It may be the defining position that this book had in my childhood. Or it might be a result of the fact that rumours of this Spike Jonze project have been piquing my interest for what seems like half a decade. Or perhaps I have simply been caught up in the momentum of the Arcade Fire soundtrack. But it took the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are to break me out of my tumbleweed blogging silence. Enjoy.
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who began writing about the UK’s electronic music scene for Wire Magazine back in 1992. This month is the magazine’s 300th edition and to mark the occasion, the editors have released a 7-part series of Reynolds’ work through the years under the title “The Hardcore Continuum” that begins by profiling Hardcore Rave and moves on through Jungle, Drum ‘n’ Bass and Hard Step to Grime and the Dubstep breaks of the last few years.
The series is remarkable for its immediacy, as a record of a specific time and place in a musical genre that “abolishes narrative” all the while juxtaposed with the more overarching critically theoretical approach with which Reynolds approaches his subject. As he states in the introduction, “It was only in 1999, with the sixth piece … that I really became conscious that for several years I’d been documenting a continuum of musical culture that emerged out of the British rave scene.”
Fascinating stuff. But if the above series leaves you wanting more, check out Reynolds’ lecture on the Hardcore Continuum at FACT Liverpool featuring a discussion with Mark ‘K-Punk’ Fisher.
