From Gabber To Frenchcore, Apparatus Is A Collective Conducting Hard Dance Experiments

The Apparatus crew is going harder in 2024 (Credit: Courtesy of Apparatus)

In case you haven’t noticed, dance music is getting harder and more aggressive. Kicks are on steroids, synths are sharper, and you’ll find tempos chugging forward at lightspeed. We’re now serendipitously in this middle ground where commercial electronic music has gotten burlier and techno is slipping into the mainstream. It’s a fascinating juncture for promoters like Apparatus, a hard dance unit that’s been waving the hard dance flag up high. For them, this shift in status quo is a boon for their sabre-toothed activities, and they’ve been sharpening their fangs since bursting into the scene in 2020.

D-LINEZ

KAEIZ

Apparatus was a spark ignited by the fusion of D-LINEZ and KAEIZ, co-founders and resident DJs who entered the fray with cranked-up intensities in sound. They were audacious in their first strike, rampaging like berserkers with mixes that honoured the harsh realm of hardstyle and hard dance. With their Experiment Radio series, they created a platform for like-minded fiends – notably during the pandemic crunch – developing a platform for genres like rawstyle, euphoric hardstyle, Frenchcore and gabber. Through this brewing presence, Apparatus refined the machinery to attain its true potential, and it caught its break in 2023.

The hard dance community has been growing thanks to collectives like Apparatus (Credit: Courtesy of Apparatus)

The preceding year saw the hard dance ensemble grow from a party of two to a quartet, adding Lorius and BLVCKVOX to the crew. With its beefed-up ensemble, Apparatus would go on to organise two successful events at Majesty Chen (called Hardstyle Knight) and an all-night collective takeover at Cherry Kitchen. Blending with the trends, Apparatus began to infuse hard techno into their signature cauldron of selections, and it’s turned out to be a natural evolution that matches the amped-up state of dance music today.

BLVCKVOX

Lorius

The Apparatus takeover at Cherry Kitchen (Credit: Courtesy of Apparatus)

Beyond Apparatus, D-LINEZ has also been a selfless advocate of the underground dance community, launching Night Nest in the tail end of 2023. What started out as a modest research initiative for her Master’s Degree turned into a project to help other DJs and producer score gigs in the scene; an obstacle that continues to be a challenge for many. She built Night Nest to shed light on the issue, culminating in a genre-flipping event that featured performances from Moss, Falling Islands, Twenty4HZ and others.

With bigger plans ahead to incorporate genres like trap and dubstep, collaborate with Malaysian hard dance counterparts, and even launch a merch run, Apparatus has all the tools it needs to go hard in 2024.