Indie dance in 2026 is having a moment for a reason. Crowds want groove that still feels human, bass that actually moves a floor, and tracks that sit somewhere between a late-night club and a dusty desert sunrise. That is the lane bakh is working in with Naughty Monkey (Radio Edit), a new cut out on Exx Underground.
bakh is Bechara Koyess, a Beirut-born producer and DJ who moves between indie dance, tech house and bass house. He has been featured by Café de Anatolia and Dance TV, is signed to Exx Underground, and is an AfrikaBurn alum. That last detail matters. AfrikaBurn is not a polished main-stage circuit. It is heat, dust, long nights and systems that have to work when the sun comes up. You can hear that kind of dual energy in how he talks about his sets: melodic warmth on one side, peak-time punch on the other, with a foot in both the Middle Eastern and European underground.
Naughty Monkey arrives as a radio edit, which is a smart move for a track in this lane. Indie dance lives and dies on whether the idea lands fast. Radio length forces the groove to the front. The title already tells you the mood: playful, a little mischievous, not precious. Given bakh’s stated range, expect the track to sit in that current indie-dance sweet spot that has been climbing Beatport and club playlists all year — swinging drums, a bassline with personality, and enough drive to work after midnight without turning into generic festival formula.
He is not a one-genre artist, and that is part of the appeal. Interviews around earlier Café de Anatolia work describe a producer who started with years of classical piano in Lebanon and then refused to stay in one box. His catalog has touched Afro house, melodic techno, deep house and tech house depending on the mood. Naughty Monkey leans into the clubbier, bass-forward side of that map. That makes sense for Exx Underground and for a radio edit meant to travel: short enough for playlists and radio, heavy enough for a DJ who needs something with teeth.
The wider scene is ready for this exact mix. Modern indie dance has been one of the stronger club bets through 2026 because it can pull from deep house, disco, tech house and Afro-leaning percussion without sounding like a committee wrote it. Mediterranean and Middle Eastern textures have also been part of that conversation, from Tel Aviv’s Maccabi House wave to labels that treat geography as color rather than costume. A Beirut-born artist who has already worked with Café de Anatolia and played a gathering like AfrikaBurn is not arriving from nowhere. He is arriving from the places that sound is actually being tested.
What bakh does well, based on the information he shares, is refuse the fake choice between feeling and function. Emotional, story-driven work on one end of the catalog. Groove- and bass-driven sets on the other. Naughty Monkey is the latter: a compact, floor-facing edit designed to move rather than explain itself. If you only know him from the warmer Café de Anatolia side, this is the reminder that he also came to wreck a system.
Independent artists who want that same reach still have to solve the boring part: getting the file onto Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Beatport-adjacent playlists and everywhere else without giving away the catalog. DistroKid is still one of the cleanest ways to do that. If you are releasing your own music, you can take 7% off your membership here: https://distrokid.com/vip/seven/2058328. Keep the masters, keep the royalties, stop wrestling upload portals.
Have a listen to Naughty Monkey and tell me where it hits you — first drop, bassline, or that last radio-edit punch. What do you think of bakh’s sound? Drop it in the comments.
