Artists exciting us in 2025 / January

Asia's underground scene continues to flourish, a testament to its boundless creativity and ever-expanding influence.

With a treasure trove of talent scattered across the region and its diaspora, we’re thrilled to keep discovering fresh faces that might not be on your radar—yet.

In the spirit of sharing, Mixmag Asia will be featuring a number of arguably under-the-radar artists who are currently making exciting noise in—and freshly out of—their respective scenes.

Get ready to mark those calendars and upgrade those playlists and —you’ll thank us later.

It goes without saying that Di Linh’s name has become synonymous with the Vietnam underground, thanks to residencies at Savage, The Observatory, and Equation, where she seamlessly blends emotion and energy into her sets. Most recently, she added Wonderfruit’s The Quarry to that impressive résumé. Her eclectic mix of disco, house, and techno has earned her global recognition—just take a look at her socials and you’ll see numerous posts on mixes and trips, which most recently included Morocco, Singapore, Thailand, and Berlin among others. With a gig at the infamous Cave Rave and a debut performance at Jaipur’s Voodoo Jungle next month, plus plans to dive deeper into music production, we can't wait to see how Di Linh continues to expand her artistry.

Temple Rat may already be a familiar name to our readers, but the China-born, Germany-based artist is on a trajectory right now that deserves even more attention. Known for her expertly crafted, genre-blurring sets, Temple Rat seamlessly fuses organic soundscapes, field recordings, and traditional instrumentation, creating immersive, storytelling-driven experiences that captivate listeners from start to finish. Her hybrid performance at Wonderfruit was nothing short of monumental—sharing the stage with some of Asia’s biggest names and still standing out sonically. We've heard nothing but glowing reviews from her recent Asia tour, with her standout performance at the Mixmag IMX Music Expo in Shanghai this past October being a key highlight. Looking ahead, the future is even brighter. Temple Rat has a slew of original music on the way, including an OST EP for an upcoming film. With upcoming performances at Siamese Twin’s first event in Europe, Sunda Festival in Singapore, and whispers of yet another Asia tour, it’s clear 2025 is shaping up to be yet another breakthrough year for Temple Rat.

Ever since dropping his first music videos in early 2022, South London-based Jianbo has been an IYKYK artist for fans at the cross-section of hip hop, grime and Hong Kong cinema (watch the masterpiece that is ‘Mongkok Madness’ and you’ll see what we mean). With his deep register, mid-nineties flow, and Chinese-Vietnamese cultural references that work across UK and American-influenced beats, the diaspora has been crying out for new Jianbo. Tomorrow, their prayers will be finally answered by ‘Fuel’ via legendary garage label Locked On. On production is none other than Denham Audio, one of Club Glow’s breakout stars responsible for massive tunes like ‘Make Me’ and ‘Everything I Do’. ‘Fuel’ sees the MC tear up a sub-heavy, breaksy 2-step beat with lyrics inspired by the artist’s first Asia tour. As for the rest of 2025? We’ve been promised that there’s lots to come but, for now, that info’s still on lock…

Miedo is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the concept of movement across time, body, mind and sound whose work spans experimental acoustic music, tattoo artistry, drawing, painting, and photography. Their debut album, ‘메타포리컬 (Metaphorical)’, released on October 28, 2024—their birthday—marked a significant milestone, followed by a world tour in December that captivated audiences in Tokyo, Hong Kong, New York, and Berlin with five live performances and two DJ sets. With a second album slated for release this spring, Miedo continues to explore and create while embodying the fearless determination reflected in their full name, Sin Miedo; "without fear" in Spanish.

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