting home.
Skip the EDM tourist traps. This is where Amsterdam plays real house and techno — Shelter, Garage Noord, RADION and more — with door, tickets, dress and payment sorted, plus how it all peaks during ADE in October.
House music began in 1980s Chicago — at The Warehouse, with Frankie Knuckles, drum machines and the ashes of disco. A clear origin story, the machines that shaped the sound, and how it conquered the world.
Deep house is warm, soulful and chord-driven; tech house is stripped-back, percussive and built for peak time. A clear, side-by-side breakdown with BPM, mood and reference artists.
Where house actually plays in Berlin — Panorama Bar and beyond — plus the real rules of the door: how to dress, behave, and which nights are house, not just techno.
Every fact on HOUSE ATLAS is checked against at least two independent sources before publication, dated ("as of"), and corrected in public when wrong — this page explains exactly how.
