Our House 4: Lockdown Edition

Event Details

This event took place at Arcan, 236/43/21 Điện Biên Phủ, Phường 17, Bình Thạnh, Ho Chi Minh City, from 10 PM on 22 May 2020 until 6 AM on 23 May 2020. The venue has since closed, but the original location has been retained for archive accuracy, while the surviving contemporary listing confirms the fourth Our House edition took place at Arcan on Friday, 22 May 2020.

Scientific Sound Asia presented Our House – Lockdown Edition as the first event in the series after the disruption caused by the early stages of the global pandemic. After a long period away from the dancefloor, the night brought Scientific Sound Asia and Arcan regulars back together for an extended session of underground House Music.

The fourth edition followed the earlier Spooky, Laboratory and Winter Tales events while shifting the series back into one of Ho Chi Minh City’s established underground venues. This time the emphasis was less on an elaborate party theme and more on returning to the club, reconnecting with familiar faces and hearing new music collected during the break.

The original announcement invited guests to get their dancing shoes back on after the furlough and restrictions of the preceding months. Deep House and Tech House formed the musical foundation, with the organisers promising new records from selectors who had spent the enforced pause digging for music.

Deep House supplied the warmer and more spacious end of the programme, while Tech House added firmer percussion and more direct dancefloor pressure. The line-up of DJ Snuck, Coh-hul, DJ Psycho-UK, Yariuss and DBP Basslines gave the night several different interpretations of those underground House foundations.

DJ Snuck returned with a selection heavily connected to the contemporary UK House scene. Having recently come back from Britain, he had access to fresh cuts circulating through UK clubs and labels, giving the Lockdown Edition a direct musical connection with developments outside Vietnam.

His role within Our House continued a UK influence already present in earlier editions of the series. Rather than concentrating only on established favourites, DJ Snuck was expected to bring newly discovered records into the room and give the crowd material they may not yet have heard.

Coh-hul approached the night with funky and melodic tones laid across pounding, groove-led basslines. The enforced break had given him time to gather a substantial amount of new music, and the original announcement emphasised that he was ready to put those selections back onto a working dancefloor.

That combination of melody, groove and stronger low-end pressure made Coh-hul particularly suited to the Our House format. His sets could sit comfortably between deeper opening records and the more forceful Tech House material expected later in the night.

DJ Psycho-UK represented Scientific Sound Asia and brought promos and fresh cuts into the fourth edition. As head of the organisation and a regular DJ around Ho Chi Minh City, his appearance linked the party directly with Scientific Sound Asia’s wider radio, events and artist network.

His musical background stretches from Hip Hop and Acid House through Hardcore, Jungle, Drum and Bass and House, but Our House provided a dedicated outlet for the deeper and more tech-led part of that collection. For the Lockdown Edition, the emphasis remained firmly on new House records rather than the broader multi-genre sets heard at some of his other events.

Scientific Sound Asia had spent the preceding years developing events across Ho Chi Minh City while also operating its radio station and DJ agency. Returning to Arcan allowed those different strands of activity to reconnect physically with the local audience after the interruption to nightlife.

Yariuss, also known as Yaroslav Kuchin, returned as one of the familiar Arcan selectors on the bill. The original event description referred to him as the venue’s Russian magician, highlighting his ability to slide between genres rather than remaining locked into one rigid House formula.

His appearances around Arcan had already established him within the network of DJs regularly contributing to the venue’s underground programme. At the Lockdown Edition, that familiarity made him particularly appropriate for an event built around the return of regular artists and audiences after a forced break.

DBP Basslines completed the line-up as both Arcan’s owner and one of its resident DJs. His usual role was the warm-down shift, taking responsibility for the later section of the night when the main peak-time energy began to ease.

That closing position gave the event a direct connection back to the venue itself rather than ending solely with an outside guest. With DBP Basslines behind the decks, the final hours remained rooted in the musical community that had developed around Arcan.

Arcan’s role in Ho Chi Minh City nightlife made it a natural place for the fourth Our House edition. The venue became known for underground electronic music and hosted communities connected with House, Techno, Drum and Bass and more experimental club sounds before eventually closing years later.

The original event information listed admission at 150,000 VND and stated that doors opened at 10 PM. Although one surviving calendar field shows a 4 AM finish, the event description itself says the doors closed at 6 AM, so the longer 10 PM to 6 AM running time has been retained here as the original promoter information.

The timing gave each selector space to develop a proper set rather than squeezing five DJs into a short bar programme. An eight-hour session could move gradually from deeper House into harder material before returning to a warm-down direction in the final part of the night.

The fourth edition also carried more significance than an ordinary continuation of the series because it followed an unexpected interruption to nightlife. Guests were not simply attending another House party but returning to a familiar club environment after weeks in which events and normal social activity had been disrupted.

The original promotion captured that feeling without turning the night into a complicated statement about the pandemic. The message was essentially to return with a smile, bring good energy and allow the DJs to restart the dancefloor with the music they had been collecting while clubs were quiet.

Our House had always been designed as a straightforward platform for upfront House Music rather than a series dependent on major international headliners. The Lockdown Edition reinforced that identity by relying entirely on DJs already connected with Scientific Sound Asia, Arcan and the surrounding Ho Chi Minh City scene.

That local emphasis gave the event a particularly appropriate character for the period. DJ Snuck, Coh-hul, DJ Psycho-UK, Yariuss and DBP Basslines were not being presented as outsiders arriving for one night, but as part of an existing community returning to its normal environment.

Scientific Sound Asia’s involvement in events such as this now forms part of its wider historical archive alongside its current events, radio activity, DJ agency and music news. Preserving these pages documents not only the artists and genres involved, but also the venues and social circumstances surrounding underground music in Ho Chi Minh City.

Arcan has since closed, making the address and event information part of the city’s nightlife history rather than a guide to a current venue. The Lockdown Edition remains significant within the Our House series because it marked the return of Scientific Sound Asia events after the first major interruption of 2020.

With DJ Snuck bringing fresh UK House, Coh-hul supplying melodic and groove-heavy selections, DJ Psycho-UK delivering new promos, Yariuss moving between styles and DBP Basslines handling the warm-down, the fourth edition brought familiar selectors back onto an Arcan dancefloor. Our House – Lockdown Edition was ultimately about restarting the music, reconnecting the crowd and getting House Music moving again after an enforced period of silence.