A new dance culture book has just been released, called Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture.
Written by Jim Ottewill, the book explores how electronic music has previously thrived across UK towns & cities – in places like Glasgow, Manchester and Sheffield, etc. – and how the scene might evolve based on modern-day challenges.
It also touches on other aspects of dance culture such as pirate radio, music festivals, and sound system culture.
Here’s a snippet from the official blurb:
‘’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.
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.’’
The paperback version of Out of Space: How UK Cities Shaped Rave Culture is available now via Velocity Press, priced at £11.99.
If you’re looking for more dance culture books, check out this post. Header image credit: Mark Angelo Sampan on Pexels.
