Esgar at the Boiler Room Los Angeles (Faith Jessie)

Okay, the last one may seem like an outlet for a loner using technology to satisfy their nightlife craving without having to take the risk of awkwardly associating with a club packed tight with extroverted social lights. But that’s actually not it all. 

Welcome to the Boiler Room. Rather than an online night club, Boiler Room provides an online music experience, or hangout for music appreciators all over the world.

In order to create an outlet where the artists feel  not as if they are playing for a crowd but simply delivering the art they created to a musical space, the shows  are invite only. However the show is broadcasted live and accessible to anyone with internet.

Monday night, Boiler Room celebrated good old Abe Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, George Washington, Obama and all of the other great folks who lead this country (for, ya know, President’s Day) with an underground music session hosted in Los Angeles. 

Neon blue, pink and purple lights lit low filled the venue with calm energy. The backdrop displayed a flickering Boiler Room projection which contributed to the urban, underground feel. As the artists set up their equipment, the camera man fiddled with his settings and shots in order to deliver a glitch free broadcast.  

At 6:30 p.m., the camera’s started rolling and music lovers, regardless if they were in Los Angeles or any other part of the world, could tune into the performance online at Boiler Room TV. 

Artists for the night included James Matthew, Orfeo, Pyramid Vritra, Seven Davis Jr, and Esgar. 

The acoustics of the room made the bass bounce off the walls and back towards the venue space creating that vibration feel in your chest when it hit. Each artist had a different spin to the experimental/electronic hip-hop genre. 

The stage was not an average display of talent. What’s usually guarded off by large security guards, ropes, and threats to get kicked out of the club was non-existent as the “stage” was just really just a huge dance floor, ground level with the audience and open to anyone in attendance.

On camera, the artists are the main focus, but the dancing crowd in the background contributes to that friends just showing you some beats in their basement kind of feel. 

“The crowd was pretty cool, a little more chiller and calm than places like Low End or something like that” said Pyramid Virtra, whose performance promoted his album “Indra” which was released yesterday.

Boiler Room was founded in London by Blaise Bellville, head of the webzine Platform: “We created this space in which artists could hang out and not feel like they had a thousand fans standing right in front of them, waving their cameras in their faces, and also where they could perform to each other,” said Bellville in a Billboard article.

Although the online phenomenon started in London, they now have offices in Berlin, New York, L.A., and broadcast from a variety of different countries. Boiler Room is a partner of Red Bull Music Academy and YouTube, just to name a couple affiliations.  

Though these pinnacles convey the amount of success the broadcast has already achieved, the list talent that have contributed to the Boiler Room is incredible. Talent ranges from artists that can be considered to have crossed over to the mainstream to artists that are deeply rooted in the underground including Carl Cox, Jamie XX, SBTRKT, Flying Lotus, Nicolas Jaar, Four Tet, Sweater Beats, Death Grips and Perseus. 

You can check out the next Boiler Room broadcast this Friday, February 21, live from Montreal. 

Reach Staff Reporter Faith Jessie here. Follow Faith on Twitter.