Portland's Outpost of Electronic Music's International Underground

"“White men have historically dominated key parts of electronic music infrastructure,” Beach says, “from promoters and venue ownership to booking networks.” As the genre's mainstream popularity has grown in recent years, notions of what a club environment looks, feels, and sounds like have seemed to shrink. “Even when they would open the door to other identities,” Beach adds, “it wasn't kept open.”"

"Before the pandemic, the artist-run venue and synthesizer library S1 offered an alternative. Equal parts late-night dance club and highly curated art project, S1 was the product of a nuanced subculture. But its basement digs beneath a Hollywood-neighborhood Rite Aid didn't last. When Beach, who is 37, discovered Barn Radio a few years later, she saw a glimmer of what was lost when S1 closed in 2020."

"In its three short years, the club has hosted over 130 parties and welcomed artists from at least 30 countries, including South Africa, Portugal, Sweden, Colombia, and Jordan. But it didn't necessarily start with such ambitions. It began during a snowstorm in February 2023, Cole Mitchell Johnson tells me. Johnson, a 32-year-old graphic designer with a strikingly gentle affect, had rented speakers for a client party before the weather shut Portland down."

"“Well, I have all these speakers,” he remembers thinking. “I didn't want to be snowed in alone.” He borrowed a space, threw a party for a few dozen friends, and Barn Radio was born. Today, Beach and Johnson serve as its codirectors. If her presence at the door shapes the club's atmospher"

Jasmine Beach works the door at Barn Radio, checking IDs as fog drifts from an unassuming storefront on SW First Avenue. The club is positioned as part of Portland’s effort to reconnect electronic music with its Black roots, addressing how white men have historically dominated key parts of electronic music infrastructure. Beach notes that even when doors opened to other identities, access was not sustained. Before the pandemic, the artist-run venue and synthesizer library S1 offered a curated alternative, but it closed in 2020. Barn Radio opened during a February 2023 snowstorm after a speaker rental left Cole Mitchell Johnson with equipment and a desire not to be alone. The club has hosted over 130 parties and welcomed artists from at least 30 countries, with Beach and Johnson serving as codirectors.

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