Hong Kong

Rooftop

DJ and producer Kelvin T is affiliated with the Eastern Margins collective – a club night, label and platform dedicated to championing East and Southeast Asian artists.

Kelvin T, along with collaborator Takeem, have recently released their joint EP, 

via the Eastern Margins label. Their collaborative chemistry began on Hong Kong’s Harbourfront, when the two would create with just Kelvin T'’s laptop – no microphones, no controllers or keyboards, just the raw ideas born from their chaotic chemistry. Both are emerging figures within Hong Kong’s underground scene, and via the experimental sounds of 

the duo are on a mission to both reclaim and open up the city’s dance music underground to infinite possibilities.

In line with their experimental ethos, Kelvin T has delivered a Trippin guide for those who want to explore Hong Kong’s lesser-known spots. From back alleys – which provided him with inspiration for 

to abandoned mansions, haunted villages and secluded smoking spots. Here’s an alternative guide to the city that you won’t find anywhere else.

Haw Par Mansion is an abandoned mansion that's got loads of trippy sculptures. I mean, can you imagine becoming so rich that one day you say to yourself, "What if I build a garden here?' and then the garden looks like that? Sometimes I wonder if whoever came up with those sculptures were on any psychedelics whilst making them.

Fuji Building is a place where horny foreigners, expats, escorts and landlords collide. It’s a nice place for those people to hang out, especially since there’s some similar buildings like it around that area. It’s got a trippy interior design to it as well. If anybody's looking for a place to go, this should be one of them.

There's a forbidden village that looks like a forest called Sha Lo Tung. It's in a really remote area in Tai Po. Lots of nature. There's grassland, wetland, abandoned farmland inside. Watch out for the dragonflies and the butterflies though. A land developer had wanted to build a columbaria on the land after buying the ownership from villagers, and there was a lot of controversy around the whole thing.

Foo Tak Building has given us lots of memories. HKCR used to be there, and Twenty Alpha is still in there. We did some performances in those venues before, but there’s also a rooftop that most people can go to most of the time. The rooftop is great for performing and smoking, especially when the weather isn’t so hot. Lots of our friends have been on the rooftop before, whether it’s for watching a show or just chilling there. Just know that the building closes its gates at 8pm.

Champagne Court is a legendary spot in Hong Kong. It has been used on a few TV series, but the thing is it used to provide legal prostitution in the 90s and it got a lot of clout because of that.

Fung Tak Park is another place with some trippy stuff going on. Most of the park’s design is based on the Chinese myth 'Journey to the West,' and they have a whole waterfall inside the park. One of my friends shot their music video there.

There’s some good spots in Ho King Commercial Building. It’s perfect because there’s street food all around that area, obscure shops, cheap electronics and all that. It was known for selling porno DVDs, especially in the 90s. There’s more quiet smoking spots if you take a lift up and go to the stairs. Quite safe, at least for now. Don’t do drugs, there’s lots of cops in that area.

This is the exact spot where we first made ‘Harbor’ on our ‘Synthetic’ EP. It was a really random day. Takeem hit me up and [asked] if we wanna meet. For some reason I just brought my laptop with me, because I'd been making lots of songs at that time in places outside my home studio. I didn’t know we were going to meet up somewhere outdoors on that day, but I still took my laptop out, made a beat, Takeem quickly freestyled and wrote some lyrics. That’s how we first started ‘Harbor’ – in front of the harbor. There had been times where I needed to go out and make some music instead of being stuck at home, and that’s the spot I’d go [to]. Sometimes it’s quiet, other times there’d be people hanging out even at 2am.

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