Glance at the lineups of Tokyo's larger nightclubs on any given weekend and you'd be forgiven for feeling some deja vu. Mainstays such as Takkyu Ishino, Shinichi Osawa or Dexpistols are likely to be headlining, much as they have been doing for the past several years.
While the European and North American scenes have been furiously competing to nurture the next defining genre or movement in dance music — such as moombahton, a recent reggaeton-cum-house hybrid out of Washington, D.C., or South London's bass-heavy dubstep scene that recently caught the attention of pop princess Britney Spears — Tokyo has largely been left behind.
Producers Matt Lyne and Brian Durr want to change all that and get Tokyo back on the club-scene map. The two, a Brit and an American, respectively, plan to do this via their new record label, Diskotopia.