Reynolds on planet-mu
- Thread starter wonk_vitesse
- Start date
Great reply and post, I love it for all the reason you don't
I would add though "Surripere" (the long one off Draft 7.30) is a great tune...
Also on re-reading "Energy Flash" over Christmas Reynolds' recent turn around towards nostalgia for what he was then terming "Art tekno" is really quite amusing. Whilst I understand the central argument of that text (that the forward motion was always when drugs+Scene not genius+interesting class dynamics+rave inclusivity not club exclusivity='ardkore) and that therefore there was never "enough at stake" in abstract home-listening Electronica, in a sense he missed the point by shoehorning this genre into his narrative structure, where ideologically it simply doesn't fit (and is therefore necessarily ultimately rejected). I'm obviously thinking here more of Autechre (who are summarily dismissed as being "cold and inhuman" by Reynolds in a staggering failure of imagination where elsewhere he finds whole universes of potential meaning in the similarly inhuman contortions of 'Ardkore....) than the more obviously "proper dance"-parasitic artists like Squarepusher.
I might find this especially curious as much of the rave cultural dynamics are totally inaccessible to me (ie- the synaesthesic/corporeal response to drugs+music- no drug I have ever tried has altered my perceptions of music in the slightest, sad to say, and nothing makes me want to dance less than drugs) (and the becoming-machine of the rave crowd itself, I can never let go of my self enough to submit to that intersubjective experience).
Last edited:
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Never really read Energy Flash, just kinda dipped into it but when X went mass it did give a glimmer of hope but all the hippy trappings and all the old hippies came back out to cash in. It was never going to make any difference because everybody just went back to work on Monday.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Really, I've just skimmed the bit about Detroit techno and put it back down again, he rights it off after the first paragraph, what a douche and now I remember why I've never read the rest.
Narco did play a big part of the escapism from the 9 to 5, I remember the factory I was working in at the time was pretty jumping on Friday afternoons as we'd all be heading out that night but I figured that would never to be the answer, in a way I'm glad we got closed down during the miners strike. That struggle brought home to me how fucked up and fucked over the working class are and any glimmer of joy from X wasn't going to change anything because 99.9% of people learnt nothing from it.
It does seem like a very ideological text, written entirely from the perspective of a rave/'ardkore true believer, and any other scene (especially Electronica, Detroit techno etc) that decries drugs or communal experience is pretty much rejected (though with the inevitable caveat that "of course their are some excellent records, but...")
Yeah, exactly right, if drugs are taken as a metaphor then they could be politically powerful as a tool, but they are merely (inevitably perhaps for most people) used to either better fit in with Capitalism's timetables, or else as a way of escaping from society at large all together, neither of which are productive of course.
Yeah, exactly right, if drugs are taken as a metaphor then they could be politically powerful as a tool, but they are merely (inevitably perhaps for most people) used to either better fit in with Capitalism's timetables, or else as a way of escaping from society at large all together, neither of which are productive of course.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
It reads to me like someone who is only visiting for the weekend, I mean Chem Bros as a punk explosion FFS - there's so much of it that's wrong it's almost good that it's wrong. Most working class people know what taking shit means, regardless of the drugs, so that's why the false utopia never really stuck, plus loads of our crew didn't take drugs of any kind because £25 was 3 weeks worth of strike pay.
I don't mind people taking them to escape, that makes perfect sense to me but it's puzzling why the insight given hasn't changed the framework of anything really. It's one of the reasons I've never suffered dope smokers with their "works in progress" bullshit that goes on and fucking on over the years.
Why do you think it hasn't made any difference Gek?
Because context is all with drug experience I suppose. And if it is presented within consumerism as a leisure option, then that's all it can ever mean without the individual aggressively working towards opposing that. The concept needs to be extracted from the actual sensory experience of it to have some kind of real political charge maybe? I don't know, I mean if we are talking specifically about Ecstasy here then why didn't it usher in some kind of utopian/socialist paradise? Cos perhaps the insight they offered (essentially in their empathogenic functionality) was either not really revelatory, or only confined within the raves/clubs themselves, never leaked out into the everyday?
I mean looked at in the broader context of youth cultures Rave was only the latest in a sequence of para-struggles, politicised only to the extent that it allowed an outlet for energies which would otherwise be channelled towards genuinely dangerous violent political revolution... Reynolds' is good on this aspect actually...
Must add though that I'm about ten years too young (and too into amphetamine-type narcotics and apocalyptic non-utopian rhetoric anyway) to have experienced any of this!
I mean looked at in the broader context of youth cultures Rave was only the latest in a sequence of para-struggles, politicised only to the extent that it allowed an outlet for energies which would otherwise be channelled towards genuinely dangerous violent political revolution... Reynolds' is good on this aspect actually...
Must add though that I'm about ten years too young (and too into amphetamine-type narcotics and apocalyptic non-utopian rhetoric anyway) to have experienced any of this!
Last edited:
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Maybe I'm being too harsh on Simon, I'll have another look and reply after tea
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
It's better than most but it isn't a classic, that book on rave has yet to be written.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Sorry to butt in on this one-on-one conversation here, but I have to take issue with this, Gek: why should something have to be 'productive' in order to be worthwhile? Isn't that an inherently rather capitalistic way of viewing things?
Well it has a value Mr Tea, just not one that is productive of the end result we were talking about (genuine social revolution). So its "nice", its "pleasant", its "enjoyable". All of which are irrelevant outside of the central nervous systems of those experiencing those "nice", "pleasant", "enjoyable" experiences. That is all. Except that in being an effective leisure pursuit it performs a function which serves to buttress the current social system.
Last edited:
Just reading Energy Flash for the first time actually, nearing the end, and this highlights what I think frustrates me most about the book... one of the central arguments seems to be that exclusion through the erection of barriers is the key factor which renders certain music and scenes ultimately irrelevant and perhaps even 'invalid' (?), yet through various arguments he essentially renders rave (and thus relevance and validity through electronic / dance music) an exclusory field, the province of those who live, experience and create through the ideal which he articulates.
I've been enjoying the book a lot though, he's so evocative, and amazingly insightful. It has made me consider some things in new ways, which is exciting. Just into 'In Our Angelhood' and its great. I would agree with you Gek in that given that ecstacy and ecstatic communion are (at least nowadays, I can't really speak for back then) presented and represented as options / 'lifestyle choices' / commodities within a world of 'consumer choice', it is almost inevitable that it is assimilated within the given structures. Further there is so much inherited 'wisdom' and pressure for individuals to devalue and denigrate their experiences... context as you say is everything. Either way, most people I know do not transpose the understanding that they seemingly garner from it in the moment to their modes of understanding and perception of 'reality' in the everyday. Gek I'm amazed and intrigued that you have never had your perception of music or sound altered by drugs!
Actually that was a mild exaggeration. Nutmeg (!) made me synaethesically "image" music wildly. Everything else merely had no effect, or made music inaudible, or removed my attention entirely away from it. But that's not necessarily a problem, music itself should be the perception-twisting drug (which is partly what Reynolds' argues of course).
An element of his writing style with "Energy Flash" and "Rip It Up And Start Again" is to think the whole thing in terms of ideology, that of the archetypal raver/post punker, or rather that ideology which can be extracted from the posturing of the music itself. Its just that it made a lot more sense in the post punk book than with rave where it seemed like a artificially limiting position, or some kind of identification with a fetishised other which does not exist, a kind of hallucination in a sense.
Of course a fundamental argument might be that revolt within the pleasure principle offered by consumerism (even the "extreme" consumerism of narco-centric youth cultures) is always going to be intrinsically limited , crippled, contained. But you could trace the edges of what it offers (the escape from Thatcherite isolated individualism) and map that onto some new project. But the problem is the pleasure itself I think.
An element of his writing style with "Energy Flash" and "Rip It Up And Start Again" is to think the whole thing in terms of ideology, that of the archetypal raver/post punker, or rather that ideology which can be extracted from the posturing of the music itself. Its just that it made a lot more sense in the post punk book than with rave where it seemed like a artificially limiting position, or some kind of identification with a fetishised other which does not exist, a kind of hallucination in a sense.
Of course a fundamental argument might be that revolt within the pleasure principle offered by consumerism (even the "extreme" consumerism of narco-centric youth cultures) is always going to be intrinsically limited , crippled, contained. But you could trace the edges of what it offers (the escape from Thatcherite isolated individualism) and map that onto some new project. But the problem is the pleasure itself I think.
Last edited:
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
You know, I think under the right circumstances MDMA could be (or could have been) the drug most conducive to a genuinely constructive social revolution. I have wondered if the counterculture of the '60s might have achieved more (of the sorts of things it was supposed to achieve) if ecstasy had been widely available at the time. Compare it to other drugs widely used then (and now): weed can help people get big ideas, but isn't great motivator when it comes to actually doing stuff; acid/mushrooms etc. are just too bewildering and overpowering for a lot of people; heroin tends to stop people being interested in much else besides acquiring more heroin and ego-bolstering drugs like speed and coke (and alcohol) are obviously a complete non-starter.
bassnation
the abyss
thats a very cynical view. people have had and continue to have very deep connected experiences on mdma. it depends on the person, their surroundings etc. its simply a conduit and not a means to itself, that gives back in some ways what you put into it. if you come with boredom and a feeling of jadedness (is that a word?) then its no suprise when it fails to deliver. in short, it is entirely subjective - and you can't escape yourself, unless you want to lose your mind and become a space cadet. i still have faith, and mdma still means something to me, even if i don't take it anymore.
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
I think what Martin said about not being able to afford 25 quid is a good one, for us, back then, ecstasy was a rich person's drug, raves were for People Who Worked. I never did X til I got to New York, it was too pricey in the UK. We put on squat stuff, free parties, which were good but I think separate to what's being described, squats were always part of a utopian desire. What raves did for me was change the entire economics of going out - from max 5 quid to get in suddenly it was 20 quid to get in, and from a tab being 3 quid, suddenly the drugs were 20 a time. I always thought of raves as being just a way for dealers to make a whole heap of dosh, it wasn't utopia, merely a symptom of Thatcherite policies; in order to be able to do the drug and afford the raves you had to deal to all your friends, Thatcherite policies infecting interpersonal relationships.
Last edited:
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
I've had a another good read and perhaps I was being a bit harsh but I'm not that keen of the writing style but figure that it's pretty impossible to write a book like this and please everyone, even Dan Sicko's book left me a bit cold.
As for MDMA bringing about change, on a personal level maybe but I've no idea what it takes to get people angry and sussed these days. It didn't bring much of a sense of community (beyond sweaty hugs) but it was never going to replace the times when everyone worked/lived together - if anything I think it was a kiss goodbye.
As for MDMA bringing about change, on a personal level maybe but I've no idea what it takes to get people angry and sussed these days. It didn't bring much of a sense of community (beyond sweaty hugs) but it was never going to replace the times when everyone worked/lived together - if anything I think it was a kiss goodbye.
MDMA is a deeply sinister drug precisely because of what it seems to offer, and the gap between that utopian feeling and the actuality of its effect within society as a whole. Within its current context it has no revolutionary potential, because it offers utopia, or the feeling of utopia, in a readily consumable form. It doesn't require any hard work or achievement to bosh a couple of pills does it...?