012! 10 Music Books
This summer has felt quite historic. Vybz Kartel has been released from prison and is performing in Jamaica in December, Oasis has announced a comeback tour, The Olympics saw Celine Dion performing for the first time in four years at the Opening Ceremony, and Kavinsky’s “Nightcall” (2011) became the most Shazammed track in one day after its inclusion in the Closing Ceremony.
Brat summer appears to be over, but not before Obama had included “365”, a song about doing ketamine off a key, in his annual playlist.
Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to this excellent compilation of East and South African music from Kampire, this ambient record from Total Blue, the new Asake album and a bunch of old Street Soul.
I’ve had my head buried in a book about The KLF, which is suprisingly highly recommended beach reading. I realised after finishing it that I’d been on a trend of enjoying some great books about UK underground music, clubbing, and labels and so I thought I’d recommend a few. Here they are, in no particular order:
The KLF: Chaos, Magic and The Band Who Burned A Million Pounds, John Higgs
There’s been a lot of talk this year of “lore”, it was even described in this piece in The Face as “the summer’s hottest accessory.” The KLF are lords of lore. You could put together a whole course syllabus on their chaos-peddling. Burning a million pounds? Deleting their entire back catalogue? Firing machine gun blanks at The Brit Awards? Dumping dead sheep at an afterparty? All while having some of the biggest selling singles of the late 80s and early 90s.
The KLF was one of the most fascinating projects in modern music / art, and John Higgs does a great job of making his way through all the threads that made them who they were. The book goes into Discordianism, Situationism, magical thinking, english folk heroes, Doctor Who, Jungian analysis and even the history of bank loans. It’s a thrilling read. I also highly recommend the film Who Killed The KLF? if the visual medium is more your thing.
2. Liberation Through Hearing: Rap, Rave & the Rise of XL Recordings, Richard Russell
I read this book during a period in the pandemic where I was feeling quite disillusioned with the music biz, and I found Richard Russell’s take on independent music both reassuring and inspiring. It’s a casually-told memoir of the XL Recordings label exec and producer, going into his history with the label, working with once-in-a-lifetime acts like The Prodigy, Adele and Dizzee Rascal. Like The KLF, Russell was a corporate outsider in the music industry, and wanted to do things differently. He’s refreshingly honest about his failures and struggles, both in business and in his personal life. As a longtime admirer of XL’s taste, it was no surprise to find out the extent of Russell’s dedication to enjoying the process of music-making.
I found this part about his vision for the label particularly relatable and inspiring. It rings true more than ever for an indie label. Coincidentally, Music Business Worldwide just released a report on XL’s annual profits (even while only releasing eight albums this past year).
“I wanted to turn XL into a record label that did what independent labels did - put out music that they believed in, that was original and of high quality, not necessarily commercial. But I wanted to combine this with an important aspect of what major labels did- which was selling the music with a no-holds-barred approach.
I wanted to be liberated from the normal limitations of both independent and major labels. I wanted to merge what I saw as the best elements of indies - the taste and the integrity - with the best elements of major record companies - the ability to get the music to a huge audience. And, equally importantly, I intended to avoid the worst of both - the greed and snakiness of corporate entertainment companies, and the mediocrity and lack of ambition of some independent labels. It would be important that it was a collective effort. But what exactly was my role to be?
Stanley Kubrick described his job of director as being a kind of idea and taste machine. To make the right decisions as often as possible.”
3. Party Lines, Ed Gillett
This book sits well in the canon of books about UK dance music, alongside Simon Reynolds’ Energy Flash. It traces the country’s countercultural history, through free festivals, soundsystems, New Travellers and pirate radio, as well as current trends like Boiler Room, business techno and Covid raving.
It’s a razor-sharp look at how and why Britain’s political and economic contexts have shaped dance music, and in turn how rave music has played a critical role in the moulding of modern day Britain. It’s about power struggle, black and queer defiance and the importance of soundsystem culture.
It also comes with some laugh-out-loud moments, like when the police ordered a bulk delivery of tie-dye Happy Mondays t-shirts from Rough Trade so they could walk around the Hacienda undercover. Sadly for them, they billed the order to Scotland Yard, which then filtered to the venue managers in Manchester. “Some suspiciously sensible people in Happy Mondays T-shirts and leather jackets you’d see in your aunty’s catalogue turned up…They were going around asking if people had any “ecstasy tablets” but they wouldn’t even know how to phrase it properly. They were being so obvious that people were walking around doing rabbit ears behind them.”
4. New Age: Stonehenge to Jungle, Toby Mott
If there was a visual companion to Party Lines, this would be it. Made by Toby Mott, who is an artist and designer (he designed the cover for De La Soul’s 3 Feet Hi & Rising), it has over 500 flyers, from free festivals at Stonehenge, through to illegal warehouse raves, the rise of Acid House, sounsdystem clashes, and rave culture. It’s a beautiful book, well laid-out and interspersed with interviews from people involved in the scenes, from the designers themselves (like Junior Tomlin, the “Salvador Dali of Rave”), to promoters, to label heads to members of Spiral Tribe. It’s the most expensive book on this list, but it’s worth every penny.
5. Temporary Pleasure: Nightclub Architecture, Design and Culture from the 1960s to today, John Leo Gillen
In many years of promoting parties and DJing, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about what makes the “perfect” club space, from where the DJ booth is to the lighting to the door policy to the sheer amount of fog in the club. This book digs into the evolution of nightclub design, from Italy’s radical clubs of the 60s through NYC disco, Detroit & Chicago house and techno clubs, Ibiza, UK rave and Berlin techno. Through photos, architectural drawings and interviews it builds up some serious FOMO for now-defunct clubs and also asks what clubs of the future might look and feel like.
6. Tapeworks: Art & Design of 80s Experimental Electronic Music, Resampled AND Record Label Logo Design, Vol.1/2, Mascots Of The Early Hardcore & Jungle Rave Scene, Klassewrecks
These image-only books pack a real punch for their size (they are miniscule!). There’s absolutely zero context here, but that’s not the point, it’s all about the imagery. If you’re someone who also hates the rise of the sans serif logo, this is your antidote. These logos are hand illustrated, full of flavour, rough around the edges, and pure fun.
7. Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines and Tomorrow’s Music Today, Simon Reynolds
People often say that music sounds like the future, but what does that really mean or sound like? Legendary music critic and lifelong blogger Simon Reynolds has collected a series of his essays (previously featured in places like Pitchfork, NPR and The New York Times) that look at the history of machine-made music from the 1970s to today, touching on Burial, Daft Punk, Ryuichi Sakamoto and A Guy Called Gerald on the way.
8. Record Store Ads & Paper Ephemera From Rave Fanzines of the Early 90s, Gabber Eleganza
This is a really nicely collected, slim book, with graphics and illustrations from the USA, UK, Holland, Belgium, France and Germany. There’s a small amount of text upfront, but this one is also just for the looking.
9. Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture, Jim Ottewill
There’s a lot of talk of London and Manchester in books about UK club culture, but here Jim Ottewill goes deep on some lesser known but very influential places too: from Sheffield to Todmorden, Coventry to Glasgow. As someone who has lived outside of the UK for quite some time now, it’s homesickening to think about how towns of mere thousands can still be putting on excellent club nights. As one of the chapter’s opening quotes says: “People talk about Berlin as the home of techno but Morley had even better line-ups and DJs. All the provincial towns were like super feeders to getting the club scene going”.
Drawing from a diverse set of voices, he pieces together how space and place affects dance music.
10. Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres, Kelefa Sanneh
This is the only US-focussed book on the list, which isn’t on purpose - I still have to read Joe Coscarelli’s Rap Capital too. We’re now in a world where genre means less than it ever has, when we’re pushed “vibes” and playlists like Pollen that act as though genre is a thing of the past. But here Sanneh argues that “transcending genre” is not always something to strive for, and gives a great overview of foundational genres and their throughlines. It covers a lot, and with a personal touch.
And lastly, some random things I’ve been enjoying recently:
The absolute drama in this 5-second clip from the stands in the US open.
Industry season 3 on HBO.
The archive of Drum N Bass legend DJ Randall (who sadly passed away a few weeks back). S/O DJ Star Eyez for the link!
Kyle Chayka on “aggregation theory” in media, and what news platforms are and should be now.