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ABOUT UNDERGROUND SOUND
Underground Sound is a global media hub that offers readers, listeners and professionals exclusive access to global underground music, events and culture.
We are a collection of niches, covering diverse rabbit holes of information encompassing all the aspects of urban culture.
WHAT WE DO:
We connect you with good underground music
We connect you with quality underground music. Think non-mainstream, alternative and countercurrent music and voices that reflect the sonic nature of our media.
We discover talent
Scouting for serious talent? We’ve been digging for years and continue digging for gems on the daily.
We recommend events and report on festivals
Where there is music there is a party. That’s where you can count on us to recommend events, first hand reporting and festivals - whatever you’re calling it.
Forget overpriced festivals that are impossible to get tickets for - think about the undiscovered event that nobody is talking about yet.
We reach true underground music fans
If you’re an organizer, we can support you by reaching the people you really want at your event. Our ability is not about reaching every 7 billion people on the planet - instead it’s about reaching the slice of population that really wants to go. That means the hardcore, die hard fans that will travel to the end of the world to party with you.
We cover the new global underground
Through the cultural lens, we cover a variety of underground movements of all types. It’s urban, subversive, underreported and it can be found everywhere around the world including the darker parts of the internet.
We feed your curiosity
Yes the underground is not only of the physical world - it’s also a phenomenon of the internet. We put your curiosity in check.
We offer an audience
For those looking for reach, we offer an audience. It’s a global and diverse one made up of all elements of the music scene. That includes artists, producers, music industry professionals, promoters but also listeners, punters, festival goers, hardcore fans and anyone who supports the scene.
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MEET OUR TEAM
luc rouffaud
founder
ian hinksman
co-founder
milica micić
head of seo
Jeanine Scerri
journalist
Kusumitha Vasanth
journalist
louis rouffaud
business development
shehu adams
web developer
chima
web developer
HISTORY
Underground Sound emerges from the primordial swamp
Underground Sound is born on the deck of a reggae boat party off the coast of Malta.
Not long after a rasta-laden ship leaves St. Paul’s Bay, Malta, Luc Rouffaud meets his future business partner Ian Hinksman.
From day one there was no doubt that the two would launch an international, underground music media outlet together. The next step – to build a website.
Business meetings, underground music and indo kush
Not long after this chance meeting, we start regular meetings at a dive bar on Manuel Island called Funky Monkey, a shack where people meet to drink, dance and smoke.
Under the auspices of many ciders, meetings and hip-hop/techno/drum and bass parties, a website is finally hammered out.
The first idea is simple: to educate people looking for quality and diverse underground events in Malta. We aim to redirect people away from the toxic mainstream, commercial party strip where you hear the same music every night stepping over piles of vomit.
The vibe is honestly unhealthy, and a shame for underground Maltese promoters that don’t get the crowds or attention they deserve.
OUR FIRST INTERNATIONAL EVENT COVERAGE
Luc’s Czech-Armenian friend invites him to the Let It Roll Festival in 2017 with a few other mates. Let It Roll is a massive event, one of the world’s largest drum and bass festivals taking place on an abandoned Soviet era airfield an hour from Prague.
“Why don’t you cover it, bro?” Ian suggests, implying that he writes about the festival in a feature article.
Luc goes for it and the result is a first person POV and a snapshot of a life-changing festival experience.
We ask ourselves: “could we do this for a living? Is this even possible?” Thus a dream is set – going international to cover underground music culture around the world.
THROWING OUR FIRST UNDERGROUND MUSIC EVENT
Back in Malta during a weekend lock-in session to brainstorm ideas, Fattima Mahdi approaches the table we are sitting at and asks us: “why don’t you throw an event?”. With this straightforward suggestion, the event promotion wheels are set in motion.
The idea is to bring together the island’s hip hop community in a cypher, or a rap battle that pits the rapper against the judgment of the crowd.
We end up throwing a freestyle tournament to bring the best out of Malta’s rap scene.
It’s a resounding success for a first event that pushes us to explore the avenue of events even further. That’s when we turn to the internet for inspiration from the odd and downright bizarre…
HOSTING MALTA’S FIRST MEME EXHIBITION
At this time Underground Sound is operating out of the back of a tattoo parlor run by a Barbadian-German artist with a healthy obsession for lethal weapons.
We decide that it’s here we should launch our first recruitment drive, internet art exhibition and multi-genre event all wrapped into one delicious underground burrito.
Calling it The Meming of Life, Malta’s first meme exhibition is born. It’s a free exhibition celebrating memes and online culture that brings us closer to other aspects of Malta’s live music scene.
The taste of live music is fresh and uncontrollable, in the same way that a zombie yearns for blood…
SETTING THE LOCAL RECORD FOR THE LARGEST GATHERING OF ZOMBIES
Inspired by the Minneapolis Zombie Pub Crawl, we venture into the world of urban festivals by throwing Malta’s largest zombie party.
The event is first of its kind in Malta, making history by bringing the largest gathering of zombies in one location in 2018. In the following years we threw two more Zombie Apocalypse events with the current record set from the last edition in 2022, nearly reaching 2,000 nightmarish attendees.
Our events and website start to gain more traction, reaching deeper into the trenches of the underground, even gaining the attention of local government.
SWEAT, AN AFRO, LATIN & DEEP HOUSE DAY PARTY FUNDED BY THE MALTA TOURISM AUTHORITY
Fast forward and it’s the summer of 2019. Thanks to our growing connections in the local scene and past successful events, we secure funding from the Malta Tourism Authority for SWEAT.
In the run up to the event, we organize a series of satellite parties and stunts that include rooftop parties and a fitness competition in the ridiculous heat of the Maltese summer.
With funding from the Malta Tourism Authority, we throw a day party featuring free jungle juice, latin dance classes and the best pole dancer in the Maltese isles. As day turns to night, the crowd shuffles inside for a neon lit psy trance dance held by Duncan F.
WE RUN A STAGE AT THE BUBBLE FESTIVAL
Following the success of the event, Duncan F invites us to bring the SWEAT concept to The Bubble Festival in September 2019. We find ourselves hosting an Underground Sound stage headlined with an international act.
We continue the afro theme, incorporate fire dances and for some reason end up giving away all the memes from the previous month’s exhibition.
EVOLUTION AT WARP SPEED IN 2020
In no time at all, we go from signing event marketing contracts in 2019 to sipping whiskey and absinthe for two weeks in quarantine on our balcony in 2020. The year sees twists and turns we never expect.
With nothing to do but refocus, we hire our first employees building a content team with one goal in mind – reaching out to the world. The quality and quantity of our writing improves, like refining a recipe over and over again until we f***ing nail it.
In the famous words of some redditor, “improvise, adapt and overcome” we go from drinking our own piss to hiring employees and taking on international partnerships.
SEO, UX MAKEOVER & RELAUNCH
A year later in the summer of 2021, a defining moment of Underground Sound’s history takes place – Milica Micic joins the team. SEO wizard and journalist by trade, uncovers the shortcomings of the website, including a lackluster UX design, disregard of SEO practices and a total lack of uniformity. It doesn’t look good.
But there is hope. We sit down in her air conditioned apartment during a scalding hot Maltese summer and start working. We work 6 months without stopping, editing, upgrading and simply stepping up our standard. Every single article is broken down, spruced up and given the love it deserves. With hundreds of published articles, this is no easy task.
Yet, with many beers, bottles, teas, coffees and a wee bit of juice, we manage to pull it off. A website with new spinning chrome wheels and with a bright and shiny SEO wax, later and there you have it – Underground Sound is roaring out of the garage, relaunching on New Year’s Day 2022.
BROADCASTING THE SOUNDS, PEOPLE AND THE CULTURE OF THE UNDERGROUND
Today Underground Sound has over 400 articles online. There is a wide and diverse range of underground music, events and cultures we report on, including the likes of young entrepreneurs and vibrant industry players from every corner of the planet.
While we stand on the hill looking back at where we’ve come from, we remind ourselves of a David Goggin’s quote: “don’t stop when you’re tired. Stop when you’re done.” The reality is that we are not done – we’re just getting started.
There is a long and winding road ahead, full of surprises, side quests and tricky obstacles. Nevertheless the goal remains the same – to broadcast the finest underground culture to our readers.
There is – now more than ever – so much more territory to cover and so much more reason to shine light on what we call the underground sound.
