No Covers, Only Originals: Inside Live at Mata

By Mata Berawa Team · Berawa, Canggu

Most nights in Canggu, the music is a backdrop — a DJ filling the gaps between cocktails, a covers band running the same three crowd-pleasers you heard two bars ago. Walk into Paisley, the speakeasy tucked inside the Mata Berawa compound, and the arrangement flips. Here the music isn’t the wallpaper. It’s the load-bearing wall.

That’s by design, and the design is personal. Mata’s founder, Marcello Tahitoe, is a musician before he’s a restaurateur, and he’ll tell you the bar and the record shelf are the point of the whole place. “The bar and the record store are the culture engine of the whole thing,” he says. “That’s my musical element. I’m an all-rounder — I love every kind of music, so I curate all the playlists myself.” It’s a small admission that explains a lot: when the person who built the room is the one choosing the records, a bar stops being a bar and starts being a position.

Live at Mata: a stage that only takes originals

The clearest expression of that position is a program called Live at Mata. It is not a residency of established acts, and it is pointedly not a covers night. “We don’t do regular performances like other places,” Marcello says. “Live at Mata is about giving the stage to new artists — unknown, still-developing — so they can build their own crowd and present their music. And we push them to play their originals. No covers. Only original songs.”

Sit with that for a second, because in Canggu it’s close to heresy. The safe move for any bar is the cover set: familiar songs, easy applause, no risk. Mata does the opposite — it hands the room to someone you haven’t heard of and asks them to play the songs only they can play. Some nights that’s a gamble. It’s also the entire idea: a listening room that treats a new artist’s originals as worth your attention, and treats the audience as the kind of people who’ll lean in for it.

Why it lands in Berawa

Berawa — the pocket of Canggu that’s become its own quiet capital of food and music — is exactly the right soil for this. The neighbourhood runs on regulars and long-stay residents, people who come back to a place enough times to actually care what’s on the stage. A room built for discovery needs an audience built for it too, and Berawa has one.

It’s why Paisley reads less like a night out and more like a habit: dinner at Mata’s warung rolls into a drink, a drink rolls into a set by someone whose name you’ll be able to say you heard first. Listening over loudness, originals over covers, a new artist over a safe one. Small bets, made on purpose.

The essentials

• Where: Paisley, inside Mata Berawa — Jl. Subak Sari No. 13, Berawa, Canggu
• What: Live at Mata — a stage for new and developing artists; originals only, no covers
• The room: an intimate speakeasy; listening-led, open late (till 02:00 Fri–Sat)
• Line-ups: no fixed weekly schedule — sets are announced on Instagram, @mataberawa

FAQ

Where can I see live music in Berawa or Canggu? Paisley, the speakeasy inside Mata Berawa in Berawa, runs Live at Mata — a stage for new and developing artists playing original music. It’s one of the few genuinely listening-led live-music rooms in the Canggu area.

What is Live at Mata? Live at Mata is Paisley’s live-music program: rather than booking established or covers acts, it gives the stage to new, unknown and developing artists to build a crowd and play their own originals — no covers.

Where can I hear original (not cover) music in Canggu? At Live at Mata in Berawa, the rule is originals only. It’s built specifically to platform developing artists’ own songs, which sets it apart from Canggu’s DJ sets and covers bands.

Is Paisley a club? No — Paisley is an intimate speakeasy bar, not a club. It prioritises listening over loudness, so live music and conversation share the room.