Energy Flash

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Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
Energy Flash.jpg
Author Simon Reynolds
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Genre Music
Publisher Faber & Faber (UK)
Publication date
1998
Pages816
ISBN 0571289142

Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture is a book by English music journalist Simon Reynolds which chronicles the development of dance and rave music from the mid 1980s to the early 2000s. The book was published in the United States under the title Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture.

Contents

The book was originally published in 1998, with the American edition following in 1999. An updated edition was published in 2008 and again in 2013 which charted the rise of dubstep and the popularity of EDM in America. [1]

Book Chapters

Chapter 1

In the book's first chapter, titled "A Tale of Three Cities: Detroit Techno, Chicago House, and New York Garage," Reynolds demonstrates the emergence of electronic music, looking specifically at the cities of Detroit, Chicago, and New York, all three of which were key to the development of this dance-focused genre. In Detroit, both the industrial (past) and post-industrial (present) milieu led emerging DJs to play around with mechanical, futuristic, and technological sounds, having also been inspired by the proliferation of science-fiction media, leading to the creation of Techno. In Chicago, House was characterized by repetitive beats, drum machines, and synthesizers, which were heavily used by DJs to create new, exciting sounds for the city’s underground gay club scene, which demanded sonic innovation as the Disco era waned (although as stated in the reading, never really died). Lastly, in New York, the emergence of the Garage music genre was pushed forward in clubs such as Paradise Garage (from where the genre gets its name). While electronic beats were still thoroughly used, Garage also emphasized the use of R&B and Soul female vocals, adhering to a more traditional musical style as opposed to House and Techno [2] .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drum and bass</span> Type of electronic music

Drum and bass is a genre of electronic dance music characterised by fast breakbeats with heavy bass and sub-bass lines, samples, and synthesizers. The genre grew out of the UK's jungle scene in the 1990s.

House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute as a re-emergence of 1970's disco. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s, and as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.

Breakbeat hardcore is a music genre that spawned from the UK rave scene during the early 1990s. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In addition to the inclusion of breakbeats, the genre also features shuffled drum machine patterns, hoover, and other noises originating from new beat and Belgian techno, sounds from acid house and bleep techno, and often upbeat house piano riffs and vocals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rave</span> Dance party

A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.

Illbient is a genre of electronic music and an art movement that originated among hip hop-influenced experimental musicians from New York City in the early 1990s. The word "illbient" combines the hip hop slang term "ill" and "ambient"; DJ Olive and DJ Spooky, pioneers of the genre, have claimed to have coined the term.

Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter, Drexciya, Mike Banks, James Pennington and Robert Hood. Artists like Terrence Parker and his lead vocalist, Nicole Gregory, set the tone for Detroit's piano techno house sound.

Jungle is a genre of dance music that developed out of the UK rave scene and sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies, and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.

Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.

Ambient techno is a subgenre of techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The Future Sound of London, the Black Dog, Pete Namlook and Biosphere.

Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s.

Hardcore is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorted sawtooth kick, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.

Techstep is a dark subgenre of drum and bass that was created in the mid-1990s.

Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of North American and European house music of the late 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Reynolds</span> English music critic (born 1963)

Simon Reynolds is an English music journalist and author who began his career at the Melody Maker in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture.

Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.

New beat is a Belgian electronic dance music genre that fuses elements of new wave, hi-NRG, EBM and hip hop. It flourished in Western Europe during the late-1980s.

Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 125–135 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, and Deadmau5.

Bleep techno is a regional subgenre of techno which developed in the late 1980s in Northern England, specifically Yorkshire. Named after its minimalistic synthesizer sounds, bleep techno combined influence from American techno and house with electro elements and heavy sub-bass inspired by reggae sound system culture. The style was commercially successful between 1989 and 1991, and became associated with artists on the Sheffield label Warp Records. It has been characterized as the first uniquely British style of electronic dance music.

Belgian hardcore techno is an early style of hardcore techno that emerged from new beat as EBM and techno influences became more prevalent in this genre. This particular style has been described as an "apocalyptic, almost Wagnerian, bombastic techno", due to its use of dramatic orchestral stabs and menacing synth tones that set it apart from earlier forms of electronic dance music. It flourished in Belgium and influenced the sound of early hardcore from Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK and North America during the early-1990s, as a part of the rave movement during that period.

References

  1. "Simon Reynolds announces expanded edition of landmark rave history Energy Flash". FactMag.com. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  2. Reynolds, Simon. Energy Flash: A Journey through Rave Music and Dance Culture. New and Revised edition., Faber & Faber, 2013.