Electronic music non-fiction
By Velocity Press
By Velocity Press
Tim Burgess from The Charlatans recently added an extensive list of music book recommendations to his website. There are some great books well worth checking out but, as usual with these lists, it mostly includes rock titles with a token few on electronic music and club culture. However, it did inspire us to create our own list of recommended electronic music books. We've deliberately excluded all our own books as you can check them all here. If your favourite is missing please write a few sentences about it, send it to us and we'll add it. So, in no particular order, here they are...
The Secret DJ
The Secret DJ
£9.99 £9.29The Secret DJ is an essential exposé into the world of DJing - a true 'warts and all', real-life account from a fine storyteller. If you fancy a taste of what to expect then check out his regular column for Mixmag.
The Second Summer of Love: How Dance Music Took Over the World
Alon Shulman
£16.98 £15.79A bit southern biased in its scope but nonetheless still a good insight into the birth of dance music and club culture in the UK.
Class of '88: Find the warehouse. Lose the hitmen. Pump the beats.
Wayne Anthony
£8.99 £8.36Wayne Anthony co-founded the legendary Genesis raves and took acid house to the masses. Class Of '88 is a lively, highly individual account of the two years he spent as an illegal party promoter, leading the rave revolution that was sweeping the UK. Would make a great film or TV series.
Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House
Matthew Collin
£12.99 £12.08Love this book for the way it documents how ecstasy impacted music in the latter part of the 20th Century. It also tells a really interesting story about the relationship between drugs, police and youth culture during the 90s, with a discussion of how those running illegal parties were following the Thatcher imperative to become an entrepreneur.
Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
Simon Reynolds
£20.00 £18.60With this weighty tome, Reynolds provided what was arguably the first "proper" in-depth history of electronic/dance music and rave culture. It's not perfect: it's very London-centric and Reynolds has a tendency to somewhat over-intellectualise everything, while his own musical proclivities, prejudices and predilections are writ large throughout. But you'll still struggle to find a better over-arching analysis.
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life (updated): The History of the Disc Jockey
Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster
£10.99 £10.22A tried and tested favourite, and the first book to trace the history of dance music from the perspective of the DJ. Brewster and Broughton were the first to present DJing as an art form in its own right, and emphasis the cultural significance, in this immensely entertaining and down-to-earth book. Also check their The Record Players: DJ Revolutionaries if you can.
Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979
Tim Lawrence
£22.99 £21.38Opening with David Mancuso's "Love Saves the Day" Valentine's party in February 1970, Tim Lawrence tells the story of disco. The definitive history of dance music's early years.
Ocean of Sound: Ambient sound and radical listening in the age of communication
David Toop
£10.99 £10.22Toop’s exploration of ambient music, in the most general sense and from classical to modern electronica, sits very neatly between being academic and freestyle wandering. This book gives a real sense of why music works, even when it's a bit strange.
All Things Remembered
Goldie
£9.99 £9.29A whirlwind, adrenalin-fuelled celebrity memoir from drum & bass pioneer Goldie. Not to be missed.
Liberation Through Hearing
Richard Russell
£20.00 £18.60The story of XL Recordings, one of the UK's leading independent record labels, told through the life, and in the words of its owner, Richard Russell.
It's a London Thing: How Rare Groove, Acid House and Jungle Remapped the City
Caspar Melville
£15.99It's A London Thing tells the story of the linked black musical scenes in the capital across four decades: from ska, reggae and soul in the 1970s, to rare groove and acid house in the 1980s and jungle and drum & bass in the 1990s, to dubstep and grime of the 2000s.
Rave Art: Flyers, invitations and membership cards
Chelsea Louise Berlin
£16.98 £15.79Rave Art documents the explosion of the rave scene in the late 80s and early 90s, through this collection of flyers, invitations and posters that were collected at the time by the author.
Rave On: Global Adventures in Electronic Dance Music
Matthew Collin
£10.99 £10.22Some 20 years on after Altered State, Matthew Colin examines the various changes dance music and club culture has gone through in the two decades since and ponders where we're at today, looking into things like the rise of Berlin, Europe's enduring 'Teknival' scene and the corporate takeover of EDM culture in the United States.
How To DJ (Properly): The Art And Science Of Playing Records
Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton
£20.00 £18.60The pair that brought us the definitive history of DJ culture (see Last Night A DJ Saved My Life, above) followed it up with the definitive guide to DJing itself. From how to balance a tonearm to dealing with snooty record shop staff, from basic beatmatching to advanced scratching skillz, it's all here. Worth noting, too, that the 20-year-old book addresses the currently hot topic of gender equality in dance culture - which highlights just how slow progress has been in that regard.
Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime
Dan Hancox
£9.99 £9.29As well it being a complete history of grime, complete with interviews with the important players, Dan Hancox also delves into the socio-political and psychography of the reason why, and locations that gave birth to the genre.
Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music
David (Associate Editor) Stubbs
£12.99 £12.08David Stubbs charts the evolution of electronic music from the earliest mechanical experiments in the late nineteenth century, through to the familiar sounds of electronica, house and techno that we know today.
The Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club
Peter Hook
£8.99 £8.36Peter Hook played bass in New Order who were co-owners of The Hacienda along with their label, Factory Records. The story of the Hacienda's contribution to the Madchester scene is well documented, this book details the gleeful hedonism with frank admissions of eye-popping commercial ineptitude. Hooky's books on his time in Joy Division and New Order respectively are also worth a look.
Grime Kids: The Inside Story of the Global Grime Takeover
DJ Target
£9.99 £9.29DJ Target is one of grime's pioneers and his book is a great insider account of how the genre evolved.
Discographies: Dance, Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound
Jeremy Gilbert and Ewan Pearson
£95.00More academic than most others in this list, Discographies considers the formal, aesthetic and political characteristics of dance music.
Highflyers: Clubravepartyart
Jon Savage
£16.95 £15.76Originally published in 1996 so it's a bit dated but this was probably the first review of club flyers and includes examples from all the major designers of the time and is introduced with an essay by Jon Savage.
The Underground Is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America
Michaelangelo Matos
£9.99 £9.29The Underground Is Massive is a history of the American electronic dance music underground, viewed through the lens of nineteen parties over thirty years — from the black, gay underground clubs of Chicago and Detroit’s elite teen-party scene through the nineties electronica to today’s EDM-festival juggernaut.
Art Sex Music
Cosey Fanni Tutti
£10.99 £10.22One of the pioneers of industrial and avant-garde electronic music tells her story with brutal honesty in this autobiography. Fanni Tutti certainly pulls no punches, but at the same time manages to be remarkably non-judgemental, and throughout all the mayhem, the music remains centre stage. An enthralling read.
Let Them Eat Chaos: Mercury Prize Shortlisted
Kae Tempest
£9.99 £9.29As anyone who has seen Kate Tempest in concert will testify, she can whip up an electronic storm and lay down a solid groove. This provides the backdrop to her words, of course, and it’s also worth reading them in a poetry form, where they’re just as powerful, but at a different pace.
The Story of The Streets
Mike Skinner
£9.99 £9.29You can always rely on Mike Skinner to tell a good story, and his account of life as The Streets doesn’t disappoint. It’s pure Skinner as it ricochets between eccentric trivia and fascinating insights into the music industry, and you can almost his voice bouncing up from the page. Great fun and perfect for a personal after-party.
Club Cultures and Female Subjectivity: The Move from Home to House
Maria Pini
£107.00This book is so interesting because it focuses on the perspectives of female ravers drawn from in-depth interviews with the author, offering a lot of insight into the motivations and experience of the female punter. This has made me think about the experience of me and my girlfriend ravers today in a lot more depth.
Marshall Jefferson: The Diary of a DJ
Marshall Jefferson
£8.99 £8.36From the US, the legendary Marshall Jefferson analyzes the phenomenal house music movement from the rise of it and his contribution alongside his fellow producers and DJs.
Inner Sound: Altered States of Consciousness in Electronic Music and Audio-Visual Media
Glyn Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Computer Music and Arts Jonathan (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Computer Music and Arts
£79.00Taking a broad view across a wide range of genres, Inner Sound draws connections between shamanic art and music, and the modern technoshamanism of psychedelic rock, electronic dance music, and electroacoustic music. While academically rigorous and formal, it's a captivating read full of insight which offered me many a-ha moments, putting large blocks of modern culture into a more timeless perspective.
