Paperback Books 249 Items

"The first decades of the 21st century saw dramatic changes in the music industry as new technology transformed creation, communication, and consumption. Amid this turmoil one change occurred relatively quietly, almost naturally: so-called bedroom producers, music makers raised on hip-hop and electronic music, went from anonymous, often unseen creators to artists in their own right.

In Bedroom Beats & B-sides: Instrumental Hip Hop & Electronic Music at the Turn of the Century, Laurent Fintoni details the rise of a new generation of bedroom producers at the turn of the century through the stories of various instrumental hip-hop and electronic music scenes. From trip-hop, jungle, illbient, and IDM in the 1990s to just “beats” in the late 2000s, the book explores how these scenes acted as incubators for new ideas about composition and performance that are now taken for granted.

Combining social, cultural, and musical history with extensive research, the book tells the B-side stories of hip-hop and electronic music from the 1990s to the 2010s and explores the evolution of a modern beat culture from local scenes to a global community via the diverse groups of fringe idealists who made it happen and the external forces that shaped their efforts.

Includes quotes and stories drawn from more than 100 interviews with producers, DJs, label owners, and more including James Lavelle, Charlie Dark, Luke Vibert, Mark Pritchard, Flying Lotus, Georgia Anne Muldrow, El-P, Hudson Mohawke, Kode9, Prefuse 73, Anti Pop Consortium, Dabrye, Waajeed, Tekilatex, Ghislain Poirier, Kutmah, LuckyMe, Benji B, The Bug, and many more.

Bedroom Beats & B-sides is the first comprehensive history of the instrumental hip-hop and electronic scenes and a truly global look at a thirty-year period of modern music culture based on a decade of research and travel across Europe, North America, and Japan.

Laurent Fintoni says: “This book is a deeply personal project that has consumed me for over 20 years. I hope it can do some justice to the vibrancy and importance of the culture it seeks to celebrate and its people. I am grateful to Velocity Press for taking a chance on me as a first-time author and giving me space and support to tell the first, but hopefully not the last, version of this story.”

Quotes

“Laurent Fintoni has created an epic tome of information. It’s one of the best examples of connecting the dots between many facets of electronic music. He writes similar to a DJ seamlessly transitioning from one point to the other, with visual vigour. Not since Kwodo Eshun’s More Brilliant Than The Sun, has someone delved this deep between the beats.”

King Britt

“As hip-hop has erupted over four decades to become the dominant genre of the 2020s, this work casts essential analysis on an influential set of producers who rose from obscurity to influence pop culture. It’s a story of changes in music technology and musical education, but crucially of how a small set of outsiders sought to hack, adapt, and break their technology in pursuit of making something expressive and new. In appropriation of tech and genre, the beat scene is a worthy analogue to consider a culture facing the failures of postmodernism, and the opportunities of a new age in media.”

Dominic Flannigan (LuckyMe)

“Finally a deep dive into one of the more interesting new musical trajectories of the modern era.”

Sam Valenti IV (Ghostly)

“The music industry was caught looking the other way, head in the sand, handing out golden parachutes. In the used bins we would marvel at their trash, what they couldn’t sink their teeth into, upcycling it in our way.”

Daedelus (Brainfeeder)

Vol 3 of the interviews series – Includes interviews with: DJ Hen Boogie & Izadoe from Bay Area crew The Dereliks, Izniz [Ghettolandz/The Madness/Burn UNI/Boom Bap Nation], Eddie Meeks Insane Cirkle & Southern Vanguard Radio , Charlie Dawk The Superstar from Da Phlayva/Langston, Joseph Caldwell from Lower Level, Supreme The Rudeboy aka DJ Supreme, Dope artwork by AzhqOne.

The Jesus and Mary Chain's swooning debut Psychocandy seared through the underground and through the pop charts, shifting the role of noise within pop music forever. Post-punk and pro-confusion, Psychocandy became the sound of a generation poised on the brink of revolution, establishing Creation Records as a tastemaking entity in the process. The Scottish band's notorious live performances were both punishingly loud and riot-spurring, inevitably acting as socio-political commentary on tensions emergent in mid-1980s Britain. Through caustic clangs and feedback channeling the rage of the working-class who'd had enough, Psychocandy gestures toward the perverse pleasure in having your eardrums exploded and loudness as a politics within itself.

Yet Psychocandy's blackened candy heart center – calling out to phantoms Candy and Honey with an unsettling charm – makes it a pop album to the core, and not unlike the sugarcoated sounds the Ronettes became famous for in the 1960s. The Jesus and Mary Chain expertly carved out a place where depravity and sweetness entwined, emerging from the isolating underground of suburban Scotland grasping the distinct sound of a generation, apathetic and uncertain. The irresistible Psychocandy emerged as a clairvoyant account of struggle and sweetness that still causes us to grapple with pop music's relation to ourselves.

Geechi Suede and Sonny Cheeba are Camp Lo. These two emcees from the Bronx, NY entered the American hip hop scene with an insider slang that bewildered listeners as they radiated the look of a bygone era of black culture. In 1996, they collaborated with producer Ski and a host of other contributors to create Uptown Saturday Night, featuring the seminal single “Luchini (a.k.a. This is It).” While other 1990s rappers referred to 1970s Blaxploitation culture, Camp Lo were self-described “time travelers” who weaved the slang and style of a soulful past into state-of-the-art lyrical flows.

Uptown Saturday Night is a tapestry of 1970s black popular culture and 1990s New York City hip hop. This volume will detail how the album's fantastic world of “Coolie High” reflected classic films like Cooley High and the Sidney Poitier film from which the album's title is derived, and promoted vintage slang and fashion. The book features new interviews with Camp Lo, producer Ski, Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul, Ish from Digable Planets, and others, and offers musical and cultural analyses that detail the development of the album and its essential contributions to a post-soul aesthetic.

The Suburbs is an incredibly sentimental and nostalgic album, which generally moved critics but was jarring to others. But it also made a heavy impact on fans and – to the surprise of many – won Album of the Year at the 2011 Grammy Awards. This immensely visceral album triggers a sincere celebration of not formative years spent in a cookie-cutter development, but of feeling self-important, immortal, and desperate to escape. It examines youth and amplifies an innate sense of longing and remembrance.
Eric Eidelstein's The Suburbs explores this weird, utopic recollection of youth by comparing the album to suburban scenes in film and television, such as Blue Velvet, Mad Men, The Americans, and Spike Jonze's Scenes from the Suburbs. Through the close examination of film and televised depictions of the suburbs, both past and present, Eidelstein delves into the societal factors and artistic depictions that make the suburbs such a fascinating cultural construct, and uncovers why the album creates such a relatable and universal sense of reminiscence.

Voodoo, D'Angelo's much-anticipated 2000 release, set the standard for the musical cycle ordained as "neo-soul," a label the singer and songwriter would reject more than a decade later. The album is a product of heightened emotions and fused sensibilities; an amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. D'Angelo sets to music his own pleasures and insecurities as a man-child in the promised land. It was both a tribute to his musical heroes: Prince, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, J Dilla ... and a deconstruction of rhythm and blues itself.

Despite nearly universal acclaim, the sonic expansiveness of Voodoo proved too nebulous for airplay on many radio stations, seeping outside the accepted lines of commercial R&B music. Voodoo was Black, it was definitely magic, and it was nearly overshadowed by a four-minute music video featuring D'Angelo's sweat-glistened six-pack abs. "The Video" created an accentuated moment when the shaman lost control of the spell he cast.

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James “J Dilla” Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as “hip hop music” is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next. The samples and melodies tell the story of a man coming to terms with his declining health, a final love letter to the family and friends he was leaving behind. As a prolific producer with a voracious appetite for the history and mechanics of the music he loved, J Dilla knew the records that went into constructing Donuts inside and out. He could have taken them all and made a much different, more accessible album. If the widely accepted view is that his final work is a record about dying, the question becomes why did he make this record about dying?

Drawing from philosophy, critical theory and musicology, as well as Dilla’s own musical catalogue, Jordan Ferguson shows that the contradictory, irascible and confrontational music found on Donuts is as much a result of an artist’s declining health as it is an example of what scholars call “late style,” placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.

152 pages.

An album which distilled a genre from the musical, cultural, and social ether, Portishead's Dummy was such a complete artistic achievement that its ubiquitous successes threatened to exhaust its own potential. RJ Wheaton offers an impressionistic investigation of Dummy that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself, piecing together interviews, impressions of time and place, cultural criticism, and a thorough exploration of the music itself.

The approach focuses as much on the reception and response that Dummy engendered as it does on the original production of the album. How is that so many people have, collectively, made a quintessential headphone album into a nightclub album? How have they made the product of a niche local scene into an international success? This is the story of how an innovative, experimental album became the iconic sound for the better part of a decade; and an aesthetic template for the experience of music in the digital age.

248 pages.

In Border/Between: A Symphony in Essays, Carol D. Marsh writes about death, addictions, and war while also exploring how written form and expression have a counterpart in music. Structured upon the 4-movement symphony and incorporating other forms such as the rock song and the Requiem, Border/Between seeks and finds its place in what lies between the sharp and unforgiving edges of ideology and judgment. In refusing to allow borders to govern her, Marsh is able to bring compassion and hope to what seems irredeemable.

In the summer of 1989, when Trip City was first released with a five-track cassette EP by A Guy Called Gerald, there had been no other British novel like it. This was the down and dirty side of London nightclubs, dance music and the kind of hallucinogenic drug sub-culture that hadn't really been explored since Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Maybe this is why Trip City is still known as "the acid house novel" and an underground literary landmark. Over the decades, Trip City became shrouded in scandal and mystery. The original London book launch literally descended into a riot - shut-down by the Metropolitan Police. Everyone from the makers of Raiders Of The Lost Ark through the director of Candyman tried to adapt the book into a movie - but imploded in the process. And the galleys of the 25th-anniversary edition were destroyed in a fire before they could even be proofed or printed. Perhaps Trip City is uniquely summed-up by the original publisher, sci-fi legend Brian Aldiss, who wrote of the novel: "In the vintage of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions Of An English Opium Eater - but smack up to date. It's about a young man's descent into hell - a hell that looks very much like London."

"The Secret DJ returns with the follow-up to their acclaimed debut book. Less a sequel and more a panoramic wide-angle painting of the biggest youth movement in human history, The Secret DJ: Book Two charts the rise of dance music over the last 30 years and its connection to western capitalism and culture.

While never claiming to be instrumental, The Secret DJ was around for every stage of the journey and is a continually wry observer of this unstoppable growth. The Secret DJ’s signature humour and wit are ever-present in this ascent, charting personal ups and downs as well as the buying and selling of the acid house revolution.

Covering topics as wide as drugs, music production, anthropology, the gentrification of the scene, technology, travel, fame, devaluation, inflation, relationships, technique, festivals, rejection, social media, situationism and hypernormalisation; almost no aspect of the last four decades go unmentioned in terms of what we know today as Electronic Dance Music.

“No one in publishing would have the balls to touch this book with a bargepole,” says the Secret DJ. “It takes courage to speak up. There’s not much in the way of reward for telling it like it is, not any more. If you expose an industry, that industry hates you for life with the intensity of the sun. I have nothing but admiration for Velocity Press, they’ve taken a big risk working with me. I appreciate it greatly. It’s good to know there are still people out there willing to stand up.”

“I loved The Secret DJ – some all-too-familiar characters mixed with the highs and lows of what this industry can throw at you. Excited and intrigued to read the second instalment… how much more extreme can it get?!” – Denney

“I never read books about electronic music, why would I? But I guess The Secret DJ is more an anarchist handbook for shattered dreamers than a manual on how to make it big on the scene. Can’t wait for his new adventures.” – Ivan Smagghe

“We all have war stories, us jobbing night-lifers. From having sets ended by soldiers with automatic weapons in Juarez to coming-round in Glasgow city centre suddenly best pals with a gangster who’s most affectionate nickname was ‘Wolf’. I’ve bagged a couple over the years. And yours are undoubtedly more vivid, funnier or more ludicrous than mine. The Secret DJ’s are better still.” – Ewan Pearson

“I loved book one, waiting to live the DJ life vicariously again thru book two!” – Arthur Baker

“The Secret DJ’s first book managed to do something very different to the existing dance music memoirs (and I should know as I have read them all). It functioned not only as a hilarious jaunt through the insanity of the glory years of dance music – i.e. when there was still money in music – but as a harrowing portrayal of the emotionally, physically and mentally taxing straits an international DJ will find themselves in. Anyone with even a passing curiosity about ‘the industry’ should read it and await its follow up, especially if they have any frankly dangerous notions of joining up professionally, which I cannot in all good conscience recommend.” – Manu Ekanayake (music and culture journalist)

“It’s rare for a writer to capture the excitement and absurdity of dance music culture at the same time, but the Secret DJ did that to great effect in the first book. This latest chapter in the story promises to be every bit as exhilarating, providing an important critical voice at a time when ‘the society of the spectacle’ threatens to suck the life out of those clinging to the acid house dream.” – Justin Robertson

“The first book is a raw, effective and bizarrely emotional tale of ‘the life’. Superbly true and direct. I can hardly wait to hear the tale of the music movement being told by The Secret DJ in Book Two!” – Miguel Campbell

“The Secret DJ returns to once again pull back the curtain on the world of dance music and the sometimes harsh, but always hilarious, realities of what lurks behind it. Get ready for a second descent into the far(cical) side.” – Neville Watson

“Really enjoyed the first book, both hilarious debauchery and insightful commentary on a world usually kept behind the curtain. I’m looking forward to the next instalment, hoping for a lot more righteous anger within.” – Posthuman

“Every participant in the music industry will wince at the thought of falling under the glance of the Secret DJ’s withering pen, but still find themselves avidly leafing through his pages for the merest mention.” – Carl Puttnam (Cud)"

In recent years, Björk's artistry has become ever more ambitious and ever more respected. With the release of her conceptual app-album Biophilia in 2011, and a huge retrospective exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art coinciding with her most recent album, Vulnicura, in 2015, her status as artpop auteur has been secured. The album that made all this possible, though is 1997's Homogenic, a turning point in Björk's career and still among her finest musical achievements. Produced under great strain, it moves beyond the stylistic magpie rush of Debut and the urbanophile future-pop of Post, to something darker, stronger and braver, full of dramatic assertions of independence, sharp, stuttering beats, rich strings and raw outbursts of noise. It created, as the Alexander McQueen designed sleeve clearly asserted, a new Björk, one who would never stop hunting.

Words like "inspiring," "expansive," and "moving" are
regularly used to describe Sigur Rós's ( ), and yet the
only words heard on the record itself are a handful of
meaningless nonsense syllables. The album has no
title—or rather, its title is no title: just an empty pair
of parentheses. The intention being that listeners will
fill in the parentheses with their own title, their own
interpretation of the sounds on the record. The CD
sleeve consists of twelve pages that are essentially blank, lacking song
titles, liner notes or production credits. Instead, it contains only semitranslucent
frosted images of abstract natural scenes (tree branches,
clouds, etc.), on which the listener is free to inscribe their own notes—
or no notes at all. And then there are the lyrics, sung in a deliberately
unintelligible tongue called "Hopelandic" which the band invites listeners
to interpret freely.
Ethan Hayden's book doesn't try to fill in the gaps between the album's
parentheses, but instead explores the ways in which listeners might
attempt to do so. Examining the communicative powers of asemantic
language, the book asks whether music can bring sense to nonsense.
What happens to the voice when it stops singing conventional
language: does it simply become another musical instrument, or is it
somehow more "human"? What role does space play on ( )? And how do
we interpret music that we cannot possibly understand, but feel very
deeply that we do?

168 pages, paperback.

Highly entertaining, wickedly insightful, account of arguably the most extreme party paradise that ever existed where existential electronic dancefloor music was the ultimate catalyser for the mystical anarchy of techno hedonism in Gonzo Goa. Written authoritatively from the perspective of someone that lived, danced and DJed through the thick of its histrionics, it chronicles the eccentric music of the scene from 1987, the germinal phase of a subculture up until 1996, by which time the once-eclectic sounds of a Goan dancefloor had been distilled into the conventional soundscape of psytrance.

Mit den Büchern von Christiane Rösinger, Bernd íBegemann und Carsten Friedrichs starten wir eine Reihe, in der die Texte deutscher Musiker:innen erstmals in Buchform zugänglich gemacht werden. Texte von Musiker:innen, die die hiesige (Sub-)Kultur mit ihren íSongtexten in der Retrospektive ebenso geprägt haben wie die ausschließlich schreibende Zunft. Eine längst íüberfällige Würdigung außergewöhnlicher Songwriter:innen, deren Texte nicht bloße Anhängsel ígroßartiger Musik sind, sondern ebenso auch für sich stehen. Christiane Rösinger, geboren 1961, zog 1985 aus dem íBadischen nach West-Berlin, wo sie mit Almut Klotz und Funny van Dannen die Lassie Singers gründete. Nach deren Auflösung war sie Kopf der Band Britta. Rösinger war zudem eine der Betreiberinnen der legendären Flittchen Bar und betrieb das Label Flittchen Records. Sie veröffentlichte zwei Soloalben, mehrere Bücher und schrieb zahlreiche Theatermusiken. 2019 hatte ihr erstes Musical "Stadt unter Einfluss" Premiere im Hebbel am Ufer. "Was jetzt kommt" ist die Würdigung einer außergewöhnlichen Songwriterin. Ob Lassie Singers, Britta, Solo: das Buch enthält Lyrics aus allen Schaffensphasen, Geschichten und ein exklusives Christiane-Rösinger-Glossar.

Pünktlich zu seinem 60. Geburtstag erscheint in der Ventil-Verlag-Reihe "Ausgewählte Songtexte" eine Ausgabe mit 100 Songtexten von Bernd Begemann: "Gib mir eine zwölfte Chance". "Ich bin besessen davon, ein Beobachter zu sein" sagte er einmal über sich selbst und so sind seine Texte präzise Beobachtungen des bundesdeutschen Alltags. Begemann schafft es in den wenigen für einen Liedtext zur Verfügung stehenden Zeilen ein ebenso präzises wie mitfühlendes, erklärendes und vor allem unterhaltsames Bild der Gesellschaft zu erschaffen. Seine Songs könnten und sollten Hits und/oder Volkslieder sein, sie sind es aber nicht. "Meine Aufgabe ist es Literatur zu schaffen, nicht meine Kundschaft zu maximieren" so Begemann einmal gegenüber dem Spiegel. Höchste Zeit also für vorliegende Textsammlung und eine eventuelle Maximierung der Kundschaft. Zusätzlich zu den Songtexten enthält das Buch Anmerkungen und Erläuterungen des Autors zu jedem Liedtext und eine Einführung. Bernd Begemann, geboren am 1.11.1962, war der erste Punk in Bad Salzuflen. Er gilt vielen als Erfinder der Hamburger Schule und schrieb deutschsprachige Lieder, als es noch beziehungsweise schon wieder uncool war. Mitte der 80er zog er nach Hamburg und veröffentlichte mit Die Antwort sein erstes Album. Sein späteres Solodebüt nahm er in der Küche seiner Wohnung im Hamburger Arbeiterstadtteil Rothenburgsort auf. Ein urbanes Folk-Album mit Elektronik namens "Rezession, Baby!". Also das, was alle machen, bevor man das machte. Er war nämlich oft als Erster auf dem Minenfeld. Er inspirierte eine Menge Leute, von Tocotronic bis Olli Schulz. Begemann hat über 20 Alben und über 400 Songs veröffentlicht. Er trägt gern smarte Anzüge und spielt, wenn es die Umstände zulassen, Hunderte Konzerte im Jahr.

Written by Harry Harrison, one of DiY’s founding members, Dreaming in Yellow traces their origins back to early formative experiences, describing in detail the seminal clubs, parties, festivals and records that forged the collective. Dreaming in Yellow is an attempt to distil the story of DiY’s tumultuous existence and the remarkably eclectic, outrageous and occasionally deranged story of them doing it themselves.

The Secret DJ’s first two books lifted the lid on what really happens behind the decks in the sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing world of the superstar DJ. Now they’ve reached out to dozens of DJs from around the world – and from every scene and genre – for their own true stories of the DJ life.

Tales From the Booth raises the BPM, rounding up an all-star cast of Secret DJs to tell their anonymous stories of what it’s really like to rock dancefloors for a living. From strange encounters on tour to side-splitting debauchery and afterparty excess to the seamy and even dangerous side of the industry, this is your access-all-areas backstage pass. You’ll never look at a DJ quite the same again.

Out of Space plots a course through the different UK towns and cities club culture has found a home. From Glasgow to Margate via Manchester, Sheffield and unlikely dance music meccas such as Coalville and Todmorden, this book maps where electronic music has thrived, and where it might be headed next…

Please note that Out Of Space is available as a paperback and postage is charged separately. There’s no postage charge for the ebook option which will be delivered as an epub file.

The first up to date, post-pandemic, no-borders era book to cover Berlin’s role as an electronic music and cultural capital. Coming To Berlin breaks the tradition of Berlin’s perception as techno ground zero and shows the true diversity and richness that make up the city. Written by a former Londoner who made Berlin his home, the book captures nuances and details of living in Berlin that will be immediately relatable to fellow Berliners yet at the same time captures the city’s creative, free-living essence to anyone with a curiosity for Berlin and a love of electronic music.

During the second half of the 1990s, Paris experienced a dance music revolution thanks to groundbreaking artists like Daft Punk, Air, Super Discount, Motorbass, Cassius, Dimitri from Paris, Bob Sinclar and many, many more. It was a scene that became known as French Touch and was heralded throughout the world as the epitome of dance music cool, forever placing Paris on the dance culture map. Journalist and author Martin James was there right from the start, documenting the scene from its inspirations to its earliest moments and onto its global breakthrough. In the process, he inadvertently provided the French Touch moniker that became adopted throughout the world. Drawing on a dazzling array of exclusive interviews with the biggest names in French electronic music history, French Connections explores France's significant contribution to dance music culture that paved the way for the French Touch explosion.

So, you want to start a record label or self-release your own music? Then this is the resource you need. You are looking at the ultimate guide to starting, running and growing your independent record label. You will learn all about the music industry business and how to navigate the tricky dos and don’ts. You will finally understand and take control of your music copyright and get to grips with the legalities involved. You will build your label effortlessly, learning how to professionally market your music and artists – allowing you to reach thousands of fans. And, essentially, you will learn how to create multiple label revenue streams to create an established record label.

Written by former DJ/producer Harold Heath, Long Relationships: My Incredible Journey From Unknown DJ to Small-time DJ is a biographical account of a DJ career defined by a deep love of music and a shallow amount of success. It’s the first book to detail exactly what DJing is like for the 99% of DJs who never make it big. Covering electro, hip hop, rare groove, acid house, rave and the UK underground club scene, it’s a 30-odd year tale of a life lived in dance music. Long Relationships is full of tales of clubs, raves, warehouses, DJing, music, record production, record deals, low-level international travel, shady promoters, dodgy club security, magical dance floor moments and much more.

The perfect guide for those who want to explore a different, trendy side of Berlin. Photographer Silvie Bonne presents 100 scenic, impressive and 'Instagrammable' spots in Berlin. Some are classics but most are hidden gems only locals know about. Every hotspot is accompanied by a fascinating background story, some fun facts, and practical information. The true eyecatchers are of course the original Instagram images, along with some expert tips and trips on how to shoot them.

"As government legislation, standardised music and bad drugs forced the euphoria of the rave phenomenon into the darkness, a new underground movement emerged – the jungle and drum & bass nexus.

It was the sound of the beating heart of Britain’s multi-cultural urban rave, produced by the children of the Windrush and their closest friends, and distilled via the journey from a Tivoli Gardens soundclash, to the UK’s inner city blues parties and onto jazz-funk all-dayers and soul weekenders.

It was a space that was forged in the hidden edges of urban warehouses and the darkened recesses of clubland’s backrooms; schooled in the swagger of dancehall, the thunder of hardcore, the fury of bebop and the depth charge of dub.

Jungle and drum & bass was like nothing else the world had experienced before – simultaneously black and white, urban and suburban, old skool attitude and new school innovation. A socio-cultural melting pot of early-90s broken Britain seizing the wheel and taking control of the machine.

Originally published in 1997, State of Bass explores the scene’s roots through its social, cultural and musical antecedents and on to its emergence via the debate that surrounded the apparent split between jungle and drum & bass. Drawing on interviews with some of the key figures in the early years State of Bass explores the sonic shifts and splinters of new variants, styles and subgenres as it charts the journey from the early days as the deliberately hidden underground, ignored by the media in favour of the post-rave progressive house scene, to its position as a global phenomenon.

State of Bass: The Origins of Jungle and Drum & Bass extends the original text to include the award of the Mercury Prize to Roni Size & Reprazent for the groundbreaking New Forms album and brings new perspectives to the story of the UK’s most important subterranean urban energy.



Quotes

“Cogent, well researched and hardly oblivious to the nutty charisma of jungle’s lexicon and nomenclature. The first serious attempt to document the drum & bass realm is a total success.”
Select

“Exceedingly well researched, endlessly authoritative and undeniably ace…”
Melody Maker

“(State of Bass) deserves a special mention. A thorough account of the story of jungle.”
Ben Osborne, author of The A-Z of Club Culture

“The best book so far on the evolution of drum & bass”
Sheryl Garratt, author of Adventures in Wonderland: a decade of club culture

“Martin James comes up trumps with an in-depth examination of Jungle’s roots, history and even a recommended listening guide.”
Muzik

“Essential reading for anyone who is interested not only in the jungle scene… but in dance in general, in the music industry as a whole or even British society and its infrastructures.”
DJ

“An acutely perceptive and thought-provoking account of the circumstances and celebrities surrounding the development of a modern music that we can finally call our own.”
The Scotsman

“Well worth rattling through if you can track it down.”
FACT

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Who had the greatest dunk of all time? Which version of Michael Jordan was the best Michael Jordan? What is allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? Basketball and Other Things takes readers through the most pivotal and ridiculous fan disputes in basketball history, providing arguments and answers to basketball’s greatest questions, explained with the wit and wisdom that is unique to Shea Serrano. Serrano breaks down debates that all NBA fans have considered, from the classics (Which years was Kobe at his best?) to the fantastical (If you could assign different values to different shots throughout basketball history, what would they be and why?). With incredible art from Arturo Torres, this book is a must-have for anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night debating basketball’s greatest moments, what-ifs, stories, and legends.

Illustrated by Arturo Torres, foreword by Reggie Miller.

Shea Serrano is an award-winning writer, author, and illustrator. His most recent book, The Rap Year Book, reached the bestseller lists of the New York Times and Washington Post, topped the Arts and Entertainment iBooks bestseller list, and was chosen for the Pitchfork book club. Currently, Serrano is a staff writer for The Ringer. He lives in Houston, Texas.

22,9 x 19,1 cm, 240 pages, paperback

One of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record (featuring stone-cold classics like "Can I Kick It?" and "Bonita Applebum") took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. For many listeners, when this non-traditional, surprisingly feminine album was released, it was like hearing an entirely new form of music.

In this book, Shawn Taylor explores the creation of the album as well as the impact it had on him at the time - a 17-year-old high-school geek who was equally into hip-hop, punk, new wave, skateboarding, and Dungeons & Dragons: all of a sudden, with this one album, the world made more sense. He has spent many years investigating this album, from the packaging to the song placement to each and every sample - Shawn Taylor knows this record like he knows his tattoos, and he's finally been able to write a fascinating and highly entertaining book about it.

128 pages.
• See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/a-tribe-called-quests-peoples-instinctive-travels-and-the-paths-of-rhythm-9780826419231/#sthash.cFZ9YfTa.dpuf

Very limited edition document to accompany the Various Artists - Noho EP: Turning THE Crank EP. 68 page, A5 size 'Zine' Printed with Risograph in grey scale.

Northampton, Massachusetts. The Five Colleges. Hampshire College. Forward-thinking education. Electronic Music studies. A vast student population created and sustained a vibrant cultural scene. This is but a snapshot of a fraction, but a fertile and significant one that impacted the lives of many who came in contact with it. The book follows a tight group of people who got together, made music, promoted and released it, created the conditions for others to record and release music, booked bands and then scattered throughout the Midwest and East Coast.

First person memories and memorabilia from Christopher Vine, Craig O'Donnell, Elliott Sharp, James Whittemore, Nicholas Brown, Sean Elias and others, patch up a story of joyous action, firm and enthusiastic DIY endeavours to make things happen as they would like them to happen. It is about a local scene and some key protagonists and it communicates values and methods that are still current — and probably will always be in some form or another among young people with a serious drive to act upon their artistic inclinations. This is also a depiction of what was in fact a model of a music scene. A complete ecosystem was in place during this period. Northampton, sure, but extended across the whole of Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts. Bars, music and record stores, live music, College radio, electronic music studios, written press and a lot of energy going into creative work. The immediate "punk effect" motivated the appearance of numerous bands, many short lived, others evolving into New Wave / Power Pop territory, eventually crossing into Post-Punk experimentation.

Turning The Crank is also a companion to an EP of the same title, including music played, produced and recorded in Northampton between decades (1970s going into the 1980s) by different combinations of individuals resulting in The Higher Primates, The Scientific Americans and Human Error. Music in turns mechanical and austere, gorgeously loose, in love with Dub.

Now as paperback edition.

"This book is a must for everyone interested in illuminating the idea of unexplainable genius.” —questlove

Equal parts biography, musicology, and cultural history, Dilla Time chronicles the life and legacy of J Dilla, a musical genius who transformed the sound of popular music for the twenty-first century.

He wasn’t known to mainstream audiences, even though he worked with renowned acts like D’Angelo and Erykah Badu and influenced the music of superstars like Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. He died at the age of thirty-two, and in his lifetime he never had a pop hit. Yet since his death, J Dilla has become a demigod: revered by jazz musicians and rap icons from Robert Glasper to Kendrick Lamar; memorialized in symphonies and taught at universities. And at the core of this adulation is innovation: a new kind of musical time-feel that he created on a drum machine, but one that changed the way “traditional” musicians play.

In Dilla Time, Dan Charnas chronicles the life of James DeWitt Yancey, from his gifted childhood in Detroit, to his rise as a Grammy-nominated hip-hop producer, to the rare blood disease that caused his premature death; and follows the people who kept him and his ideas alive. He also rewinds the histories of American rhythms: from the birth of soul in Dilla’s own “Motown,” to funk, techno, and disco. Here, music is a story of Black culture in America and of what happens when human and machine times are synthesized into something new. Dilla Time is a different kind of book about music, a visual experience with graphics that build those concepts step by step for fans and novices alike, teaching us to “see” and feel rhythm in a unique and enjoyable way.

Dilla’s beats, startling some people with their seeming “sloppiness,” were actually the work of a perfectionist almost spiritually devoted to his music. This is the story of the man and his machines, his family, friends, partners, and celebrity collaborators. Culled from more than 150 interviews about one of the most important and influential musical figures of the past hundred years, Dilla Time is a book as delightfully detail-oriented and unique as J Dilla’s music itself.

Hidden Notes Records are proud to announce that in February next year we will be releasing a smorgasbord of new music; creative collaborations born out of the award winning music podcast excuse the mess. Two compilation albums featuring 17 unique voices from contemporary music worlds and beyond…

How does a podcast = two albums worth of music? excuse the mess is a music podcast with a twist - alongside your bread and butter artist interviews each guest takes on the challenge of writing a brand new piece of music on the fly, in the room and with excuse the mess host, Ben Corrigan. They follow three rules (limitations are liberating!): 1. There can be no preplanning, it is spontaneous music making. 2. The track must be finished the same day. 3. Only one instrument can be used as a sound source but there can be electronic manipulations of it.

Our upcoming release is the end result of each of those heart palpating writing sessions featuring Hannah Peel, Gold Panda, Anna Meredith, Galya Bisengalieva, Manu Delago, Robert Ames, Emily Hall, Oliver Coates, Mira Calix, Matt Calvert, Douglas Dare, Laura Jurd, Mark Lockheart, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Anne Nikitin, Alev Lenz and Elliot Galvin. Released as two albums, to mirror the two series of excuse the mess in which they were made.

All the music fizzes with an energy that only fast paced work can invoke and the compositional fingerprint of each guest artist is embedded into the core of each track, whilst intermingling with Ben's own artistic voice. For anyone interested in a further delve they can go back to the podcast episode and witness the composition unfolding bit-by-bit, from the blank page to the finished piece, you are invited on that compositional journey.

Archivio is a new series of publications by Never Sleep focused on the exploring archiving practices displaying private collections of visual artefacts, memorabilia, collecting garments and graphic curiosities. A memories wunderkammer: from rave-club culture to the youth subcultures. The first issue, curated by Gabber Eleganza, is a publication made it during the Covid lockdown, collecting and scanning Rave records store advertisements, graphics curiosity and illustration ephemera find consulting tons of old techno and rave fanzines from the early 90s from: USA, UK, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. A pure, rough and beautiful visual testimony of a unique and unrepeatable historical moment. Preface by Colin Stevan (Knowledge magazine and Velocity Press founder)

Jim Ottewill’s exploration of UK club culture and the urban landscapes that have housed it returns in a newly remixed form. This extended version features a new chapter exploring hidden histories and untold stories within Birmingham’s nocturnal scene to provide more insights into the past, present and future of electronic music culture.

“We don’t want more unaffordable flats. We want somewhere to dance…”

Since the dawn of time, humans have had the urge to come together and move to music. It may have started in caves but these days it happens in clubs often found in the shady corners of our towns and cities.

Or at least it did until these places succumbed to the beat of property developers rather than DJs. In London in the five years to 2016, half of the clubs were lost while a further quarter have disappeared in the devastation of Covid. So what now?

At this critical moment, Out of Space plots a course through the different towns and cities club culture has found a home. From Glasgow to Margate via Manchester, Sheffield and unlikely dance music meccas such as Coalville and Todmorden, this book maps where electronic music has thrived, and where it might be headed to next while exploring other shades of club culture too, such as pirate radio, dance music festivals, and sound system culture.

As our lives become increasingly digitised and real estate more valuable, we’ll look at the new clubbing models emerging in the 21st century. Rather than an epitaph, this is a rallying cry and celebration of the club’s resilience based on a lifetime of getting wide-eyed inside them.

Quotes:

“As gentrification, lack of funding, stifling politics and the pandemic continue to pummel nightlife, it feels all the more poignant to chart the past and present of raving, while questioning what’s next. With lively and forensic research, clarity of thought and a passion for keeping clubbing’s resilient spirit alive, Out of Space is less of a commemoration and more of a rallying cry.” – The Face

“Ottewill’s book is tireless in its seeking out of new buzzes in grassroots clubland, LGBT collectives and local scenes, all of them ensuring euphoric highs for future generations of ravers.” – The Wire

“Jim Ottewill lands in Glasgow, South Yorkshire and beyond to write this comprehensive rave chronicle ‘Out of Space’. In an era where nightlife spaces are increasingly endangered, Ottewill posits his record of the past as a pugilistic rallying cry.” – Resident Advisor

“Most importantly, the book goes beyond the four walls of each club to the urban sprawl that surrounds it as we’re taken on a local history tour. The author reminds us that clubs and parties, despite operating on the fringes of society, are an integral part of our culture, and many of us have gone through our own rights of passage, often travelling miles to experience our favourite clubs. Clubs and their supporting infrastructure not only have a heritage worth saving but also one worthy of capturing for posterity in a book – something which Ottewill has done justice to.” – Now Then

“Jim Ottewill’s look into urban rave culture defies expectations.” – The National

Having failed at rapping, what’s next for an endlessly passionate rap nerd? In this sequel to the acclaimed memoir Wiggaz With Attitude, it turns out what’s next is a sometimes controversial career in rap journalism. Write Lines: Adventures in Rap Journalism tells the tale of hip-hop writing from the inside.

From death threats to interviewing Lauryn Hill while she’s in the shower. From calling Jay-Z a c*** to his face, to letting a notorious rapper sleep in his bath, it’s a hilarious, anecdote-studded tale that takes in hip-hop’s first ever magazine and lifts the lid on rivalries, squabbles and how music journalism really works.

Brutally honest, and endlessly opinionated, this story is also a love letter to hip-hop as it changed seismically through the decades. Write Lines charts those changes from the front line through encounters with many of the greats of rap: Chuck D, Missy Elliott, RZA, Eminem, Jazzy Jeff and Gang Starr among them. This is an unfiltered tale of hip-hop that is both heartfelt and scabrously funny.

“With its relatable take on growing up in the 80s, Andrew Emery’s Wiggaz With Attitude marked his card as a vivid memoirist. He might have failed as a wannabe rapper, but the music he loved gained multitudes from his work for Hip-Hop Connection. A pivotal force in the magazine’s 90s/00s heyday, never short of a telling opinion or four, Andrew set a high bar for its other writers to reach. Write Lines is a transportive account of his many travails in that murky world. Packed with eye-watering encounters and witty asides, his compulsive, self-deprecating and brutally honest reflections will resonate widely and change perspectives on rap journalism forever.” - Andy Cowan, HHC Editor & Publisher, author of B-Side: A Flipsided History of Pop.

The previously untold story of British dance music’s first sub-bass revolution, tracing the origins, development, impact and influence of bleep techno, and the subsequent musical styles it inspired, on UK club culture.

Originally published in 2019, it has now been revised, updated and expanded. Errors have been corrected, some chapters have been expanded, analysis has been added and further footnotes have been included to include even more information and citations.

There’s also now an additional ‘Afterword’ chapter that reflects on the story, the author’s journey as a researcher, and changing perspectives around UK dance music history.

"Since the dawn of the 1990s, British dance music has been in thrall to the seductive power of weighty sub-bass. It is a key ingredient in a string of British-pioneered genres, including hardcore, jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, UK garage and grime.

In the Join The Future book, dance music journalist Matt Anniss (Resident Advisor, DJ Magazine, Red Bull Music Academy) traces the roots, origins, development and legacy of the sound that started it all: the first distinctively British form of electronic dance music, bleep techno.

A mixture of social, cultural, musical and oral history, Join The Future reveals the untold stories of bleep’s Yorkshire pioneers and those that came in their wake, moving from electro all-dayers and dub soundsystem clashes of the mid-1980s to the birth of hardcore and jungle in London and the South East.

Along the way, you’ll find first-hand accounts of key clubs and raves, biographies of forgotten and overlooked production pioneers, stories of bleep outposts in Canada and the United States, and the inside story of the early years of one of electronic music’s most iconic labels, Warp Records.

Based on five years of research and hundreds of hours of new interviews, the book is a radical alternative history of the rise of British dance music during the late 80s and early 90s.

Join The Future is also available as a compilation album.

Quotes

“This was a vital creative era in British electronic music that deserved deeper exploration, so Matt Anniss’ history of ‘bleep and bass’, which sets the sound in the socio-political environment of its time, is a significant addition to the literature of dance culture.”
Matthew Collin, author of ‘Altered State’ and ‘Rave On’

“You wouldn’t have had hardcore had it not been for bleep. If you took bleep out of the equation, Britsh dance music would be completely different.”
Mark Archer, Altern8

“Bleep provided the building blocks of the UK sound that followed – the emotions, the edge, the darkness and the sub-bass. Later generations have taken these elements and done something new, but the fundamentals are still there.”
Neil Landstrumm"

The Radio Phonics Laboratory explores the intersection of technology and creativity that shaped the sonic landscape of the 20th century. This fascinating story unravels the intricate threads of telecommunications, from the invention of the telephone to the advent of global communication networks.

At the heart of the narrative is the evolution of speech synthesis, a groundbreaking innovation that not only revolutionised telecommunications but also birthed a new era in electronic music. Tracing the origins of synthetic speech and its applications in various fields, the book unveils the pivotal role it played in shaping the artistic vision of musicians and sound pioneers.

The Radio Phonics Laboratory by Justin Patrick Moore is the story of how electronic music came to be, told through the lens of the telecommunications scientists and composers who helped give birth to the bleeps and blips that have captured the imagination of musicians and dedicated listeners around the world.

Featuring the likes of Leon Theremin, Hedy Lamarr, Max Matthews, Hal 9000, Robert Moog, Wendy Carlos, Claude Shannon, Halim El-Dabh, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbitt, Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, Edgar Varese & Laurie Spiegel.

Quotes:
“From telegraphy to the airwaves, by way of Hedy Lamarr and Doctor Who, listening to Hal 9000 sing to us whilst a Clockwork Orange unravels the past and present, Moore spirits us on an expansive trip across the twentieth century of sonic discovery. The joys of electrical discovery are unravelled page by page.” Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner

“Embark on an odyssey through the harmonious realms of Justin Patrick Moore’s Radio Phonics Laboratory echoing the resonances of innovation and discovery. Witness the mesmerising fusion of telecommunications and musical evolution as it weaves a sonic tapestry, a testament to the boundless creativity within the electronic realm. A compelling pilgrimage for those attuned to the avant-garde rhythms of technological alchemy.” Nigel Ayers (Nocturnal Emissions)

“In this captivating exploration of electronic music, Justin Patrick Moore unveils its evolution as guided by telecommunication technology, spotlighting the enigmatic laboratories of early experimenters who shaped the sound of 20th century music. A must-read for electronic musicians & sound artists alike—this book will undoubtedly find a prominent place on their bookshelves.” Kim Cascone

For the biggest artists to the most underground, field recordings have become the vital spark of electronic music. Whether documenting nature, sampling the city or capturing the atmosphere of archaeological sites, musicians are using found sounds to make sense of our world. Ears To The Ground explores the relationship between electronics, landscape and field recordings in the UK, Ireland and around the globe, discovering how producers and artists evoke the natural world, history and folklore through sampled sounds.

From the cacophonous surrounds of London to the sea stacks of Orkney, via the abandoned military facilities of the Suffolk coast and the watery expanses of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, from the quarries and neolithic sites of Snowdonia and the wide open skies of Norfolk to the hubbub of Nairobi and Berlin, the streets of Kyiv and the windblown wilds of Antarctica – music is everywhere. You just need to know or learn how to listen.

Ears To The Ground: Adventures in Field Recording and Electronic Music explores how electronic music producers and sound artists use field recordings and samples to document their environments. Author Ben Murphy takes you on a journey to discover how field recordings can create context, emotion, atmosphere, humour and meaning – and examine the most pressing topics of our times.

Composed of extensive interviews with music producers, the book will show how field recordings have become a vital way of understanding, celebrating and interrogating the landscape and the places we live. The book features interviews with Leafcutter John, KMRU, Ultramarine, Kate Carr, Erland Cooper, Proc Fiskal, Flora Yin-Wong, Langham Research Centre, Claire Guerin, Toshiya Tsunoda, Lawrence English, Heinali, Oliver Ho, Matthew Herbert, Matmos, Scanner, Felicia Atkinson and many more.

On its journey, the book takes in abandoned military test sites, remote bird colonies, estuaries, cities, coastlines, old quarries, neolithic burial grounds, scientific research centres and docklands, and ventures between Orkney, Edinburgh and Cork to Norfolk, Kent and Snowdonia, before heading to Kenya, Ukraine, Japan and Antarctica

Quotes:
“Recording or celebrating ‘place’ in art and music feels increasingly relevant, as our environment faces more serious threats than ever before, and Ears To The Ground is a timely examination of this development.” Ultramarine

Join the author as he journeys back to those mutant rockin’, venue wreckin’, snakebite sodden days of the Psychobilly/neo-Rockabilly scene of the 80’s. His fanzine ‘The Crazed’ was right there, reporting on the scene as it grew and writing about bands such as The Meteors, GuanaBatz, Demented Are Go, King Kurt, Long Tall Texans and Restless.

Travel back through those articles and interviews and revisit the experience. Enjoy noisy nights at The Klub Foot, mecca of all things Psychobilly, where many of these interviews were conducted after sweaty gigs. Read the bands own words, full of enthusiasm, excitement and optimism about what the future might hold, and discover what it was like to produce and edit a fanzine back then.

The scene meant so much to so many and ‘The Crazed’ was there to document it. This book recaptures how it felt at the time. After lying dormant for over 30 years ‘The Crazed’ has now been resurrected.

Foreword by Craig ‘Bracko’ Brackenridge of Vintage Rock magazine. Klub Foot cover art by Paskal Millet.

Let the Music Play: How R&B Fell in Love with 80s Synths is the overlooked story of how R&B, disco and funk were transformed by the explosion of music tech in the era of ghetto blasters and Ronald Reagan. It traces how pioneers like Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock inspired a new generation of black musicians and producers to reinvent music with a whole new set of rules.

From superstars like Prince and Sade to production geniuses like Kashif and Jam & Lewis, it tells the fascinating stories of the artists involved and how they made some of the best-loved records of the era – creating a blueprint for music today.

The Impossible Dream – Smart Books for musical Minds! The Walker Brothers were the US counter-strike to the British invasion of the mid-60s. While The Beatles, the Stones and many others were busy colonising the US charts, three tall, handsome American men went into voluntary exile in a freezing London bedsit and launched their quest for pop stardom.

Not actually brothers, John (Maus), Gary (Leeds) and Scott (Engel) succeeded against the odds, becoming one of world’s biggest bands of 1966/67. With that came hit records – including two British chart-toppers, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ – and all that success entails: screaming girls, package tours, and intense interest in their private lives. The pressure of success eventually caused them to split, and the Walkers went their separate ways. Of the three, Scott is now the most prominent, having embarked on a mysterious solo career that has since become the stuff of myth, but Gary and John have recorded varied and interesting work, too. All three drifted into obscurity before reforming in 1976 and releasing the classic ‘No Regrets’ single. They concluded their recording career with one of the decade’s most influential records, 1978’s Nite Flights, about which Brian Eno recently exclaimed: “We haven’t got any further than this. It’s a disgrace.”

The Impossible Dream is an in-depth biography that traces the career of one of the most successful bands in pop history. In addition to assessing and analysing the talent and appeal of the enigmatic Scott, the author also covers the history and contributions of the other ‘brothers’, John and Gary, and provides a thorough analysis of all three men’s careers both as individual artists and as a group, from 1963 to 1978.

Drawing on decades of archive interviews with the band (some previously unpublished), and many new interviews with backing musicians, record label staff and producers, The Impossible Dream is the definitive telling of The Walker Brothers’ story.

Anthony Reynolds is a musician and a writer. He has released eight critically acclaimed albums, the first of which, contributed essays and critiques to many US and UK magazines, and has published a biography of Jeff Buckley.

To Live is to Die — The Life And Death Of Metallica’s Cliff Burton This is the revised and updated new edition. Metallica, the seventh-biggest recording act in American history, are consummate musicians—but it wasn’t always that way. A significant proportion of their playing expertise was acquired from a pivotal three-year period in their history—1983 to 1986—during which their music, a potent variant of thrash metal, evolved from garage level to sophisticated, progressive heights thanks to the teachings of their bass player, Cliff Burton.

Touched by Grace – My time with Jeff Buckley Touched By Grace is an up-close-and personal account by the legendary guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas of the time he spent with his friend and collaborator, Jeff Buckley, during Jeff ’s early days in New York City. It describes their magical performance together at the Greetings From Tim Buckley concert at the Church of St Ann in 1991—the event that first introduced Jeff to the world at large; the creation of their songs ‘Mojo Pin’ and ‘Grace,’ which started life as guitar instrumentals by Gary and would later become integral to Jeff ’s debut album, Grace; and their plan to take on the world together in Gary’s band Gods & Monsters. Just as the band was set to soar, however, Jeff pulled the plug, opting instead to sign a solo deal with Columbia Records—the very label that had recently cut short its recording contract with the original incarnation of Gods & Monsters.

Gary Lucas (www.garylucas.com) is a world-class guitarist and Grammy-nominated songwriter. Dubbed “the greatest living electric guitarist” by Daniel Levitin, author of This Is Your Brain In Music, Lucas has recorded more than 20 acclaimed solo albums spanning everything from psychedelic rock to Chinese pop. He was a key member of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band during the 80s, and is currently working on a variety of new projects, including a collaboration with Van der Graaf Generator front man Peter Hammill.

Tragedy – The Ballad Of The Bee Gees The rise and fall of the brothers Gibb—Barry, Robin, Maurice, and younger brother Andy—is perhaps the greatest saga in Australian music history. Although the Bee Gees enjoyed several rebirths in a career that spanned many decades, it seemed that tragedy followed the Gibbs like a curse. For every incredible career high there was a hefty personal downside: divorce, drunkenness, and death seemed as synonymous with the Gibbs as falsetto harmonies, flares, and multi-platinum record sales.

Moby Grape are a genuine cult phenomenon. Their story, a mixture of myth and truth, is a cautionary tale, a triumph, and a tragedy all at once. Though they are seen as a symbol of 1960s San Francisco, Moby Grape were never actually a part of the city’s counterculture movement. Yet they were immersed in it, sharing stages with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and many more. Moby Grape’s five members came together from very different backgrounds, bursting onto the San Francisco scene in the fall of 1966. With their diverse pedigree, they were nothing less than musical alchemists, yet they were also rebels. Their blending of genres within a tight songwriting framework contrasted sharply with that of many of their SF peers.

Moby Grape heralded by countless luminaries of rock music and rock criticism, from Robert Plant to Robert Christgau, Tom Waits to Greil Marcus.

This edition includes an essay about the essence of improvisation by Joan La Barbara, Lee Gamble looking at
neural networks and vocal simulation systems, an untitled anecdote from Ghédalia Tazartès (RIP) and Stine
Janvin on the necessity of singing, plus much more.
“The voice is everywhere, infiltrating everything, making civilisation, marking out territories with infinite
borders, spreading from the farthest reaches to the most intimate spaces. It can be neither reduced nor
summarised. And accordingly, when taken as a theme, the voice is inexhaustible, even when seen in the light
of its very particular relation with the sonic or the musical, as is the case in most of the texts collected in this
volume. There is no point therefore in trying to circumscribe or amalgamate the multiple avatars of the voice.
We must rather try to apprehend what the voice can do, to envisage its landscape, its potential effects.”
—Extract from the editors’ forwords

Written by Spiral Tribe’s co-founder and visual artist, Mark Angelo Harrison, A Darker Electricity charts the infamous sound system’s nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity – and notoriety.

From small squat-scene parties in early 90s London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. The undercover police operation against them. The record deal with Youth. The creation of their community recording studio. The government stitch-up and their prosecution. The escape to Europe and the start of the teknival scene.

Written by veteran journalist Shawn Reynaldo, First Floor is a weekly newsletter that focuses on electronic music, along with the culture and industry that surround it. Over the course of just a few years, it’s become one of electronic music’s most influential platforms, routinely putting many of the genre’s thorniest issues under the microscope while reckoning with changes in the culture during a time of profound transformation.

A collection of Reynaldo’s most thought-provoking essays, First Floor Volume 1 provides a nuanced, wide-ranging look at contemporary electronic music culture, with a particular focus on systemic issues that often go undiscussed.

Topics covered included the evolving nature of electronic music fandom and artistry, value shifts brought on by the current changing of the generational guard, the shortcomings of the modern music press and the growing gap between electronic music’s foundational rhetoric and the genre’s present-day norms.

Incorporating both pieces originally published in the newsletter (all of which have been updated) and exclusive new material from Reynaldo himself, the book also features a foreword by veteran artist and 3024 label founder Martyn.

In 1972, the rock’n’roll messiah Ziggy Stardust was born. His provocative play on sexual identity and gender roles laid the foundation for David Bowie’s ascent to becoming one of the most successful pop musicians of all time. Reinhard Kleist’s Starman weaves the gripping tale of this outrageous character’s genesis, rise, and fall, as well as of David Bowie’s hapless efforts in the London music scene before Ziggy’s arrival, and of the struggles he experienced with his own creation at the height of his fame. As Bowie transforms himself, ever more frenetically, into the egocentric rock star he first conceived, the extravagant lifestyle he had only ever imagined threatens to engulf him, and bring everything down before his eyes… [This publication has not been prepared, approved, authorized or licensed by the David Bowie estate or any related entity.

Phill Savidge orchestrated the Britpop assizes, all the while coming on like a cross between Jean Baudrillard and Eva Peron. You will laugh until your septum falls out. Luke Haines, author of Bad Vibes: Britpop & My Part In Its Downfall

As co-founder and head of legendary public relations company Savage & Best, Phill Savidge is widely credited as being the main instigator of the Britpop musical movement that swept the UK in the mid 1990s. During this period, Savidge won four PR awards and, together with Savage & Best, represented most of the artists associated with the scene – including Suede, Pulp, The Verve, Elastica, Longpigs, Kula Shaker, ­Spiritualized, Menswear, ­Marion, Ultrasound, Echo­belly, The Auteurs, and Black Box Recorder – and had the kind of fun that is now banned by the Proper Job Authorities.

Shredders! – The Oral History of Speed Guitar (and more)
“How fast can you play?”
“What guitar do you have?”
“Who is better, Van Halen or Steve Vai?”

For metal fans in the 80’s these where commonand important questions. Tune in to MTV, pick up a magazine, or walk into an instrument store, and more than often you’d be exposed to what is now known as shredding – the fast, virtuoso soloing popularized by musicians like Vai and Van Halen, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads and Dimebag Darrell.

Drawing on more than seventy exclusive interviews with key shredders past and present, author and guitarist Greg Prato has assembled the definite guide to the fasted players of them all.

“Well, one person’s shred is another person’s slow hand …”
— GEORGE LYNCH

Als Punk etwa im Jahr 1980 in der DDR ankam, verunsicherte er nicht nur die sogenannten Staatsorgane, auch die Spießer und Biedermänner, die bekanntlich im Osten die Mehrheit stellten, liefen Amok. Bereits optisch als Provokation gewollt und verstanden, bildete sich in einigen Zentren eine ganze Gegenkultur samt Lifestyle und Musik heraus, der es um Freiräume und Freiheit ging. Und genau wie Punk in der DDR eine von Stadt zu Stadt, von Kaff zu Kaff ganz unterschiedliche Szene jeweils mit ganz eigenen Protagonist:innen und Eigenheiten war, zeichnet sich dieser Sammelband durch Vielstimmigkeit aus, Stories stehen neben Anekdoten, sachliche Analysen neben ganz persönlichen Reflektionen. "Punk in der Ddr" versteht sich als eine Zeitklammer, die möglichst viel von dem wiedergeben will, was für zehn Jahre in diesem anderen deutschen Staat für zumindest etwas Farbe und Esprit sorgte. Mit Texten von Cornelia Schleime, Franziska Hause, Jan Müller, Anne Hahn, Tim Mohr, Alexander Pehlemann, Jan Off, Roland Galenza, Jochen Schmidt, Peter Wawerzinek, Heinz Havemeister, Iron Hennig und vielen anderen mehr. Einige der hier versammelten Texte sind bereits in vergriffenen Publikationen erschienen, einige wurden extra für dieses Buch verfasst. Gemeinsam ist ihnen allen, dass sie möglichst viel von der Lebenswirklichkeit made in GDR abbilden, die in die Geschichte einging. Broschur, mit Abbildungen ca. 264 Seiten

Vier Männer müssen eine Band gründen. Deshalb begeben sie sich aufs Land in Meeresnahe. Sie wollen dort in mehrtägigen Sessions gemeinsam Songs erarbeiten. Durch Umwelteinflusse (Wetter, Unterkunft, Küche, Wald und Tiere) entsteht etwas: Es ist unvorhergesehene Musik. Jeder der vier schreibt währenddessen heimlich eine Art Tagebuch, um die unerträglichen Spannungen im Bandgefüge abzuleiten. Das Buch versammelt diese illustrierten Aufzeichnungen. Eine absurde Welt, beherrscht von größenwahnsinnigen wie liebevollen Figuren. Es passiert viel, sogar unerklärliches. Doch lasst sich die Erde das alles gefallen?