THE DAWN OF THE BAHRAINI ELECTRONIC SCENE with Mazen Maskati

The following text is an excerpt from MDLBEAST Foundation's XINE 2025. You may access the full publication here.

I was a Bahrain frequenter growing up. Between the ages of 1-5, I went almost every weekend – so much so that I began to believe it was just a mall that happened to be an hour away from home. My family had been living in the Eastern Province of Saudi, and Seef Mall in Manama was where they chose to let off steam after a week’s work. Eventually, I learned that Bahrain is just a hip and cool country on the other end of the King Fahad Crossway.

And this is what Bahrain was to many of us in Saudi – our weekly source of entertainment and fun. With cinemas screening the latest Hollywood, huge malls with huge food courts (a core memory from my childhood), high-end dining experiences, concerts and live shows year-round, Bahrain was a hit. But what most of us weren’t truly exposed to was their underground music scene. I know I wasn’t. Until I went again for a visit in 2025. I was in awe, to say the very least. We hit Calexico, we hit Foundry, and the cherry on top– the juiciest, more flavorful and explosive cherry– was Soundscapes’ 10th year anniversary. 

Wrapping up my weekend, I knew what I had witnessed there wasn’t just a product of luck. Yes, Bahrain is hip and cool, but this flourishing scene and network did not randomly erupt out of this earth. It came from somewhere. It’s an outcome of years of quiet building, of people who believed in music before any else did. And I had questions. I wanted to trace that belief back to its source. That’s when I hit up Mazen Al-Maskati, Bahain’s very own veteran DJ and electronic music pioneer– also co-founder of Mindset Events. He was so kind as to agree to an interview with my nosy curious self, eager to share literal history with me. And what I learned, truly, was history.

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“It was accidental”

This is what Maskati said when I asked him how he got into music; “I was twelve when I first bought tapes. I didn’t even know what I was buying”. His first exposure to music was just a matter of fact, something that just happens to all of us. “I stumbled upon this tape… it had a picture of mannequins wearing all red shirts. It looked weird… so obviously I bought it and it turned out to be Kraftwerk, pioneers of electronic music… I was instantly drawn to how everything was done electronically, the beats, the drum machines, even their robotic voices”.

“Accidents” like these happened to most of us as we came across the music– or the art, film, whatever it may be– that we now love for the very first time. It’s what we choose to do with it or what it does to us that’s different. For Maskati, this accident happened to be transformative. 

Contrary to my initial assumption that his DJ career kicked off when he was abroad in the US, Maskati’s music career only started when he got back home; “it was in the early 90s that I really fell in love with electronic music, but I didn’t really start playing until I moved back to Bahrain”. Icons, such as Karim Miknas with Likwid, were already building the scene from the ground-up, and Maskati joined in on the movement. “I ran after-hour events starting at 3 am sometimes, it was the only time we could play what we wanted– experimental techno, stuff we couldn’t risk playing in clubs”. The scene was improvised and intimate, but purposeful. What made me gasp is when he shared one of his regular venues back in the day and how, despite how unlikely of a space, it was packed; “It was this country-western bar, with saddles, wild-western decor and even real horses outside… we’d have up to 500 people on a Thursday night”. This was the dawn of an underground scene, in the wild-west in the middle of Bahrain. And in this, they were creating the language, the scene, the community, the culture.

This brings me to my next point. 

This accident happened to be transformative. But not just for Maskati, for the movement.

Mazen– or Karim, or Fawazo, or Sami Dee– played, and people started showing up. In those unlikely venues and hours, music gathered them and they ignited a cultural movement together. The only thing they had in common was their love for the music. In that shared experience, something larger than any single DJ or track was born: a collective identity. That’s because music never happens in isolation, it’s a cultural force that demands witnesses, invites participation, and turns individuals into a community. “It was risky, but it mattered. This is a homegrown scene — just like what Chicago, New York, or Manchester once were”.

Remember my question about tracing the belief back to its source? I learned that the belief is simple– electronic music is the people’s medium. It’s not a quiet science or something that can be perfected with an equation, it’s an ever-evolving cultural exchange that can only take place on the dancefloor. Without the people, it’s non-existent. This completely challenged my initial thoughts when I first entered this interview– meticulous calculation and planning may help build up a scene. But what truly makes the scene is simply its people.

And this is a really interesting conclusion, because of something Maskati had said to me. He mentioned an interview with Jim Morrison from the early 70s where he predicts the future of electronic music. He’d said one person would be behind “a bunch of synthesizers controlling everything” and that we are living proof of his prophecy coming true. Except, Jim Morrison wasn’t totally on point– electronic music isn’t a lonely act, there’s always a beating collective behind it.