Athens after dark: Inside the underground music scene everyone’s talking about

Athens is one of those places that just keeps coming up in conversations with your mates. Those mates are probably a bit insufferable, but the point stands. It’s the hot new city. It’s “a bit like Marseille,” and it’s got “something very Lisbon about it.” Most of all, Athens has become a kind of shorthand for authentic club culture. It’s the home to DIY venues you’ve never heard of and, as professional party girl Bee Beardsworth put it, it’s “the new Berlin.” Add all of that together and you can see why I planned to use my stay at Ace Hotel & Swim Club Athens as a launchpad into the real underground scene. That was the plan, anyway.

Corr, this is nice. That’s the phrase replaying in my head as I check into the Ace Hotel and head up to my room. I fiddle about with the key card for a bit, only for a family to come to my rescue. Their family includes their naked child, fresh from the pool. Hey, why not — I’m in Greece! Unpack, slip into a very boho dressing gown, open the door to the balcony for a pensive vape…

But this is really nice. I go back and forth with my friends over whether it would be a complete failure to not venture out tonight, before deciding this room is far too comfortable to abandon just yet. I do eventually head down to a nearby harbour bar packed with locals, where I settle in with a beer and my book (and, inevitably, my phone). On the walk back, I attempt to befriend some street cats — one promptly biffs me for my troubles. Maybe I should go into the city? Nah. 

The Ace sits on the Athens Riviera, all poolside glamour and endorsements from Vogue. At first glance, it represents everything the underground supposedly isn’t. But they’re trying to bridge the gap with their summer programming, featuring the likes of Ross From Friends, Horse Meat Disco and Damian Lazarus, who took to the decks the night I was there. They’re not background DJs. They’re serious electronic artists, making the case for poolside parties that don’t feel like O Beach. You won’t find Wayne Lineker here.

I spend most of my second day there lounging by the pool — as you might have guessed, I still haven’t made it to Athens. I watch them setting up the decks. There’s excitement in the air. Though it’s by no means the first, this might just be the biggest night yet of their summer programming. Maybe? I think I’m just really enjoying the pool. 

My lengthy lounging session follows breakfast, where I opt out of the buffet because I decide there’s something a tad humiliating about it and I’ve just been to a festival in Lithuania that might’ve given me PTSD. I deserve to sit. Another cat watches me have breakfast — this one doesn’t biff me. I lounge, reading (phone), listening to a South African couple argue, which makes me feel better about my own relationship foibles. I actually tan without burning.

A quick change, then a walk down the motorway for a new vape. If you’ve seen that episode of I’m Alan Partridge, yeah, it’s like that. Then it’s back to the hotel for a tour that reveals it’s even more stunning than I first thought, especially the rooftop bar that opened that very week. But everything’s thought out: vintage furniture, door numbers hand-embroidered on linen. You can see the care.

The evening starts with a mosaic workshop. Lovely, except there’s an agreed sentiment we must finish before getting another drink. The instructor says ours is special and will hang in the hotel office — we hear him tell someone else the same thing shortly after.

Then: drinks. Negroni, then palomas. Palomas become the drink of the evening. I’m not dancing, but people really fucking are, music reverberating across the pool. I’m lounging, feeling very “industry”. This must be what LA felt like in the ’90s. We hit the rooftop bar for another paloma-adjacent drink, then a nearby spot. No underground venue again… but that’s fine?

Athens’ underground credentials are real — the numbers don’t lie. Since 2010, the city’s electronic labels have nearly doubled. SMUT, a queer-led joint, is appointing resident DJs in the form of Greek-born AgainstMe and ANNĒ. Meanwhile, according to those in the know, local producer Cirkle is gaining recognition “all over the techno scene.” “He’s in my top three DJs,” continues Evangelos, who splits time between the UK and Greece. He says that the Athens nightlife scene is definitely “more random.” “You can hear Balkan, ethnic style music at one place,” he explains. “And down the road there’ll be some proper Berlin techno.” There’s a certain eclecticism, if you will. But it’s that rejection of neat categorization that means Athens is overtaking other European scenes. 

It’s safe to say that I won’t find the underground lads here at the Ace, though. While it’s locals that dominate those sorts of venues (“sometimes you’ll find some tourists that know where to go,” as Evangelos puts it), the Ace programming attracts a different ecosystem. Industry figures, visiting DJs, music obsessives who’ve traveled specifically for the programming… alongside the inevitable Instagram crowd drawn to the aesthetic. It’s actually a bit sociological: namely, how do different social contexts shape their respective musical communities? One organizer admitted surprise at how many people were up at the decks dancing rather than lounging and posing. Even he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this crowd.

But what emerges is the sense that there are multiple authentic scenes, each serving their own purpose. There are underground spaces preserving that tight-knit local dynamic in converted warehouses, while hotel programming offers accessible entry points for outsiders genuinely interested in the music. The question isn’t really about whether one undermines the other. The spirit is the same. 

Back in the hotel room, I raid the mini fridge with restraint, already imagining myself confessing to the reception lady exactly what I’ve consumed at checkout. I slip back into that robe – which I’d definitely nick if I weren’t going to be charged for it – and settle into bed to watch a Mashtag Brady vlog. It’s either the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, or I’m really drunk. Probably both. But this is nice. This is perhaps nicer (and no disrespect to the likes of SMUT) than being in some room with strobes going off while my nose stings quite a bit. 

The thing is, Athens earned its buzz through years of actual scene-building, not some coordinated marketing push. The underground grew organically from local creativity and necessity, which is probably why it feels genuinely distinctive rather than manufactured. But here’s the thing: that doesn’t mean every worthwhile experience requires hunting down the most hidden basement.

Sometimes the most honest cultural moments happen when you stop performing the role of underground tourist and just engage with what’s actually happening. Athens offers something fairly rare – a scene confident enough to work across different contexts without losing what makes it special.

Breakfast the next morning, same cat watching me — he’s even more placid today. I send pictures to my boyfriend, who feigns interest. He has a real job that doesn’t involve being flown out to Greece to look at cats. Taxi to the airport — looking out the window wistfully, half because I’m leaving this beautiful place and half because I feel sick. At departures, I find myself wondering what idiot American is buying five-euro pots of cubed feta, but the beauty is I’m allowed that kind of pithy observation because I’m not desperately hungover. Because I didn’t make it to an underground venue.

If you had the minerals for it, you could absolutely do both — and the Ace would be a very jammy base for that kind of operation. But I don’t have the minerals. This time, at least. Catch me at SMUT in a few weeks, probably doing an Irish goodbye halfway through to get back into my robe.