The Pursuit of Greatness: How Pam Anantr, Diskoria & Dita channel sound into craft

The Pursuit is a new series by Mixmag Asia and Patron Tequila, with a first focus on Jakarta's nightlife circuit. The stakes are set high for this series that entails the city’s most sought after spaces, and the region's most defying artists.

In true Mixmag Asia fashion, we get to know the artists shaping the first edition, which takes place on August 26 at Le Cirque. These are the artists behind the decks that are worth taking more than a minute for: Diskoria digging through Indonesia's own disco history, Pam Anantr reading a room like it's breathing, and Dita closing out the night on the back of a season she spent years earning.

The Pursuit follows an intimate invitation-only dinner called La Familia: five courses, built on Mexican and Indonesian ingredients, each one arriving with its own pour from Patrón's range, climbing steadily toward El Alto, the brand's ultra premium offering.

Encompassing the dining experience is, Bangkok-based selector Pam Anantr as she digs through her crates of vinyl, hand-selecting from ambient moments that drift into jazz, and jazz-funk folding into global grooves, each record is calibrated to the vivid yet refined flavours arriving at the table.

It's a warm-up, in the truest sense, for what the night is actually building toward. Because once the tables empty out, the night moves rooms and, in a sense, changes shape entirely. The music gets louder, the crowd gets bigger, and the whole evening shifts from something you savour to something you move to.

Le Cirque is where it lands; a new and bold name on Jakarta's nightlife map, wired for sound through a Void Acoustics Air Motion system, and already the site of The Mixmag Lab Jakarta's debut earlier this year.

At the bar, three cocktails sustain the agave thread through what follows: a Classic Margarita for the purists, a Spicy Margarita built on Patrón Reposado for those seeking a touch of heat, and a Paloma finished with grapefruit for anyone easing in gradually.

The true engine of the night is the line-up which is built on three distinct relationships to sound; three artists who each dig, curate and read a room on their own terms, each further along their own pursuit of sonic mastery.

Diskoria opens the night, and there's good reason it's them as the ultimate purveyor of Indonesian disco. The group has spent a decade excavating records from the archive and returning them to dancefloors, moving across disco, synth-pop, boogie and early proto-house.

Ask why that era of sound still resonates on a dancefloor today, and they won't reach for nostalgia. They'll point instead to who was making the records in the first place, but instead about who made the records in the first place.

“What makes Indonesian records from that era particularly fascinating is that many of them were created by musicians who came from relatively privileged backgrounds. They had greater access to instruments, recording studios, imported records, and the creative freedom to pursue ambitious musical ideas. As a result, you often hear unexpected influences; from progressive rock and jazz fusion to art rock, woven into songs that are ultimately designed to be dance music,” the group share.

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Their job as fellow musicians, as they see it, was never to fix any of it: “Our role isn't to reinvent them, but to recontextualise them. Through our DJ sets, edits, and productions, we try to present these songs in a way that feels relevant to contemporary audiences while preserving the spirit and musical richness that made them special in the first place.”

But this isn't merely a matter of stewardship. Diskoria wants its audience to be part of the exchange, granting equal weight to the musician, the music, and the people dancing to it. It's this ethos that often leaves anyone who's caught a Diskoria set feeling not just euphoric, but curiously replenished.

“When we're given two, three, or even four hours behind the decks, we allow the room to guide the direction of the music much more. We pay close attention to how people respond, and we're comfortable changing course if the moment calls for it,” say the group.

Pam Anantr picks up the thread precisely where Diskoria leaves it, and by the time she takes over, she'll already have spent the earlier half of the evening accomplishing something few DJs are ever asked to: soundtracking a five-course dinner without disrupting its spell.

“It's going to be some form of progressive dance set with disco and house-rooted music. I like to have a rough idea prior to the show; the sounds I want to play out envisioning the space and then play the track for the moment that feels right; it's quite organic. I hope to keep the vibe high throughout the night,” she says of her plans for The Pursuit.

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Eighteen guests around a dinner table is one kind of audience. A full floor at Le Cirque is another entirely. Yet Pam doesn't regard the two as opposites so much as two expressions of the same instinct.

“To me it's about channelling my sense of the space and collective presence through music. While reading your crowd is important to feel the vibe and energy, it’s as important to really express yourself through sounds; channelling the music that you feel for the moment that everyone is dancing or dining together,” she states.

Curious what to expect once she's fully behind the decks? She's already settled on the track she trusts to do the work: “'Let's Lovedance Tonight' Danny Krivit re-edit by Gary's Gang. It's a disco classic that always brings so much joy and happiness to the crowd on the dancefloor. The build-up of the track is beautiful and exciting at the same time, I hope we will all be on a high note like this at Le Cirque!”

Dita closes out the night, arriving with Dekmantel, Panorama Bar and Club RAUM still fresh behind her; a run of shows that took years of disciplined work to earn rather than a stroke of fortune to land. For her, the distinction between the two matters, and it's one she's clearly considered at length, especially when it comes to her career.

“An earned moment is the one nobody hands you. Getting booked somewhere prestigious feels good, but it's not the same as the moment when a crowd that owes you nothing chooses to stay with you anyway. For me that's been things like debuting at Dekmantel or Panorama Bar; not because of the names on the poster, but because I walked in as an outsider from Indonesia and left having actually connected with a room that had zero obligation to care. That's the difference between being booked and being earned,” she shares.

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On closing a room, she says: “Tension is about restraint more than energy. I try to read the room in the first 10/20 minutes and figure out what they don't know they want yet. Holding back is a form of respect; you're telling the crowd you trust them to stay with you. I know it's time to let go when I feel the room stop performing for itself and start actually listening, that shift is unmistakable once you've felt it enough times.”

It also means following two very different sounds into her own. “Sharing a bill with Pam and Diskoria makes that easier, honestly, because we all come from different corners of this sound, so the set naturally builds in layers rather than one straight line,” Dita states.

By the time the lights come on and the last Paloma is poured, the night will have travelled a considerable distance: five courses, decades of Indonesian records, and three sets that each earned their place on the lineup the slow way, through years of crates dug through, rooms read, and moments learned rather than handed over.

It's a different kind of night for Jakarta; one built on the notion that anything worth arriving at, much like a good tequila, only reveals itself after time has done its quiet work.

The Pursuit lands at Le Cirque on August 26; secure your tickets here.

Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.

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