ABSTRACT

Discos, clubs and raves have been focal points for the development of new and distinctive musical and cultural practices over the past four decades. This volume presents the rich array of scholarship that has sprung up in response. Cutting-edge perspectives from a broad range of academic disciplines reveal the complex questions provoked by this musical tradition. Issues considered include aesthetics; agency; 'the body' in dance, movement, and space; composition; identity (including gender, sexuality, race, and other constructs); musical design; place; pleasure; policing and moral panics; production techniques such as sampling; spirituality and religion; sub-cultural affiliations and distinctions; and technology. The essays are contributed by an international group of scholars and cover a geographically and culturally diverse array of musical scenes.

part I|118 pages

Production, Performance and Aesthetics

chapter [8]|14 pages

“A pixel is a pixel. A club is a club.”:

Toward a Hermeneutics of Berlin Style DJ & VJ Culture

part II|168 pages

The Body, the Spirit and (the Regulation of) Pleasure

chapter [9]|7 pages

In Defence of Disco

chapter [10]|11 pages

In the Empire of the Beat

Discipline and Disco

chapter [12]|12 pages

I Feel Love: Disco and Its Discontents

part III|240 pages

Identities, Belongings and Distinctions

chapter [21]|18 pages

Women and the early British rave scene

chapter [22]|29 pages

Roomful of Asha 1

Gendered Productions of Ethnicity in Britain’s ‘Asian Underground’

chapter [24]|26 pages

Mr. Mesa's Ticket

Memory and Dance at the Body Positive T-Dance

chapter [25]|11 pages

The Death of the Dance Party 1

chapter [28]|40 pages

The Dancer from the Dance

The musical and dancing crowds of clubbing