Simon Reynolds gives his take on present-day EDM culture

Rave culture veteran Simon Reynolds recently added a new chapter to his 1998 book Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture.

The new chapter covers covers noted growth of the electronic genre in recent times, including dub-step and present-day ravers, and documents a first-hand account of an L.A. rave from 2012 called Hard Summer.

Here is an excerpt from within:

“Yet once I’ve made it through the queues, the ID check and the body-search, Hard Summer still looks an awful lot like a rave. Four stages of different sizes are distributed across a long narrow park abutting the overground subway of LA’s Metro system. Thousands of people are milling back and forth in every direction, many dressed in outlandish outfits midway between a college fancy-dress party and Willy Wonka. Despite the body-search, some kids have managed to smuggle in candy bracelets, LED-flashing pacifiers and light-gloves. I stare mesmerised for a long while at a Latino girl who’s “tutting”—slang for intricate glove-dances done with flickering fingertips. She’s tutting for the benefit of a guy I take to be her boyfriend and who’s clearly “tripping balls.” Blissed by her swirly fractal patterns, he sinks to his knees, looks like he’s about to come. But after the private light show, he gets up and darts off without a word—a total stranger, it turns out.”

You can read an longer excerpt here.

[via the Daily Swarm]