Search "two+fingers+stunt+rhythms" 74 Items

»Here In, Absence« is the result of the dialogue between the Finnish photographer Mikael Siirilä and ambient artists The Humble Bee & Offthesky. Mikael Siirilä describes himself as a darkroom artist based in Helsinki, Finland. »My small individual photographs examine the themes of absence, presence and outsiderhood. My characters appear immersed in their inner worlds and moments of being: simultaneously absent and intensely present.«

Following the success of The Ultimate Sneaker Book and SOLED OUT, Sneaker Freaker are set to release a new 752-page title published with TASCHEN. The newest book, World’s Greatest Sneaker Collectors, is a journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of footwear aficionados. From Tokyo to New York via London Philadelphia, Melbourne and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned.

Simon "Woody" Wood, founder and editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, has spent the last two decades analyzing the global cult of footwear fanatics. That experience directly inspired World's Greatest Sneaker Collectors, a stonking 752-page journey into the priceless stockpiles and obsessive minds of prominent aficionados.From Tokyo to New York, via London, Philadelphia, Melbourne, and Stjørdal, no crumbled midsole is left unturned as over 2,500 vintage classics, unique athlete SMUs, unobtainable samples, handmade 1-of-1 prototypes, stratospherically priced colabs, and Player Exclusives and game-worn Jordans with multi-million-dollar price tags are lauded with gusto. The endless quest for "Holy Grails" is both blessing and curse as our collectors fiend, scheme, and dream of "the one" shoe they don't yet own! Luxuriously photographed profiles are augmented with a series of informative "How-to" guides stuffed with pro tips on sneaker photography, storage, insurance, cleaning, and avoiding the counterfeit curse. The expertise is priceless. The stories will entertain for days as we seek out the fundamentals of what it means, and takes, to define yourself as a "true collector."

HoZac Books is proud to present The White Label Promo Preservation Society: 100 Flop Albums You Ought to Know, written and compiled by Sal Maida and Mitchell Cohen, who have recruited for their “society” a gang of esteemed music obsessives: musicians, label executives, and journalists who chose favorite albums from the 1960s and 1970s to rave about and expound upon. The only criterion was that the albums never made the top 100 on Billboard’s LP Top 200 (although in a few cases, they did quite well on the R&B or country chart). The selection ranges from east coast vocal-group harmony to punk and metal, from superstars like The Who and the Beach Boys to virtual unknowns. As Sal and Mitchell write in the book’s introduction, “These are the albums you might not read about, except here. No one needs to tell you why Pet Sounds, Revolver or Blonde On Blonde are essential parts of any decent record collection, or guide you towards classics – or even somewhat lesser efforts – by the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry or the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Or which Pink Floyd album is indispensable (hint: the debut; you can stop right there). Although we have strong opinions about pantheon artists like Led Zeppelin and Marvin Gaye, and are happy to share those views with anyone in earshot, that isn’t what this book is about. We aren’t here to challenge or endorse rock orthodoxy. Neither is the mission to, once again, assert the brilliance of Skip Spence’s Oar, of such artists as Nick Drake, Big Star, and the Velvet Underground, whose influence, despite the lack of any commercial success in their time, has been thoroughly – one might even say exhaustively – documented elsewhere.” To tell help this story, Sal and Mitchell called on an impressive team of guest essayists: Lenny Kaye, Russ Titelman, Amy Rigby, Brian Koppelman, Dennis Diken, Bebe Buell, Jim Farber, Susan Whitall, Steve Shelley, Phil King, Ira Robbins, Billy Altman, Marshall Crenshaw, Peter Holsapple, Wreckless Eric, Peter Keepnews, Miriam Linna, Joe McEwen, and a cast of dozens.

Super Sharp Shooter is a carefully curated selection of over 700 images from event photographer Sarah Ginn’s extensive archives, many never before seen. Spanning drum & bass, dubstep, house and techno, the book showcases festivals, clubs, press shots and record covers, providing an unsurpassed document of electronic music in a colourful and dazzling celebration of beats and bass.

It’s a deluxe coffee table book: 480 pages in full colour on heavyweight 150 gsm paper.

After picking up a camera in 2006 to shoot events at London superclub Fabric, Sarah Ginn started her journey of documenting the dance music scene. With exclusive, behind-the-scenes access at the likes of Fabric, Ultra Festival, Boomtown, Glastonbury, Outlook, Printworks, Creamfields and Hospitality, Sarah captured the sights of UK rave and dance culture in the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.

Super Sharp Shooter is a carefully curated selection of over 800 photographs from Sarah’s extensive archives, many never before seen. Spanning drum & bass, dubstep, house and techno, the book showcases festivals, clubs, press shots and record covers, providing an unsurpassed document of electronic music in a colourful celebration of beats and bass.

This deluxe book features artists like Andy C, Skream, Chase & Status, Shy FX, Carl Cox, Fatboy Slim, Goldie, Chemical Brothers, Jon Hopkins, Sub Focus, DJ Zinc, Ben UFO, Craig Richards, Erol Alkan, Miss Kitten, Dusky and many more. Also contained is Sarah’s essay,

The Feedback Loop Theory. A demonstration of how music affects time and energy and makes it a magic entity. Set in colour order to reflect the visible light spectrum, this gorgeous book is a must-have for all music and photography enthusiasts. It has 480 pages in full colour on heavyweight 150 gsm paper. It's available as a book only and as a bundle with an exclusive A2 poster.

“‘I’m looking forward to publishing this book because these actually are my only memories!Research shows that when you take photos it actually affects the way you remember things. So on that note, I hope you all enjoy my crazy spectral journey into sound, the many sights of the rave and everything in between.” - Sarah Ginn

When Tim from Dagger Zine approached us about his book idea covering long-loved "spaces" held sacred for countless music fans, we knew it was a great project to get behind, Similar in its community effort to our last book release (The White Label Promo Preservation Society), Hinely organized an incredible list of contributors from all stripes of the underground music spectrum, each waxing their own warm recollections of wild nights seeing life-changing bands and/or terrible bathroom experiences. Chock full of photos, original newspaper ads, flyers, and long-lost monthly calendars of the pre-Internet age, Where The Wild Gigs Were illustrates how important these sacred spaces really are, and how much it's noticeable when we can't actually be AT these homes-away-from-home, spread all across the USA. From Stache's in Columbus, OH to Flynn's Ocean 71 in Miami, FL (the 'CBGB's on the beach'), back to The Brewery in Lansing MI (complete with previously unpublished Stooges photos!), to City Gardens in Trenton, NJ (staffed by Comedy Dentral's Jon Stewart) to Peter Aaron's sordid details on the mob-run Jockey Club in Newport, KY, you won't find many dull moments as each page bleeds into the next, oozing with recollections of blurry good times and endless excitement before the world changed, as we know it. Includes a foreword by Byron Coley and an afterword by Tesco VEE. 235 pages, paperback. First edition of 500 copies.

The first ever book of its kind on the history of the artwork of The Residents and their label Ralph Records. The life of Ralph Records and The Residents has always been cloaked in obscure mysteries, woven by the anonymous Cryptic Corporation, around which many luminaries have revolved; painters, graphic artists, cartoonists, musicians, film-makers, and writers. All have been channeled together by a powerful creative synergy that helped champion a new, mercurial and thoroughly multi-faceted artifact. Buy Or Die!, for the very first time, brings together a collection of images that represented the sounds of Ralph from 1972 to the present. A historical journey that traces the path of one of the most innovative record labels of the last fifty years. A collection of original, rare, and remarkable images drawn from record covers, fan catalogs, posters, and a wide variety of promotional material, demonstrating the technological and stylistic adaptations undergone through the arc of half a century.

The extended play recording. Not quite an album. More than a single. And not only an artifact of the vinyl era—the EP has survived and even thrived at every turn of the music industry’s evolution, from vinyl to tape to CD to stream. This definitive book unearths the EP’s origins, history and cultural impact and enlists nearly 50 music-industry veterans (musicians, scribes, producers, executives, superfans) to create a list of the 200 Best EPs ever recorded and shapes these opinions into a book that seeks to trace the arc of the EP’s development and, in so doing, chart the history of the music industry writ large. From Dangerhouse to Touch & Go to Sub Pop to Flying Nun, and all roads in between, savvy labels have used the EP to great effect and its been the way to introduce bands in a less risky mid-sized format for decades. This super-interesting guide shows how the format developed and how it took on a life of its own, from early jazz & rock’n roll through the beat & psychedelic rock era, right on through punk, new wave, and post-punk, and into the alternative/indie rock era, right up to the modern age. This rousing guide through the mid-sized mindset features a huge swath of guest writers galore, each offering up their enthusiastic opinions on which EPs deserve your attention, divided by decade, along with all of their details on long-forgotten B-sides and extras that couldn’t fit on the 7” version, yet easily pad out a 12”. 202 pages, softcover. First edition of 600 copies.

Yo! The Early Days of Hip-Hop 1982-84 is a new book published by Soul Jazz Books/Records that features 300+ pages of stunning photographs documenting the rise of hip hop in the early 1980s, taken by French photographer Sophie Bramly.

Featuring: Fab Five Freddy Futura Afrika Bambaataa Grand Mixer D.ST Beastie Boys Kool Herc Run DMC Cold Crush Brothers Rocksteady Crew Grandmaster Flash and many more!

Introduction BY: Bill Adler

With Additional Text BY: Fab Fab Freddy Grand Mixer D. St Rahiem of The Furious Five Arthur Baker Zephyr Muhamad of The Magnificent Force Lady Pink Mister Freeze of The Rock Steady Crew Patti Astor & Slick Rick

“All these photos speak for a time that is so special, is never coming back and changed the world. It’s pretty much this experience that changed everything for ever. What makes it amazing, is that you hear stories about superheroes that changed the world, and that was us.” Grand Mixer D. St

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Sophie Bramly lived in New York in the early 1980s and became firmly embedded in the emergent scene. The book features many stunning, intimate images of a star-studded roll call of legendary hip hop figures, all of whom were only just getting known or in their ascendency.

These include Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmixer DST, Jazzy Jay, Red Alert, Grandmaster Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, Lisa Lee, the Fat Boys, Run-DMC, Beastie Boys and many more.

Bramly knew that hip hop was becoming a cultural force rather than just a musical fashion, and spent many hours photographing the four essential elements of this new world: the emcees, the deejays, the graffiti artists and the break dancers.

Aside from the musical stars of hip-hop you will also see legendary graffiti artists captured at work and play, such as Keith Haring, Dondi, Futura, Phase One, Zephyr and Lady Pink, and break dancers including members of Magnificent Force, Dynamic Breakers and the Rock Steady Crew

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Sophie Bramly is a French photographer born in 1959. In 1982, she moved from France to New York at age 22 and for two years documented the burgeoning hip-hop scene, taking pictures of everyone from graffiti artists and breakdancers to rappers such as the Beastie Boys and Run-DMC. She returned to France in 1984, bringing a number of US hip-hop artists to Europe and then in 1987 moved to London to host and produce MTV’s first ever hip-hop show, Yo! MTV Raps.

She currently lives in Paris and her work is featured extensively at Hip-Hop 360 a six month long exhibition showing at the prestigious Philarmonie de Paris, France (Dec 21–Aug 22)

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“One of the curious facts about hip-hop’s history is how little photographic documentation exists of the culture’s early years. Come the dawn of the Eighties, a handful of talented photographers finally began to pay attention, most notably Henry Chalfant, Martha Cooper, and Joe Conzo. In retrospect, it’s clear that each of them focused on a particular element or two of the multiform explosion of creativity that came to be called hip-hop. Henry zeroed in on graffiti. Martha devoted herself to graffiti and breakdancing. And the heart of Joe’s work documents the career of the Cold Crush Brothers. Uniquely Sophie Bramly, unlike the others, managed between 1982 and 1984 to put her arms around all four of the hip-hop elements: the emcees, deejays, graffiti artists, and breakdancers.” Bill Adler from the introduction.

Isbn: 978-1-9163598-2-6

Flexibound, 304 pages, Dimensions 224 X 284 mm, Weight 1.75Kg

‘Cuba: Music and Revolution: Original Album Cover Art of Cuban Music: Record Sleeve Designs of Revolutionary Cuba 1959-90 ’ is a stunning new deluxe 250-page large format hardback book compiled and edited by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker (Soul Jazz Records) that features many 100s of stunning and unique Cuban record sleeve designs made since the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959. These album covers have rarely been seen (nor heard) outside of Cuba and show a rich previously hidden history of both music and design.

‘Cuba: Music and Revolution’ is the first ever book about Cuban record sleeve design and has been five years in the making, made in full co-operation with the Cuban government. The record sleeve designs reflect both the rich cultural Latin musical legacy of Cuba, as well as the political and aesthetic influence of revolutionary Communism, which manifests itself both in the music created on the island and the artwork of the designs included here.

Cuban music is the source of much Latin music in the 20th century. Salsa, the all-encompassing Latin music that came out of New York in the 1970s, and soon spread across Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, owes all of its success to the Cuban music on which it is fundamentally based.

These record sleeves help document the dramatic change in Cuba’s identity from that of 1950s tourist paradise to socialist state. Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States imposed a trade embargo which exists to this day, and as a consequence the many 100s of Cuban records featured here have rarely been seen outside of Cuba.

The book is edited and compiled by Gilles Peterson, BBC broadcaster, record label owner, DJ, record collector, founder of Worldwide FM and Stuart Baker, founder of Soul Jazz Records. Together they have edited two earlier critically-acclaimed music and design books ‘Freedom, Rhythm and Sound – Revolutionary Jazz Cover Art 1965-83’ and ‘Bossa Nova and The Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s’.

In conjunction with the deluxe book, Soul Jazz Records will be releasing an album also compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker, charting the rise of Cuban music in the 1970s and featuring many of the artists who appear in this book.

Lennon and McCartney – Together Alone This is the definitive book on the solo recordings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two of popular music’s greatest writers and performers.

The story is told chronologically, starting with their first work outside The Beatles: McCartney’s soundtrack for The Family Way film and Lennon’s Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins with Yoko Ono. The book details Lennon and McCartney’s creative highs and lows in an authoritative, complete, and engagingly critical fashion. Information for collectors includes release dates, catalogue numbers, composer credits, recording personnel, recording studio, and producer credits, and there is a keyed index to help trace each song and the albums it appears on. Blaney’s perceptive style makes this a fascinating read as well as a work of reference, and the book includes illuminating archive quotes from Lennon, McCartney, and others. Together Alone tells the stories behind the songs of two giants of modern music. John Blaney is a passionate fan of The Beatles who brings to his writing the expertise and rigor of a professional historian. Born in Devon, England, he trained as a graphic designer before starting a career in music retail. He subsequently studied History of Art at Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmith College (both in London) before taking up his present post as curator of a museum of technology. He is the author and publisher of previous books on both Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

Recital presents a book and CD homage to the New Zealand-born American composer Annea Lockwood (b. 1939). The unique concept for this album was conceived by artists Noel Meek (New Zealand) and Mattin (Basque Country), who each share a deep admiration for Lockwood. A longform Skype conversation between the three artists was arranged at the end of 2020. They discussed politics, aesthetics, and Annea’s compositional practice among other things. Noel Meek & Mattin had from the beginning decided that the conversation itself would be used as a score for this album, Homage to Annea Lockwood.

“My work is my way of exploring the world” says Lockwood. Each piece on the album reflects her prismatic compositional practice: sound maps, scores that unfold temporally or environmentally, synchronous with nature, and pianos transplanted to exotic locations (often engulfed in flames). Meek & Mattin maintain a playfulness and curiosity of Annea’s sound world; from electronic verbal fizz, a recording of lighting a laptop on fire, hydrophonic diaries from underneath an old oak tree in New Zealand, to a polyphonic choral piece which concludes the album.

Homage to Annea Lockwood is housed in a hand-numbered paperback book, which carries a full transcription of the conversation, in this case… the score, along with lush photographic documentation, and ending with a lovely afterword written by Annea Lockwood. Recital is especially happy to be working with Annea again years later, after publishing her 2014 album Ground of Being (R7, CD). What a joy it is to celebrate Annea, and how appropriate it be done through the ritual of music.

Although some define hardcore as a specific sound, most believe it’s more than that: a set of varying ideas, ethics, principles, attitudes, and yes, music, that converge to form a community. So, what draws people to this underground scene, and why are so many able to find their “home” within its invisible walls? Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound by Brian Peterson provides some answers, but also brings up a whole new set of questions for those who‘ve been drawn to the scene’s political, social, ethical, and spiritual ideas amidst the screamed vocals and abrasive chords. Beginning in 2003, Peterson tracked down some people who were a part of ’90s hardcore. Over the course of five years, the idea spread into a project that included over 150 interviews with many band members, fanzine writers, show promoters, and others involved in hardcore during the ’90s from all around the country. “I decided to focus the book on the debates surrounding straight edge, animal rights, politics/activism, and spirituality,” Peterson said. “It seemed like you couldn’t go to a show in the early ’90s without getting into a discussion with someone about one of these topics. Obviously, there were many other important issues, ideas, and, of course, bands from this era, but I also realized I couldn’t write an encyclopedia. So, I went with the topics and bands that seemed to resonate most with the people I interviewed.” Burning Fight draws upon the memories of many who played influential roles in the ’90s-hardcore era to understand what made this scene so unique in its ability to synthesize music, politics, social issues, and spirituality into what many felt was a powerful counter-cultural movement where change was just around the corner.

A cacophonous cabinet of curiosities, gathering other musics channeled from the spirit world, the fairy kingdom, outer space, secret societies and occult lodges. Compiled by musician, historian and archivist Doug Skinner, this unique collection of esoteric earworms gathers, and examines, music from other worlds. Notation is also included for several tunes so that you can play along at home. Over eight themed essays you’ll find tunes hummed, strummed, and sung by spirits, sprites and fairies, extraterrestrial elevator music, dreamed ditties, marches for occult ceremonies, secret musical codes and languages, music made by animals, and more.

About the Author Doug Skinner has contributed to The Fortean Times, Cabinet, Fate, Weirdo, Nickelodeon, and other periodicals. In addition to his books of stories, comics, music, and translations of Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, and Alfred Jarry, he has written many scores for dance and theater, most conspicuously for Bill Irwin’s The Regard of Flight, which toured for decades. TV and movie appearances include Ed, Crocodile Dundee II, several of George Kuchar’s videos, and a smattering of commercials.

By the mid 1970s the Southern African nation known as the Republic of Zambia had fallen on hard times. Though the country’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda, had thrown off the yoke of British colonialism, the new country found itself under his self-imposed autocratic rule. Kaunda protected Zambia from war, but his country descended into isolation and poverty. This is the environment in which the 70s rock revolution known as Zamrock flourished. Fuzz guitars were common, as were rhythms influenced by James Brown’s funk. Songs, mainly sung in the country’s constitutional language, English, were often bleak. In present day Zambia, Zamrock makers were few. It was not a likely scene to survive — but it did. Welcome To Zamrock! Vols. 1 and 2 are an overview of the movement’s most beloved groups, and trace its ascension, fall, and finally, resurgence. Each volume chronicles the the history of the Zamrock scene with never before seen photographs and ephemera. Volume 2 Includes 18 track CD.

56 pages, 5,75 x 8,75 inches, paperback.

"Showcasing the mastermind behind some of the most iconic rave flyers and record covers of the late eighties and early nineties, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art is a comprehensive insight into Junior Tomlin’s incredible back catalogue.

Rave culture transformed the way people experienced music, sparking a revolution in British society and spreading across the globe during the late eighties. Its influence is still being felt today, as millions of people around the world attend clubs and festivals that embody the spirit of rave culture. Intrinsic to the spread of the culture in those pre-internet days was the dissemination of flyers, giving ravers information on where and when their favourite promoters would be organising parties. In order to stand out from the competition, it was imperative that the most respected events had distinctive flyer artwork.

Junior Tomlin’s visionary capabilities led to a long-running career as a flyer artist. His fantastical projections of the future and often surreal imagery earned him the title The Salvador Dali of Rave. Tomlin’s iconic work was highly sought after, with ravers collecting his remarkable work and promoters queuing up to commission him to produce imagery for their flyers. Junior’s imagination conjured up alternate worlds, references to outer space and gave us a peek into the endless possibilities presented by an unknown future. It was the perfect representation of the brave new world being cultivated by rave promoters and the community that sprung up around the culture.

Junior worked with a range of seminal rave promoters from 1992 onwards including Telepathy, Dreamscape, Slammin’ Vinyl, One Nation, Dream Odyssey and Ravealation. 30 years since he designed his first flyer Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art documents his work across 160 pages, with commentary and draft sketches provided by Junior himself. Divided into two distinct sections – Record Covers and Flyers – the book also features an in-depth interview with Junior and a foreword by Chelsea Louise Berlin (artist, flyer collector and author of Rave Art) plus words from former clients.

Chronicling the work of a pioneering artist whose art was intrinsic to early rave culture, Junior Tomlin: Flyer & Cover Art marks a critical time in British history. In a time where division and conflict seem to be more prevalent than ever, the book allows us to escape into Junior’s fantasy worlds and travel back in time to an era when social barriers were being broken down.

The book is 25cm x 25cm, printed on premium 130gsm full-colour paper. It is the first time his work has been documented and presented in such a comprehensive, cohesive fashion.

“His record sleeves are classic examples of a hugely important artform now sadly deceased in the digital age.”
Danny Briottet (Renegade Soundwave)

“When I think of music and the concept of what I wish to express, I always want the visual representation to be in total synergy with that I am creating. Artwork is so important! This is why I did not hesitate when it came to choosing an artist and legend like Junior for specific work projects I had in mind.”
DJ Rap"

"From acid house to prog-rock, there is no form of modern popular music that hasn’t been propelled forward by the synthesizer. As a result, they have long been objects of fascination, desire and reverence for keyboard players, music producers and fans of electronic music alike. Whether looking at an imposing modular system or posing with a DX7 on Top of the Pops, the synth has also always had an undeniable physical presence.

Synthesizer Evolution: From Analogue to Digital (and Back) celebrates their impact on music and culture by providing a comprehensive and meticulously researched directory of every major synthesizer, drum machine and sampler made between 1963 and 1995. Each featured instrument is illustrated by hand and shown alongside its vital statistics and some fascinatingly quirky facts.

From its invention in the early 1960s to the digital revolution of the 1980s right up until the point that analogue circuits could be modelled using software in the mid-1990s, this book tells the story of synthesizers from analogue to digital – and back again.

Tracing that history and showing off their visual beauty with art-book quality illustrations, this a must for any self-respecting synth fan. The book has 128 pages, is 23cm x 17.4cm in size and printed on high quality 130gsm matt art paper.

Author Oli Freke says: “This book has grown out of a life-long obsession with synthesizers and electronic music, and it’s fantastic to be able to share this with my fellow synth obsessives and music fans who celebrate the synth’s role in modern music. I’m eternally grateful to Velocity Press for going with me on this journey and supporting the project so keenly.”

Reviews

“When the author’s passion for synths combines with his artistic talent the result is a book with a difference. The hand-sketched illustration style sets this book apart helping turn the technical facts and figures into a visual feast insightfully embellished with interesting anecdotes. This book is a joy to look at and a delight to read.” – Sound On Sound magazine

“Like a Victorian botanist climbing mountains in search of a rare flower to sketch, Oli Freke tracks down scarce examples of synthesizers to lovingly sketch and share with the rest of us to marvel at. His collection is an essential bookshelf addition for the analogue obsessive.” – Electronic Sound magazine

“Such a fascinating survey of the synthesizer world, demonstrating a depth of passion that will amaze even the greatest synth-head.” – Benge (Expanding Records)

“Every tweak of a button, every plug of a wire, every minute detail examined on some of the most iconic synths ever made… its really geeky & strange, but its the bible on every great synthesizer behind all of your favourite songs.”

Lotus Capo (Sony ATV Publishing)

Trip-hop described some of the 1990s' best music, and it was one of the decade's most revealing bad ideas.

The music itself was an intoxication of beats, bass, and voice. It emerged amid the social tensions of the late 1980s, and as part of hip-hop's rise to global dominance. It carried the innovations of Jamaican soundsystem culture, the sweet refuge of Lovers Rock, the bliss of club jazz dancefloors and post-rave chill-out rooms. It went mainstream with Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, DJ Shadow, Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Björk; and with record labels like Ninja Tune and Mo' Wax. To the artists' despair, the music was tagged with a silly label and packaged as music for the boutique and the lounge; made respectable with awards and acclaim.

But the music at its best still sounds experimental and dramatic; and its influence lingers through artists like FKA twigs, Sevdaliza, James Blake, Billie Eilish, and Lana Del Rey. This short book is a guide to 'trip-hop' in its context of the weird 1990s: nostalgia and consumerism; pre-millenium angst and lo-fi technology; casual exoticism amid accelerating globalization and gentrification. This book presents a survey of the music and its leading artists, packed with recommended listening, essential tracks, great remixes, and under-recognized albums.

The history of India’s first electronic music studio founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad by David Tudor.

A book companion to the compilation album The NID Tapes: Electronic Music in India 1969-1972 released by State51.

Subcontinental Synthesis explores the history of India’s first electronic music studio, founded in 1969 at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad with the support of the composer David Tudor. The essays and writings unravel the narrative and context surrounding the studio as well as the work of the Indian composers who created groundbreaking recordings during its four years of activity.

The texts reflect on the role of electronic music within a post-independence India, considering its interconnections with experimental design, radical pedagogies, and the international avant-garde, as well as the encircling conditions of Western ideological soft power within the global expansion of Modernism.

A bold, stylish look at the global rise of Korean culture and style in the words and images of those shaping and living it.

K-pop, K-fashion, K-drama, K-beauty: over the last decade, K-style has exploded onto the global scene. What is behind this phenomenon? Where does K-Style go from here? Make, Break, Remix: The Rise of K-Style makes no attempt to define or categorize, instead celebrating the eclectic, multi-faceted nature of K-Style and its home city of Seoul.

Through interviews with eighteen tastemakers who are shaping K-style across creative sectors, from 1Million Studio's Lia Kim to rock band leader Hwang Soyoon, world famous tattooist Doy to Asia’s leading designer Teo Yang, Fiona Bae tells untold stories from true insiders, exploring a sense of identity in their work, how living in Seoul affects them and their creative output, and the decade of changes that has brought about the current K-style. Interwoven with these texts, five distinct photo-essays from celebrated photographer less_TAEKYUN KIM (recent credits including Vogue Korea, GQ Korea, i-D Korea) capture the vibrant energy of Seoul's streets and the incredible style of its youth.

Contributors such as Blackpink songwriter and A&R Danny Chung, add their own vital perspectives on the scene, while fashion journalist Sukwoo Hong sits down with brands to watch for his K-fashion directory such as PAF(Post Archive Faction). Designed by Hezin O, with a distinct typography that blends Hangul and Roman writing systems, this is an inventive, genre-breaking look at K-style in the words of those shaping it.

'For me, constantly thinking about Korean-style storytelling, Make Break Remix is an amazing inspiration. Storytelling consolidates all cultural phenomena from design, fashion and music, and this rare and enchanting book, filled with intimate interviews with trailblazers and images of the daring youth in Seoul, will open your eyes to how creativity across fashion, music, and lifestyle in Korea is collectively generating explosive energy' Kim Ji-yeon, producer of Netflix series Squid Game

'None of the musicians, fashion designers and other young artists in this book are K-pop superstars. They are rather pioneers in subcultures, where K-pop mass trends have often germinated. Through interviews and a rich photographic illustration of the artists’ work and attitudes, this unusual but essential book helps explain what drives K-style today' Choe Sang-hun, Seoul bureau chief, The New York Times

'Make Break Remix takes a deep dive into the cultural juggernaut’s impact on fashion and beyond … this unique ability to “make, break, and remix” has birthed incredible talent via South Korea’s underground' Dazed

'There seems to be a shortage of publications with a credible explanation for the peak popularity of Korean culture. Make Break Remix: The Rise of K-Style takes on two major questions: Why has K-style garnered so much attention and popularity globally? And what lies ahead for the Korean cultural trend? Deep-diving into 16 Korean creators’ creative processes, the book extracts the essence of each creator’s distinct identity and their perspective on the rise of K-style' Wallpaper*

'Introduces readers to some of the Korean stars behind the scenes, the style makers whose creativity and daring make k-style so vibrant' Forbes

About the Author: Seoul-raised and London-based, Fiona Bae consults with artists, designers, architects, and cultural institutions through her communications consultancy.

Format:Paperback with Jacket Size:22.0 x 15.0 cm Extent:304 pp Illustrations:303 Publication date:22 September 2022 ISBN:9780500024546

As a child, Yvon Chouinard moved with his father, a French Canadian blacksmith, to Southern California with little English and less money. Today his company, Patagonia, is approaching $1 billion in sales annually as one of the most environmentally and socially responsible corporations on the planet.

It has been ten years since Chouinard first shared his iconoclastic view of business with the world. Since then, through a global recession and intensifying environmental crisis, Patagonia has become a worldwide corporate leader—demonstrating that the values and philosophies laid out in this book are the best path to profits. This is not another tale of a successful businessman who chooses to do good on the side. It is the story of a businessman who has attained ever-growing success by placing Patagonia’s mission statement at the core of their culture: to build the best product, do no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.

Let My People Go Surfing is the portrait of a young man who found escape by scaling the world’s highest peaks, of an innovator who used his father’s tools to fashion equipment that changed climbing forever, of an entrepreneur who brought doing good to the heart of his business. In addition, it is a blueprint for all facets of responsible business, from design and production, to marketing and human resources.

Paperback edition; language: German; 280 pages; dimensions: approx. 16.5 x 24 cm; printed on 100% post-consumer-waster recycled paper.

Zwölf Tocotronic-Alben, zehn Künstler, zehn Songs. Titel wie Slogans für Häuserwände, harte aber melo­dische Gitarren, live noch energetischer und intensiver. Seit über 25 Jahren haben Tocotronic die deutschsprachige Popkultur geprägt wie kaum eine andere Band. Und das ohne musikalische oder politische Kompromisse. Statt den immer gleichen Sound zu bedienen, hat die Band sich immer wieder verwandelt, neue Konzepte und Ästhetik erprobt und politisch immer klar Position bezogen, gegen Deutschtümelei, Nationalismus oder die europäische Abschottungspolitik.

»Sie wollen uns erzählen« fängt die zahlreichen Facetten von Tocotronic ein: Zehn Songs aus der gesamten Schaffensphase werden von ausgewählten Comic­künstler*innen und Illustrator*innen interpretiert. Im gezeichneten Songbook von Tocotronic haben sich Jim Avignon, Julia Bernhard, Tine Fetz, Eva Feuchter, Anna Haifisch, Sascha Hommer, Katja Klengel/Piwi, Moni Port, Jan Schmelcher und Philip Waechter je einem Tocotronic-Song angenähert, mal mehr Comic-Strip, mal mehr im illustrativen Stil. Herausgeber Michael Büsselberg, selbst Musikkenner und Comicfan, hat die die Idee des illustrierten Band-Songbooks aus der angloamerikanischen und französischen Popkultur »importiert« und kongenial auf seine liebste deutschsprachige Band adaptiert.

Als Zugabe hat Tocotronic-Schlagzeuger Arne Zank einen Comic-Strip über das Kennenlernen der Band-Mitglieder beigesteuert. Und Sänger Dirk von Lowtzow hat die ausgewählten Songs mit exklusiven Statements und Anmerkungen versehen.

Five young men in their early twenties, carrying backpacks and guitars, climbed onto the bus in Mendoza, Argentina, that was to take them over the Andes to Santiago de Chile, where they would play the last show of their South American tour, and then board a plane the day after back to their home country of Germany. In spite of the South American winter, the weather in Mendoza was bright and sunny. The ride was supposed to take six hours, after three of which they would cross the border to Chile at a post called Cristo Redentor, at more than 3000 meters above sea level. Not long after the bus had left the station, the weather started to change for the worse. It started raining, and as the road wound itself higher up the Andes, rain soon turned to snow, and before long, white drifts were growing larger on either side of the road. When they finally reached the border crossing, a long line of trucks and cars was standing ahead of them, not moving an inch... Starting a band is a lot like a romantic relationship. You spend time together, find that common spark, and live through emotions and experiences. You create music together. Songs, lyrics, entire records. You find a name for your band. Each member contributes to creating something uniquely your own. Then there's also the other side of the medal: fights, breakups, broken hearts. The entire emotional bandwidth of a relationship is contained within the complicated inner workings of a band. ‘This Is My Everything’ is about one forgotten screamo band's travels into and out of the worldwide DIY hardcore scene in the late nineties and early noughties, with guest appearances by Against Me!, Shelter, Refused, Ink&Dagger, Yaphet Kotto, Snapcase and many more.

"If there’s a cultural artefact capable of withstanding the vagaries and fickleness of the digital age as well as the printed book, it’s the vinyl record . . .

In Listening to the Wind, Ian Preece (editor, and co-author of In The Heyday of The Football Annual) sets out on an international road trip to capture the essence of life for independent record labels operating in the twenty-first century. Despite it all – from algorithms and streaming to the death of the high street and the gutting of the music press – releasing a record to serve its ‘own beautiful purpose’, as 4AD’s Ivo Watts Russell once said, is a flame that still burns through these pages. With countless labels, albums and artists to be discovered, this book is for those who share that inextinguishable love for music.

Features extensive, original interviews with the likes of Analog Africa, Light in the Attic, Thrill Jockey, International Anthem, Dust-to-Digital, Pressure Sounds, Heavenly, Touch, Mississippi, Sublime Frequencies and more! [like Japan Blues for instance] "

"you can't help warming to his anti-populist folly, and soon acquire a shopping list as long as your arm" **** Mojo

"A garrulous, engaging and deeply informed travelogue" The Wire

Vier Männer müssen eine Band gründen. Deshalb begeben sie sich aufs Land in Meeresnahe. Sie wollen dort in mehrtägigen Sessions gemeinsam Songs erarbeiten. Durch Umwelteinflusse (Wetter, Unterkunft, Küche, Wald und Tiere) entsteht etwas: Es ist unvorhergesehene Musik. Jeder der vier schreibt währenddessen heimlich eine Art Tagebuch, um die unerträglichen Spannungen im Bandgefüge abzuleiten. Das Buch versammelt diese illustrierten Aufzeichnungen. Eine absurde Welt, beherrscht von größenwahnsinnigen wie liebevollen Figuren. Es passiert viel, sogar unerklärliches. Doch lasst sich die Erde das alles gefallen?

Archivio is a new series of publications by Never Sleep focused on the exploring archiving practices displaying private collections of visual artefacts, memorabilia, collecting garments and graphic curiosities. A memories wunderkammer: from rave-club culture to the youth subcultures. The first issue, curated by Gabber Eleganza, is a publication made it during the Covid lockdown, collecting and scanning Rave records store advertisements, graphics curiosity and illustration ephemera find consulting tons of old techno and rave fanzines from the early 90s from: USA, UK, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. A pure, rough and beautiful visual testimony of a unique and unrepeatable historical moment. Preface by Colin Stevan (Knowledge magazine and Velocity Press founder)

For the biggest artists to the most underground, field recordings have become the vital spark of electronic music. Whether documenting nature, sampling the city or capturing the atmosphere of archaeological sites, musicians are using found sounds to make sense of our world. Ears To The Ground explores the relationship between electronics, landscape and field recordings in the UK, Ireland and around the globe, discovering how producers and artists evoke the natural world, history and folklore through sampled sounds.

From the cacophonous surrounds of London to the sea stacks of Orkney, via the abandoned military facilities of the Suffolk coast and the watery expanses of the Blackwater Estuary in Essex, from the quarries and neolithic sites of Snowdonia and the wide open skies of Norfolk to the hubbub of Nairobi and Berlin, the streets of Kyiv and the windblown wilds of Antarctica – music is everywhere. You just need to know or learn how to listen.

Ears To The Ground: Adventures in Field Recording and Electronic Music explores how electronic music producers and sound artists use field recordings and samples to document their environments. Author Ben Murphy takes you on a journey to discover how field recordings can create context, emotion, atmosphere, humour and meaning – and examine the most pressing topics of our times.

Composed of extensive interviews with music producers, the book will show how field recordings have become a vital way of understanding, celebrating and interrogating the landscape and the places we live. The book features interviews with Leafcutter John, KMRU, Ultramarine, Kate Carr, Erland Cooper, Proc Fiskal, Flora Yin-Wong, Langham Research Centre, Claire Guerin, Toshiya Tsunoda, Lawrence English, Heinali, Oliver Ho, Matthew Herbert, Matmos, Scanner, Felicia Atkinson and many more.

On its journey, the book takes in abandoned military test sites, remote bird colonies, estuaries, cities, coastlines, old quarries, neolithic burial grounds, scientific research centres and docklands, and ventures between Orkney, Edinburgh and Cork to Norfolk, Kent and Snowdonia, before heading to Kenya, Ukraine, Japan and Antarctica

Quotes:
“Recording or celebrating ‘place’ in art and music feels increasingly relevant, as our environment faces more serious threats than ever before, and Ears To The Ground is a timely examination of this development.” Ultramarine

Bill Direen is a legend of the New Zealand underground. He has given us poetry, novels and a catalog of important and challenging underground music. Weaned on a garage band youth in the late '60s, Direen started producing 7" records in the early '80s, all of them total stunners. These releases—Six Impossible Things, Die Bilder, Soloman's Ball and High Thirties Piano—were self-financed and distributed through Flying Nun. 100 Years Of Darkness, his latest book, is a homage to a century of films and film music. The front cover boxes represent film aspect ratios (1.17:1 up to 2.35:1) as used worldwide between 1888 and the present. The films are drawn from many countries, such as Japan, U.S.A., France, Germany, Russia/Ukraine, Vietnam, Sweden, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Lebanon. Since some of the films may not have been commercially distributed in all countries, the chosen films are carefully listed in a detailed index of sources at the close, which corresponds to the order of the poems as listed in the contents. This makes it easy for film and music lovers to find the films' directors and years of first appearance, and eventually see them for themselves. It is very limited in an edition of 200 and beautifully printed with textured jackets in the spirit of vintage Black Sparrow Press books.

In July 2019, eleven years after Jay-Z became the first hip-hop artist to headline Glastonbury, Stormzy became the first English rapper to follow suit. Wearing a customised stab-proof vest designed by Banksy, the South London rapper delivered an explosive performance and finished by thanking the “legends for paving the way,” name-checking Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, and Giggs. Despite how unlikely it seemed for decades, UK rap was now firmly a part of pop music and the greater hip-hop canon.

Rich, nuanced, and often misunderstood, the history of UK rap is a story of music that refused to stand still. Factoring in socioeconomics, gender, identity, music industry disruption, and innovation, What Do You Call It? charts the artform’s first four decades, beginning when rap landed on our island in the early 1980s. Shaped by sound system culture, inspired by punk, and accelerated by rave, it has evolved from Britcore, UK hip-hop, and trip-hop of the late twentieth century to garage, grime, and drill.

Through cultural theory, historical research, and original interviews with key figures and collaborators in the UK rap scene, from pioneers like Malcolm McLaren, Soul II Soul, Tricky, Roots Manuva, and Roll Deep to modern artists like Dave, CASISDEAD, Little Simz, Loyle Carner, and Skengdo x AM, adds a rich human dimension to the UK rap story — one that helped change British music and culture forever.

Cover design by Trevor Jackson.

“A long overdue exploration of rap music in the UK and its longstanding – albeit overlooked – legacy and influence. In an era when UK rappers dominate the charts, star in major movies and TV shows and front huge advertising campaigns for multi-national corporations, Kane traces back the arduous journey from maligned sub-culture to celebrated mascot of neoliberal capitalism.” Jehst

“David Kane writes with a deft touch and possesses a disarming and deeply insightful interview style. Sparking life, humour, and sorrow across every page of more than three decades of UK rap history.” Charlie Dark MBE

“Kane builds bridges in a rich musical universe full of heroes and villains—and plot twists. With an inimitable style, he merges culture high and low to bring new meaning to the music. What Do You Call It? is a landmark tome for UK rap music.” Brian DiGenti, Wax Poetics

“A mind rich in ideas” Stanley Ledbetter, The New Yorker

Weight: 0.4 kg
Dimensions: 23 × 3 × 17 cm

The previously untold story of British dance music’s first sub-bass revolution, tracing the origins, development, impact and influence of bleep techno, and the subsequent musical styles it inspired, on UK club culture.

Originally published in 2019, it has now been revised, updated and expanded. Errors have been corrected, some chapters have been expanded, analysis has been added and further footnotes have been included to include even more information and citations.

There’s also now an additional ‘Afterword’ chapter that reflects on the story, the author’s journey as a researcher, and changing perspectives around UK dance music history.

"Since the dawn of the 1990s, British dance music has been in thrall to the seductive power of weighty sub-bass. It is a key ingredient in a string of British-pioneered genres, including hardcore, jungle, drum & bass, dubstep, UK garage and grime.

In the Join The Future book, dance music journalist Matt Anniss (Resident Advisor, DJ Magazine, Red Bull Music Academy) traces the roots, origins, development and legacy of the sound that started it all: the first distinctively British form of electronic dance music, bleep techno.

A mixture of social, cultural, musical and oral history, Join The Future reveals the untold stories of bleep’s Yorkshire pioneers and those that came in their wake, moving from electro all-dayers and dub soundsystem clashes of the mid-1980s to the birth of hardcore and jungle in London and the South East.

Along the way, you’ll find first-hand accounts of key clubs and raves, biographies of forgotten and overlooked production pioneers, stories of bleep outposts in Canada and the United States, and the inside story of the early years of one of electronic music’s most iconic labels, Warp Records.

Based on five years of research and hundreds of hours of new interviews, the book is a radical alternative history of the rise of British dance music during the late 80s and early 90s.

Join The Future is also available as a compilation album.

Quotes

“This was a vital creative era in British electronic music that deserved deeper exploration, so Matt Anniss’ history of ‘bleep and bass’, which sets the sound in the socio-political environment of its time, is a significant addition to the literature of dance culture.”
Matthew Collin, author of ‘Altered State’ and ‘Rave On’

“You wouldn’t have had hardcore had it not been for bleep. If you took bleep out of the equation, Britsh dance music would be completely different.”
Mark Archer, Altern8

“Bleep provided the building blocks of the UK sound that followed – the emotions, the edge, the darkness and the sub-bass. Later generations have taken these elements and done something new, but the fundamentals are still there.”
Neil Landstrumm"

Jim Ottewill’s exploration of UK club culture and the urban landscapes that have housed it returns in a newly remixed form. This extended version features a new chapter exploring hidden histories and untold stories within Birmingham’s nocturnal scene to provide more insights into the past, present and future of electronic music culture.

“We don’t want more unaffordable flats. We want somewhere to dance…”

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. So what now?

At this critical moment, Out of Space plots a course through the different towns and cities club culture has found a home. From Glasgow to Margate via Manchester, Sheffield and unlikely dance music meccas such as Coalville and Todmorden, this book maps where electronic music has thrived, and where it might be headed to next while exploring other shades of club culture too, such as pirate radio, dance music festivals, and sound system culture.

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.

Quotes:

“As gentrification, lack of funding, stifling politics and the pandemic continue to pummel nightlife, it feels all the more poignant to chart the past and present of raving, while questioning what’s next. With lively and forensic research, clarity of thought and a passion for keeping clubbing’s resilient spirit alive, Out of Space is less of a commemoration and more of a rallying cry.” – The Face

“Ottewill’s book is tireless in its seeking out of new buzzes in grassroots clubland, LGBT collectives and local scenes, all of them ensuring euphoric highs for future generations of ravers.” – The Wire

“Jim Ottewill lands in Glasgow, South Yorkshire and beyond to write this comprehensive rave chronicle ‘Out of Space’. In an era where nightlife spaces are increasingly endangered, Ottewill posits his record of the past as a pugilistic rallying cry.” – Resident Advisor

“Most importantly, the book goes beyond the four walls of each club to the urban sprawl that surrounds it as we’re taken on a local history tour. The author reminds us that clubs and parties, despite operating on the fringes of society, are an integral part of our culture, and many of us have gone through our own rights of passage, often travelling miles to experience our favourite clubs. Clubs and their supporting infrastructure not only have a heritage worth saving but also one worthy of capturing for posterity in a book – something which Ottewill has done justice to.” – Now Then

“Jim Ottewill’s look into urban rave culture defies expectations.” – The National

The Impossible Dream – Smart Books for musical Minds! The Walker Brothers were the US counter-strike to the British invasion of the mid-60s. While The Beatles, the Stones and many others were busy colonising the US charts, three tall, handsome American men went into voluntary exile in a freezing London bedsit and launched their quest for pop stardom.

Not actually brothers, John (Maus), Gary (Leeds) and Scott (Engel) succeeded against the odds, becoming one of world’s biggest bands of 1966/67. With that came hit records – including two British chart-toppers, ‘Make It Easy On Yourself’ and ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’ – and all that success entails: screaming girls, package tours, and intense interest in their private lives. The pressure of success eventually caused them to split, and the Walkers went their separate ways. Of the three, Scott is now the most prominent, having embarked on a mysterious solo career that has since become the stuff of myth, but Gary and John have recorded varied and interesting work, too. All three drifted into obscurity before reforming in 1976 and releasing the classic ‘No Regrets’ single. They concluded their recording career with one of the decade’s most influential records, 1978’s Nite Flights, about which Brian Eno recently exclaimed: “We haven’t got any further than this. It’s a disgrace.”

The Impossible Dream is an in-depth biography that traces the career of one of the most successful bands in pop history. In addition to assessing and analysing the talent and appeal of the enigmatic Scott, the author also covers the history and contributions of the other ‘brothers’, John and Gary, and provides a thorough analysis of all three men’s careers both as individual artists and as a group, from 1963 to 1978.

Drawing on decades of archive interviews with the band (some previously unpublished), and many new interviews with backing musicians, record label staff and producers, The Impossible Dream is the definitive telling of The Walker Brothers’ story.

Anthony Reynolds is a musician and a writer. He has released eight critically acclaimed albums, the first of which, contributed essays and critiques to many US and UK magazines, and has published a biography of Jeff Buckley.

The world’s first practical coursebook on the art of graffiti.

If you want to learn how to write graffiti this is the book you need.

Find out how to: - design your own letter style - use effects to create a unique tag - create throw-ups - include fills and motifs - paint wildstyle, bubblestyle and blockbusters - build up large burners - handle a spray can - get your work up safely and legally

Teachers, this is the book you need if you want to teach graffiti.

It contains: - plans for lessons on graffiti - theory and practice - practical advice for staging safe, hands-on graffiti lessons - guidance on marking students' work - resources covering the origins and cultural history of graffiti - clear step-by-step explanations to suit students of all abilities - exercises and solutions

'The step-by-step demonstrations of techniques are surprisingly comprehensive, making this a perfect birthday or Christmas present for a teenage relative with a creative streak' Artists & Illustrators

About the Author: Chris Ganter is a former winner and judge of the Montana Style Combat competitions (Stuttgart and Munich). He also won the Stuttgart graffiti contest for public walls and Write4Gold (south Germany). His work has been exhibited in Germany and Australia, and he has contributed to many publications, including Street Fonts and Graffiti School.

Format:Paperback with flaps Size:29.7 x 21.0 cm Extent:176 pp Publication date:2 September 2013 ISBN:9780500290972

A raucous yet reflective look back at the evolution of the music press and the passionate rock and pop journalists who defined the music of the 20th century.

Totally Wired is the definitive story of the music press on both sides of the Atlantic, covering its evolution from the 1950s to the 2000s, through rock ’n’ roll, mod, the Summer of Love, glam, punk, pop, reggae, R&B and hip-hop. Paul Gorman chronicles the development of individual magazines from their Tin Pan Alley beginnings and the countercultural foundation of Rolling Stone, to the 1970s heyday of NME and Melody Maker and the rise of dedicated monthlies like The Face and Mojo.

Drawing on his own interviews with many of the key players, Gorman paints a complete picture of the scene, exploring the role played by such writers as Lester Bangs, Caroline Coon and Nick Kent in the careers of David Bowie, the Clash, Led Zeppelin and others. He also tackles the entrenched sexism and racism faced by women and people from marginalized backgrounds by shining a spotlight on those publications and individuals whose contributions have often been overlooked. What emerges is a compelling narrative containing stories of unbound talent, blind ambition and sometimes bitter rivalries, making Totally Wired a rollercoaster and riveting read.

'Paul Gorman has given us the book that the music press deserves: fun, factual, glamorous, gritty, packed with mad anecdotes as well as cold-eyed truth. Essential' Miranda Sawyer

'The music press as we knew it barely exists any more, which makes 'Totally Wired' the perfect eulogy - a broad, deep, fascinating exploration of its 100-year lifespan' Alexis Petridis

' I learned so much from this riveting sweep through the birth and evolution of the music press. The characters in it are almost as fascinating as the stars and scenes they wrote about' Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages

'An illuminating treatise … Gorman expertly combines first-hand interviews with his own insight from inside the trenches to paint a vivid portrait … essential reading' Electronic Sounds

'Nobody is better qualified to write the history of the music press … there’s no doubt that he does a fine job of telling the whole story, from the launch of the Melody Maker as a monthly for dance band musicians in 1926 through to the closure of all the big titles in the 21st century' David Hepworth, The New Statesman

About the Author: Paul Gorman is the author of many books on music, fashion, design and pop culture, including The Story of the Face: The Magazine that Changed Culture, The Look: Adventures in Pop & Rock Fashion, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren and The Wild World of Barney Bubbles.

Format:Paperback Size:19.8 x 12.9 cm Extent:384 pp Illustrations:54 Publication date:6 July 2023 ISBN:9780500297469

Written by Spiral Tribe’s co-founder and visual artist, Mark Angelo Harrison, A Darker Electricity charts the infamous sound system’s nomadic journey and the rapid escalation of their popularity – and notoriety.

From small squat-scene parties in early 90s London to enormous warehouse raves and free festivals. The undercover police operation against them. The record deal with Youth. The creation of their community recording studio. The government stitch-up and their prosecution. The escape to Europe and the start of the teknival scene.

In the early ‘70s, Detroit was the musical hub of America. Everything from the chart-topping sounds of Motown Records to the vicious proto-punk of THE Stooges and MC5 was being brewed out there and it seemed like there was no end in sight. But by the early ‘80s, the city was both a physical and cultural wasteland due to major-label buyouts of the artists as well as the crippling drug habits of some of the others. Detroit’s most known musical export at the time was the vapid sounds of new wave heartthrobs THE Romantics; this wasn’t good. It took a gaggle of suburban skateboarders, a grade school teacher, and a census bureau clerk to wake this city up from its slumber and start one of the first hardcore punk scenes in America. Why Be Something That You’re Not chronicles the first wave of Detroit hardcore from its origins in the late ‘70s to its demise in the mid ‘80s. Through a combination of oral history and extensive imagery, the book proves that even though the Southern California beach towns might have created the look and style of hardcore punk, it was the Detroit scene— along with a handful of other cities across the country—that cultivated the music’s grassroots aesthetic before most cultural hot spots around the globe even knew what the music was about. The book includes interviews with members of THE FIX, Violent Apathy, Negative Approach, Necros, Pagans, Bored Youth, and L-seven, along with other people who had a hand in the early hardcore scene like Ian MacKaye (minor Threat), Tesco Vee, and Dave Stimson (Touch & Go Fanzine).

The Secret DJ’s first two books lifted the lid on what really happens behind the decks in the sometimes hilarious, sometimes harrowing world of the superstar DJ. Now they’ve reached out to dozens of DJs from around the world – and from every scene and genre – for their own true stories of the DJ life.

Tales From the Booth raises the BPM, rounding up an all-star cast of Secret DJs to tell their anonymous stories of what it’s really like to rock dancefloors for a living. From strange encounters on tour to side-splitting debauchery and afterparty excess to the seamy and even dangerous side of the industry, this is your access-all-areas backstage pass. You’ll never look at a DJ quite the same again.

"As government legislation, standardised music and bad drugs forced the euphoria of the rave phenomenon into the darkness, a new underground movement emerged – the jungle and drum & bass nexus.

It was the sound of the beating heart of Britain’s multi-cultural urban rave, produced by the children of the Windrush and their closest friends, and distilled via the journey from a Tivoli Gardens soundclash, to the UK’s inner city blues parties and onto jazz-funk all-dayers and soul weekenders.

It was a space that was forged in the hidden edges of urban warehouses and the darkened recesses of clubland’s backrooms; schooled in the swagger of dancehall, the thunder of hardcore, the fury of bebop and the depth charge of dub.

Jungle and drum & bass was like nothing else the world had experienced before – simultaneously black and white, urban and suburban, old skool attitude and new school innovation. A socio-cultural melting pot of early-90s broken Britain seizing the wheel and taking control of the machine.

Originally published in 1997, State of Bass explores the scene’s roots through its social, cultural and musical antecedents and on to its emergence via the debate that surrounded the apparent split between jungle and drum & bass. Drawing on interviews with some of the key figures in the early years State of Bass explores the sonic shifts and splinters of new variants, styles and subgenres as it charts the journey from the early days as the deliberately hidden underground, ignored by the media in favour of the post-rave progressive house scene, to its position as a global phenomenon.

State of Bass: The Origins of Jungle and Drum & Bass extends the original text to include the award of the Mercury Prize to Roni Size & Reprazent for the groundbreaking New Forms album and brings new perspectives to the story of the UK’s most important subterranean urban energy.



Quotes

“Cogent, well researched and hardly oblivious to the nutty charisma of jungle’s lexicon and nomenclature. The first serious attempt to document the drum & bass realm is a total success.”
Select

“Exceedingly well researched, endlessly authoritative and undeniably ace…”
Melody Maker

“(State of Bass) deserves a special mention. A thorough account of the story of jungle.”
Ben Osborne, author of The A-Z of Club Culture

“The best book so far on the evolution of drum & bass”
Sheryl Garratt, author of Adventures in Wonderland: a decade of club culture

“Martin James comes up trumps with an in-depth examination of Jungle’s roots, history and even a recommended listening guide.”
Muzik

“Essential reading for anyone who is interested not only in the jungle scene… but in dance in general, in the music industry as a whole or even British society and its infrastructures.”
DJ

“An acutely perceptive and thought-provoking account of the circumstances and celebrities surrounding the development of a modern music that we can finally call our own.”
The Scotsman

“Well worth rattling through if you can track it down.”
FACT

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One of the finest hip-hop albums ever made, A Tribe Called Quest's debut record (featuring stone-cold classics like "Can I Kick It?" and "Bonita Applebum") took the idea of the boasting hip-hop male and turned it on its head. For many listeners, when this non-traditional, surprisingly feminine album was released, it was like hearing an entirely new form of music.

In this book, Shawn Taylor explores the creation of the album as well as the impact it had on him at the time - a 17-year-old high-school geek who was equally into hip-hop, punk, new wave, skateboarding, and Dungeons & Dragons: all of a sudden, with this one album, the world made more sense. He has spent many years investigating this album, from the packaging to the song placement to each and every sample - Shawn Taylor knows this record like he knows his tattoos, and he's finally been able to write a fascinating and highly entertaining book about it.

128 pages.
• See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/a-tribe-called-quests-peoples-instinctive-travels-and-the-paths-of-rhythm-9780826419231/#sthash.cFZ9YfTa.dpuf

In 1991, a loose-knit collective released a record called Blue Lines under the name Massive Attack, splicing together American hip-hop and soul with the sounds of the British underground. With its marauding bass lines, angular guitars, and psychedelic effects, Blue Lines built on the Caribbean soundsystems and nascent rave scene of the 1980s while also looking ahead to the group's signature blend of epic cinematics and lush downtempo. In the process, Blue Lines invented an entirely new genre called trip hop and launched the career of a rapper named Tricky.

Ultimately, Blue Lines created the sonic playbook for an emerging future: hybrid, digital, cosmopolitan, and rooted in the black and immigrant communities who animated the urban wreckage of the postindustrial city. Massive Attack envisioned an alternate future in sharp counterpoint to the glossy triumphalism of Brit Pop. And while the group would go on to bigger things, this record was both a warning shot and a definitive statement that sounds as otherworldy today as on the day of its release. As Blue Lines's iconic flame logo spun on turntables the world over, Massive Attack and their spaced-out urban blues reimagined music for the 1990s and beyond.

In Border/Between: A Symphony in Essays, Carol D. Marsh writes about death, addictions, and war while also exploring how written form and expression have a counterpart in music. Structured upon the 4-movement symphony and incorporating other forms such as the rock song and the Requiem, Border/Between seeks and finds its place in what lies between the sharp and unforgiving edges of ideology and judgment. In refusing to allow borders to govern her, Marsh is able to bring compassion and hope to what seems irredeemable.

When LCD Soundsystem broke up in 2011, they left behind a small but remarkable catalog of music. On top of the genius singles and a longform composition for Nike, there was a trilogy of full-length albums. During that initial run, LCD Soundsystem-and the project's mastermind, James Murphy-were at the center of several 21st century developments in pop culture: indie music's growing mainstream clout, Brooklyn surpassing Manhattan as an epicenter of creativity in America, the collision and eventual erosion of genre perceptions, and the rapid and profound growth and impact of digital culture. Amidst this storm, Murphy crafted Sound Of Silver, the centerpiece of LCD's work.

At the time of Sound Of Silver's creation and release, Murphy was a man closing in on 40 while fronting a critically-adored band still on the ascent. This album was the first place where he earnestly grappled with questions of aging, of being an artist, and the decisions we make with the time we have left. Anchored by a series of colossal, intense dance-rock songs, Sound Of Silver called upon the rhythms of New York City in order to draw out, dissect, and ultimately rip open these meditations. By the time LCD Soundsystem reunited in 2016, Sound Of Silver had already proven to be a generational touchstone, living on as a document of what it's like to be alive in the 21st century.

As immediately believable as they were cartoonish, as much an inner city cipher as a suburban boys gang, the foursome that made up the Pharcyde were the most relatable MCs to ever pass the mic. On their debut and magnum opus Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde, they created a record almost overstuffed with possibility, the sound of four restless man-children fresh out of their teens, finding a perfect outlet in a form of music that was just as young and fertile.

And like the product of any adolescent, Bizarre Ride wears its contrarianism and contradictions on its sleeve. It's a party album about shyness and unrequited love. A swirl of jubilant L.A. psychedelia recorded in the midst of the Rodney King trial. A blast of black consciousness that still makes room to poke fun at Public Enemy and reference the Pixies. A dense, sophisticated sonic stew punctuated by yo mama jokes and prank calls. While hip-hop was already calcifying its tropes of steely machismo and aspirational fantasy, Bizarre Ride was a pure distillation of the average hip-hop listener's actual lifestyle-the joys and sorrows of four guys who were young, broke, sexually frustrated, and way too clever for their own good. A touchstone for Kanye West, Drake, Lil B and a whole generation of off-center MCs, Bizarre Ride sketched out a whole strata of emotions that other rappers hadn't yet dared to tackle, and to a certain extent, still haven't.

By June 1993, when Washington, D.C.'s Fugazi released their third full-length album In on the Kill Taker, the quartet was reaching a thunderous peak in popularity and influence. With two EPs (combined into the classic CD 13 songs) and two albums (1990's genre-defining Repeater and 1991's impressionistic follow-up Steady Diet of Nothing) inside of five years, Fugazi was on creative roll, astounding increasingly large audiences as they toured, blasting fist-pumping anthems and jammy noise-workouts that roared into every open underground heart. When the album debuted on the now-SoundScan-driven charts, Fugazi had never been more in the public eye.

Few knew how difficult it had been to make this popular breakthrough. Disappointed with the sound of the self-produced Steady Diet, the band recorded with legendary engineer Steve Albini, only to scrap the sessions and record at home in D.C. with Ted Niceley, their brilliant, under-known producer. Inadvertently, Fugazi chose an unsure moment to make In on the Kill Taker: as Nirvana and Sonic Youth were yanking the American rock underground into the media glare, and “breaking” punk in every possible meaning of the word. Despite all of this, Kill Taker became an alt-rock classic in spite of itself, even as its defiant, muscular sound stood in stark contrast to everything represented by the mainstreaming of a culture and worldview they held dear.

This book features new interviews with all four members of Fugazi and members of their creative community.

Words like "inspiring," "expansive," and "moving" are
regularly used to describe Sigur Rós's ( ), and yet the
only words heard on the record itself are a handful of
meaningless nonsense syllables. The album has no
title—or rather, its title is no title: just an empty pair
of parentheses. The intention being that listeners will
fill in the parentheses with their own title, their own
interpretation of the sounds on the record. The CD
sleeve consists of twelve pages that are essentially blank, lacking song
titles, liner notes or production credits. Instead, it contains only semitranslucent
frosted images of abstract natural scenes (tree branches,
clouds, etc.), on which the listener is free to inscribe their own notes—
or no notes at all. And then there are the lyrics, sung in a deliberately
unintelligible tongue called "Hopelandic" which the band invites listeners
to interpret freely.
Ethan Hayden's book doesn't try to fill in the gaps between the album's
parentheses, but instead explores the ways in which listeners might
attempt to do so. Examining the communicative powers of asemantic
language, the book asks whether music can bring sense to nonsense.
What happens to the voice when it stops singing conventional
language: does it simply become another musical instrument, or is it
somehow more "human"? What role does space play on ( )? And how do
we interpret music that we cannot possibly understand, but feel very
deeply that we do?

168 pages, paperback.

Extravagantly opaque, willfully vaporous — Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II, released by the estimable British label Warp Records in 1994, rejuvenated ambient music for the Internet Age that was just dawning. In the United States, it was Richard D. James's first full length on Sire Records (home to Madonna and Depeche Mode) under the moniker Aphex Twin; Sire helped usher him in as a major force in music, electronic or otherwise.

Faithful to Brian Eno’s definition of ambient music, Selected Ambient Works Volume II was intentionally functional: it furnished chill out rooms, the sanctuaries amid intense raves. Choreographers and film directors began to employ it to their own ends, and in the intervening decades this background music came to the fore, adapted by classical composers who reverse-engineered its fragile textures for performance on acoustic instruments. Simultaneously, “ambient” has moved from esoteric sound art to central tenet of online culture. This book contends that despite a reputation for being beatless, the album exudes percussive curiosity, providing a sonic metaphor for our technologically mediated era of countless synchronized nanosecond metronomes.

144 pages.

Highly entertaining, wickedly insightful, account of arguably the most extreme party paradise that ever existed where existential electronic dancefloor music was the ultimate catalyser for the mystical anarchy of techno hedonism in Gonzo Goa. Written authoritatively from the perspective of someone that lived, danced and DJed through the thick of its histrionics, it chronicles the eccentric music of the scene from 1987, the germinal phase of a subculture up until 1996, by which time the once-eclectic sounds of a Goan dancefloor had been distilled into the conventional soundscape of psytrance.

From a Los Angeles hospital bed, equipped with little more than a laptop and a stack of records, James “J Dilla” Yancey crafted a set of tracks that would forever change the way beatmakers viewed their artform. The songs on Donuts are not hip hop music as “hip hop music” is typically defined; they careen and crash into each other, in one moment noisy and abrasive, gorgeous and heartbreaking the next. The samples and melodies tell the story of a man coming to terms with his declining health, a final love letter to the family and friends he was leaving behind. As a prolific producer with a voracious appetite for the history and mechanics of the music he loved, J Dilla knew the records that went into constructing Donuts inside and out. He could have taken them all and made a much different, more accessible album. If the widely accepted view is that his final work is a record about dying, the question becomes why did he make this record about dying?

Drawing from philosophy, critical theory and musicology, as well as Dilla’s own musical catalogue, Jordan Ferguson shows that the contradictory, irascible and confrontational music found on Donuts is as much a result of an artist’s declining health as it is an example of what scholars call “late style,” placing the album in a musical tradition that stretches back centuries.

152 pages.

At the outset of summer in 1990, a Houston gangsta rap group called the Geto Boys was poised to debut its self-titled third album under the guidance of hip-hop guru Rick Rubin. What might have been a low-profile remix release from a little-known corner of the rap universe began to make headlines when the album's distributor refused to work with the group, citing its violent and depraved lyrics. When The Geto Boys was finally released, chain stores refused to stock it, concert promoters canceled the group's performances, and veteran rock critic Robert Christgau declared the group "sick motherfuckers."
One quarter of a century later the album is considered a hardcore classic, having left an immutable influence on gangsta rap, horrorcore, and the rise of Southern hip-hop.
Charting the rise of the Geto Boys from the earliest days of Houston's rap scene, Rolf Potts documents a moment in music history when hip-hop was beginning to replace rock as the transgressive sound of American youth. In creating an album that was both sonically innovative and unprecedentedly vulgar, the Geto Boys were accomplishing something that went beyond music. To paraphrase a sentiment from Don DeLillo, this group of young men from Houston's Fifth Ward ghetto had figured out the "language of being noticed" - which is, in the end, the only language America understands.

Geechi Suede and Sonny Cheeba are Camp Lo. These two emcees from the Bronx, NY entered the American hip hop scene with an insider slang that bewildered listeners as they radiated the look of a bygone era of black culture. In 1996, they collaborated with producer Ski and a host of other contributors to create Uptown Saturday Night, featuring the seminal single “Luchini (a.k.a. This is It).” While other 1990s rappers referred to 1970s Blaxploitation culture, Camp Lo were self-described “time travelers” who weaved the slang and style of a soulful past into state-of-the-art lyrical flows.

Uptown Saturday Night is a tapestry of 1970s black popular culture and 1990s New York City hip hop. This volume will detail how the album's fantastic world of “Coolie High” reflected classic films like Cooley High and the Sidney Poitier film from which the album's title is derived, and promoted vintage slang and fashion. The book features new interviews with Camp Lo, producer Ski, Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul, Ish from Digable Planets, and others, and offers musical and cultural analyses that detail the development of the album and its essential contributions to a post-soul aesthetic.

Voodoo, D'Angelo's much-anticipated 2000 release, set the standard for the musical cycle ordained as "neo-soul," a label the singer and songwriter would reject more than a decade later. The album is a product of heightened emotions and fused sensibilities; an amalgam of soul, rock, jazz, gospel, hip-hop, and Afrobeats. D'Angelo sets to music his own pleasures and insecurities as a man-child in the promised land. It was both a tribute to his musical heroes: Prince, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, J Dilla ... and a deconstruction of rhythm and blues itself.

Despite nearly universal acclaim, the sonic expansiveness of Voodoo proved too nebulous for airplay on many radio stations, seeping outside the accepted lines of commercial R&B music. Voodoo was Black, it was definitely magic, and it was nearly overshadowed by a four-minute music video featuring D'Angelo's sweat-glistened six-pack abs. "The Video" created an accentuated moment when the shaman lost control of the spell he cast.

Contradiction, the yin and the yang, the simultaneous existence of two competing realities, and the larger than life persona that depicts populist realism are at the core of Nas's debut album, Illmatic. Yet Nas's identity -as an inner-city youth, a child of hip-hop, and a Black American - predicts those philosophical quandaries as much as it does its brazen ambition. Partly because of that recklessly broad scope, the artistic impact of Illmatic was massive. The record finds its place in the greatest transition in hip hop up to that point, the spot where the streets and the charts collided.

128 pages.

In 1999, Modest Mouse struck out for Chicago to record their major-label debut for Epic Records. Amid indie circle cries of “sellouts,” a largely untested producer, and a half-built studio, the trio recorded the instrumental basics of The Moon & Antarctica … and then singer/songwriter Isaac Brock got his face smashed by a hooligan in a park.

With barely any vocals recorded, Brock emerged from the hospital with his jaw completely wired shut, and returned to a mostly empty studio. And there, on a diet of painkillers, in a neighborhood that wanted to purge the band from its borders, a creative alchemy took place that would redefine Modest Mouse and indie rock at large.

The fact that the band finished the album at all is surprising. The fact that it is now considered by critics as “hands-down one of the greatest records ever made” (NME) is perhaps an utter miracle.

The Moon & Antarctica is an album so strange and enigmatic, from those sweet opening notes, to the plunging depths of the middle, to the shocking, furious end, that you almost hesitate to listen to it again for fear of it losing its chaotic magic. But then you do, and you discover all-new sounds-a lost harmonic here, a stray percussion element there, a fresh interpretation of a lyric that leaves you thunderstruck.

And that ever-looming question, years on: How the hell did Modest Mouse pull this off?!

A report from the trenches on the most exciting and original graffiti scene to emerge from Brasil.

From the startingly distinctive achievements of the internationally renowned twin-brother painters Os Gemeos to the visual powers of the ubiquitous daredevil pichadores, Brazil's graffiti captivates with entirely fresh ideas, techniques and messages. Whether one’s taste is for the extraordinary creative extremes generated amid urban deprivation or for crafted murals at their most elaborate, Graffiti Brasil offers both stunning photography and in-depth history and insight... 128 pages with over 300 colour illustrations!

With graffiti worldwide becoming more homogenized, this book is a reminder of the strengths of creative independence and the rich fruits of cultural diversity.

'Art that packs an emotional punch … a shining tribute to human determination to create beauty in the least likely places'
Metro

'A phalanx of exceptional image makers'
State of Art

About the Author:
Tristan Manco is a graphic designer based in Hove, England, and pioneering author of books on the graffiti and the international street art scenes. He has published multiple books with Thames and Hudson, including Street Logos, Graffiti Brasil, Street Sketchbook: Journeys, Big Art / Small Art and Make Your Mark.

Caleb Neelon has been involved in mural and street art projects in twenty countries, ranging from Brazil to Nepal, Germany to Australia, France to India.

Format:Paperback with flaps
Size:22.0 x 23.0 cm
Extent:128 pp
Publication date:10 October 2005
ISBN:9780500285749

ESG were one of the first bands to sign to British indie label Factory Records, working with famed producer Martin Hannett on their early EPs. The band's signature guitar sound from iconic single 'ufo' has been sampled in hundreds of hip hop records, and everyone from Karen O to Kathleen Hanna lists the South Bronx group as a direct influence. So why do the Scroggins sisters appear as nothing more than a footnote in the 1980s music scene?

Through interviews with founding member Renee Scroggins, alongside cult-figures from 1980s New York and North England, this book follows the story of a group of sisters who made it out of the New York projects and into the heart of the dancefloor. Come Away With ESG repositions ESG in their rightful place as punk pioneers and explains how their primal beats have paved the way for modern dance music today.

Two and a half decades on, Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1993-94) is the rare album to have lost none of its original loyalty, affection, and reverence. If anything, today, the cult of Jawbreaker-in their own words, "the little band that could but would probably rather not"-is now many times greater than it was when they broke up in 1996. Like the best work of Fugazi, The Clash, and Operation Ivy, the album is now is a rite of passage and a beloved classic among partisans of intelligent, committed, literary punk music and poetry.

Why, when a thousand other artists came and went in that confounding decade of the 90s, did Jawbreaker somehow come to seem like more than just another band? Why do they persist, today, in meaning so much to so many people? And how did it happen that, two years after releasing their masterpiece, the band that was somehow more than just a band to its fans-closer to equipment for living-was no longer?

Ronen Givony's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is an extended tribute in the spirit of Nicholson Baker's U & I: a passionate, highly personal, and occasionally obsessive study of one of the great confessional rock albums of the 90s. At the same time, it offers a quizzical look back to the toxic authenticity battles of the decade, ponders what happened to the question of "selling out," and asks whether we today are enriched or impoverished by that debate becoming obsolete.

The Radio Phonics Laboratory explores the intersection of technology and creativity that shaped the sonic landscape of the 20th century. This fascinating story unravels the intricate threads of telecommunications, from the invention of the telephone to the advent of global communication networks.

At the heart of the narrative is the evolution of speech synthesis, a groundbreaking innovation that not only revolutionised telecommunications but also birthed a new era in electronic music. Tracing the origins of synthetic speech and its applications in various fields, the book unveils the pivotal role it played in shaping the artistic vision of musicians and sound pioneers.

The Radio Phonics Laboratory by Justin Patrick Moore is the story of how electronic music came to be, told through the lens of the telecommunications scientists and composers who helped give birth to the bleeps and blips that have captured the imagination of musicians and dedicated listeners around the world.

Featuring the likes of Leon Theremin, Hedy Lamarr, Max Matthews, Hal 9000, Robert Moog, Wendy Carlos, Claude Shannon, Halim El-Dabh, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Francois Bayle, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Milton Babbitt, Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, Edgar Varese & Laurie Spiegel.

Quotes:
“From telegraphy to the airwaves, by way of Hedy Lamarr and Doctor Who, listening to Hal 9000 sing to us whilst a Clockwork Orange unravels the past and present, Moore spirits us on an expansive trip across the twentieth century of sonic discovery. The joys of electrical discovery are unravelled page by page.” Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner

“Embark on an odyssey through the harmonious realms of Justin Patrick Moore’s Radio Phonics Laboratory echoing the resonances of innovation and discovery. Witness the mesmerising fusion of telecommunications and musical evolution as it weaves a sonic tapestry, a testament to the boundless creativity within the electronic realm. A compelling pilgrimage for those attuned to the avant-garde rhythms of technological alchemy.” Nigel Ayers (Nocturnal Emissions)

“In this captivating exploration of electronic music, Justin Patrick Moore unveils its evolution as guided by telecommunication technology, spotlighting the enigmatic laboratories of early experimenters who shaped the sound of 20th century music. A must-read for electronic musicians & sound artists alike—this book will undoubtedly find a prominent place on their bookshelves.” Kim Cascone

Hidden Notes Records are proud to announce that in February next year we will be releasing a smorgasbord of new music; creative collaborations born out of the award winning music podcast excuse the mess. Two compilation albums featuring 17 unique voices from contemporary music worlds and beyond…

How does a podcast = two albums worth of music? excuse the mess is a music podcast with a twist - alongside your bread and butter artist interviews each guest takes on the challenge of writing a brand new piece of music on the fly, in the room and with excuse the mess host, Ben Corrigan. They follow three rules (limitations are liberating!): 1. There can be no preplanning, it is spontaneous music making. 2. The track must be finished the same day. 3. Only one instrument can be used as a sound source but there can be electronic manipulations of it.

Our upcoming release is the end result of each of those heart palpating writing sessions featuring Hannah Peel, Gold Panda, Anna Meredith, Galya Bisengalieva, Manu Delago, Robert Ames, Emily Hall, Oliver Coates, Mira Calix, Matt Calvert, Douglas Dare, Laura Jurd, Mark Lockheart, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Anne Nikitin, Alev Lenz and Elliot Galvin. Released as two albums, to mirror the two series of excuse the mess in which they were made.

All the music fizzes with an energy that only fast paced work can invoke and the compositional fingerprint of each guest artist is embedded into the core of each track, whilst intermingling with Ben's own artistic voice. For anyone interested in a further delve they can go back to the podcast episode and witness the composition unfolding bit-by-bit, from the blank page to the finished piece, you are invited on that compositional journey.

Why is it that thousands of clubbing tourists land at Berlin Schönefeld airport every weekend? Why have clubs like Berghain become the stuff of legend the world over? Why have some of the best-known producers and techno DJs like Richie Hawtin and DJ Hell moved with their labels to this city? These are the kind of questions explored in Lost and Sound by Tobias Rapp, a German music journalist who has been living, working and partying in Berlin since the beginning of the nineties. He has spoken with DJs, clubbers, label bosses, hostel managers and urban planners; he has looked and listened carefully; and most important of all, he has been part of the dance floor himself. Every day of the week – from Wednesday night (in Watergate) right through to Wednesday night (back in Watergate).

Lost and Sound is not one of those books that try to grasp techno from a desk-bound position. Rapp zooms in to relate intimate moments in front of the DJ booth and at the bar, and then cuts to historical tangents and theoretical reflections. Detailed research is interspersed with accounts from a first-person perspective. An excellent portrait of Ricardo Villalobos, the biggest star of the Berlin minimal techno and after-party scene, stands alongside a precise sociological portrayal of the queue for Berghain. Through this interplay of music, architecture, infrastructure and drug-induced explorations of personal limits, Rapp is able to capture what makes Berlin such a unique place for electronic music and how this music is experienced.

Following its publication in Germany in February 2009, Lost and Sound made an impact not
seen from a book about popular music for a long time. This was undoubtedly due in part to the
term coined for its subtitle: the ‘Easyjet set’ is a new group of music fans who – thanks to the
deregulation of the European air travel market – now regard the aeroplane as a taxi service for
parties, effectively making Barcelona, London and Paris suburbs of Berlin.

Love music? Love illustration? Want to know more about some of the best musicians ever to record&;from Bowie and the Beastie Boys to The Smiths and St. Vincent? Then A Guide to Music's Cult Artists is for you.

Featuring 100 of the coolest artists from the last five decades, A Guide to Music's Cult Artists reveals the influencers and tastemakers who have helped to shape the contemporary music scene. Award-winning illustrator and comic artist John Riordan profiles cult musicians from genres including punk, indie, alternative, hip-hop, and electronic music. Not only does John create amazing illustrations, he also outlines key works from the artists and provides engaging trivia to accompany each entry. Enlightening, often amusing, and always stunning to look at, A Guide to Music's Cult Artists is a unique blend of the esthetic and the acoustic and is an essential addition to any music fan&;s collection.

"The Secret DJ returns with the follow-up to their acclaimed debut book. Less a sequel and more a panoramic wide-angle painting of the biggest youth movement in human history, The Secret DJ: Book Two charts the rise of dance music over the last 30 years and its connection to western capitalism and culture.

While never claiming to be instrumental, The Secret DJ was around for every stage of the journey and is a continually wry observer of this unstoppable growth. The Secret DJ’s signature humour and wit are ever-present in this ascent, charting personal ups and downs as well as the buying and selling of the acid house revolution.

Covering topics as wide as drugs, music production, anthropology, the gentrification of the scene, technology, travel, fame, devaluation, inflation, relationships, technique, festivals, rejection, social media, situationism and hypernormalisation; almost no aspect of the last four decades go unmentioned in terms of what we know today as Electronic Dance Music.

“No one in publishing would have the balls to touch this book with a bargepole,” says the Secret DJ. “It takes courage to speak up. There’s not much in the way of reward for telling it like it is, not any more. If you expose an industry, that industry hates you for life with the intensity of the sun. I have nothing but admiration for Velocity Press, they’ve taken a big risk working with me. I appreciate it greatly. It’s good to know there are still people out there willing to stand up.”

“I loved The Secret DJ – some all-too-familiar characters mixed with the highs and lows of what this industry can throw at you. Excited and intrigued to read the second instalment… how much more extreme can it get?!” – Denney

“I never read books about electronic music, why would I? But I guess The Secret DJ is more an anarchist handbook for shattered dreamers than a manual on how to make it big on the scene. Can’t wait for his new adventures.” – Ivan Smagghe

“We all have war stories, us jobbing night-lifers. From having sets ended by soldiers with automatic weapons in Juarez to coming-round in Glasgow city centre suddenly best pals with a gangster who’s most affectionate nickname was ‘Wolf’. I’ve bagged a couple over the years. And yours are undoubtedly more vivid, funnier or more ludicrous than mine. The Secret DJ’s are better still.” – Ewan Pearson

“I loved book one, waiting to live the DJ life vicariously again thru book two!” – Arthur Baker

“The Secret DJ’s first book managed to do something very different to the existing dance music memoirs (and I should know as I have read them all). It functioned not only as a hilarious jaunt through the insanity of the glory years of dance music – i.e. when there was still money in music – but as a harrowing portrayal of the emotionally, physically and mentally taxing straits an international DJ will find themselves in. Anyone with even a passing curiosity about ‘the industry’ should read it and await its follow up, especially if they have any frankly dangerous notions of joining up professionally, which I cannot in all good conscience recommend.” – Manu Ekanayake (music and culture journalist)

“It’s rare for a writer to capture the excitement and absurdity of dance music culture at the same time, but the Secret DJ did that to great effect in the first book. This latest chapter in the story promises to be every bit as exhilarating, providing an important critical voice at a time when ‘the society of the spectacle’ threatens to suck the life out of those clinging to the acid house dream.” – Justin Robertson

“The first book is a raw, effective and bizarrely emotional tale of ‘the life’. Superbly true and direct. I can hardly wait to hear the tale of the music movement being told by The Secret DJ in Book Two!” – Miguel Campbell

“The Secret DJ returns to once again pull back the curtain on the world of dance music and the sometimes harsh, but always hilarious, realities of what lurks behind it. Get ready for a second descent into the far(cical) side.” – Neville Watson

“Really enjoyed the first book, both hilarious debauchery and insightful commentary on a world usually kept behind the curtain. I’m looking forward to the next instalment, hoping for a lot more righteous anger within.” – Posthuman

“Every participant in the music industry will wince at the thought of falling under the glance of the Secret DJ’s withering pen, but still find themselves avidly leafing through his pages for the merest mention.” – Carl Puttnam (Cud)"

Homoerotic poetry and art appear throughout the world’s civilizations for millennia. The Archeology of Eros, the first published collection of poems from cult music figure Jorge Socarras, taps into that continuum together with the collaboration of acclaimed artist Mel Odom. Each body of work representing a lifetime reflecting on and celebrating homoerotic desire and romantic sensibility, Socarras’ intimate love poems and Odom’s evocative drawings are beautifully juxtaposed in this elegantly designed book. Straddling the sensual and the archetypal, the contemporary and the classical, poetry and art join forces in exploring the mystery and wonder of Eros, affirming that same-sex desire has lived before even as it flourishes now. Jorge Socarras is known for his 1970s collaboration with pioneering synthesizer musician Patrick Cowley as the duo Catholic, as singer-frontman of the 1980s avant-rock group Indoor Life, and as half of the ongoing musical duo Fanatico. He was also cofounder of the Silence=Death Collective, the Aids activist group that in 1987 created the eponymous poster design and slogan. Mel Odom’s award-winning art has graced numerous book covers and magazines since the 1970s, has been the subject of two books, and has been exhibited in galleries and art institutions, including in collaboration with gay literary icon Edmund White. The Archeology of Eros is the first creative collaboration between longtime friends Socarras and Odom. A portion of sales proceeds will go to the Visual Aids organization.

As a Dutchman living in Belgium, Peter Schouten has an outsider's view on the country that he loves and is fascinated by. As a photographer, he finds Belgium a rewarding subject: its infrastructure, its cities, the diversity of its architecture... In Belgium, it sometimes seems as if everyone just does as he pleases, unbothered by rules or regulations. Peter wanted to find a way to capture the uniqueness of his surroundings, and found the answer one night while looking through his photographs of an original house from the sixties. It wasn't the house itself that grabbed his attention, but the strange letterbox in front of it: it had the shape of a big eagle sitting on a little concrete house, painted in bright colours. Ever since, Peter has been photographing the weirdest, most puzzling letterboxes all over Belgium. Over six years he has built a collection of over 300 photos of the most exceptional examples. Looking at those photos, you'll agree with the photographer that the Belgian letterboxes form a unique little piece of the country's cultural heritage.

A daily planner with facts on what happened on this day in hip hop history! The Hip Hop Journal: A Daily Planner provides you with a notebook as well as a daily update on the most important historical events that took place in hip hop culture on each date. Simply turn to today’s page to and find out what classic records were released on this day in the past, and next to it note your schedule, ideas, grocery list, or even your rhymes. Get inspired by what has happened in hip hop’s past and make the most of your day! The journal offers ers a variety of facts, from record releases and movies to important cultural events relating to the development of hip hop culture over the last 45+ years. The Hip Hop Journal is a loving celebration of the rich body of work that builds one of the most influential cultures of our times, and an invaluable help in planning your day-to-day activities. In the Hip Hop Journal you plan your year accompanied by the many events in hip hop history, visualized by hip hop illustrator Mark 563’s illustrations, depicting the most iconic rappers and hip hop personalities from the ‘70s until today. You may not know them all, but if you spend a little time every day, listening and catching up on the classic record releases listed in this book, you will be close to a PhD in hip hop by the end of the year. The Hip Hop Journal is the latest title in Dokument Press’ publications related to hip hop, graffiti and street art, and it is the third release with illustrator Mark 563, following the tremendously popular Hip Hop Coloring Book and Hip Hop Coloring Book: East Coast Edition.

An album which distilled a genre from the musical, cultural, and social ether, Portishead's Dummy was such a complete artistic achievement that its ubiquitous successes threatened to exhaust its own potential. RJ Wheaton offers an impressionistic investigation of Dummy that imitates the cumulative structure of the album itself, piecing together interviews, impressions of time and place, cultural criticism, and a thorough exploration of the music itself.

The approach focuses as much on the reception and response that Dummy engendered as it does on the original production of the album. How is that so many people have, collectively, made a quintessential headphone album into a nightclub album? How have they made the product of a niche local scene into an international success? This is the story of how an innovative, experimental album became the iconic sound for the better part of a decade; and an aesthetic template for the experience of music in the digital age.

248 pages.

From New York pioneers who helped create the art form in the 70s, to freight train kings in Florida and hall of fame spray can wizards in California. In the American Graffiti Coloring Book, more than 45 of America’s most prominent graffiti writers have provided the initial outlines – now it is up to you to give them color! With full pages devoted to the artwork, each spread becomes its own unique full color piece of art as you go along filling out the pages, and there is plenty of room for the small details. American Graffiti Coloring Book is printed on marker friendly paper. Use your markers and color-in on both sides of the page with no risk of the ink bleeding through. The content is carefully curated by the influential artist and Museum of Graffiti co-founder Alan KET, and the striking cover and

Graffiti for Beginners is an easy-to-follow introduction that presents you with the basics behind graffiti lettering. The two funky yet classic graffiti alphabets created by experienced graffiti artist Mega gives you the opportunity to learn a basic graffiti style, as well as a more advanced wild style. Each of the alphabet’s 26 letters has its own spread where the building blocks of the letter are carefully displayed next to the specified space for you to practice, along with illustrations of how the letters can be used in different words and names. In addition to the letters, you will find examples of characteristic elements used in graffiti such as 3D or shades to add depth to the letters, or arrows, stars, bubbles, highlights and shines to make the piece stand out. Graffiti for Beginners is the fundamental guide for you to learn how to master the alphabet with style and finesse, letter by letter, until you are able to put together complicated words and messages, adding the coloring of your own choice. Learning graffiti has never been easier or more fun! Graffiti for Beginners suits all ages and is a great tool for advertisers, home stylers, school teachers, kids and creative adults alike.